Ambridge's origin story missed a trick by glossing over the impact of the war effort on farming

Telegraph

07-05-2025

One of the greatest pleasures of BBC Radio is the often esoteric ways it finds to honour certain events. With the 80th anniversary of VE Day around the corner, this was illustrated very nicely at the weekend by two very different programmes that explored the realities and the aftermath of the Second World War. During this crucial moment of remembrance, I was grateful to have these fresh insights into this most studied of historical events.
Victory at Ambridge (Radio 4, Sunday) took us back to wartime Borsetshire, six years before The Archers began on the BBC Light Programme, to a time of rationing, land girls and dashing GIs. Given how important both the war and The Archers are to the British sense of self, it was the ideal vehicle, reminding us that this 'everyday story of country folk' has roots that go way beyond the parameters of the soap opera itself. The Archers is British lore. To hear its wartime origins was thrilling and I would – quite genuinely – encourage the producers to take us further back. Ambridge and the Corn Laws. Ambridge and the Industrial Revolution. Ambridge and the introduction of the turnip.
The two-part drama, based on the novel by Catherine Miller and dramatised by Tim Stimpson, was an extremely pleasant wallow in nostalgia, as well as a fan-pleasing exercise in what the superhero movies call 'origin stories'. Performed, of course, by the modern-day cast of The Archers (Timothy Bentinck, aka David Archer, as David's grandfather, Dan Archer, and so on) it gave us titillating dollops, such as the introduction to the village of a naive young London barmaid named Peggy (destined to become Peggy Archer), and an enjoyably silly plot that revolved around mysterious prophecies and the folklore legend of 'Mother Molly', a mystic who lived in a hermit's cave outside the village.
The wartime setting was given a Call the Midwife -like sprinkle, with scattered references to doodlebugs and the war effort, but the plot centred on romance, jealousy and internecine arguments. I can't have been the only listener hoping for a bit more agricultural nitty-gritty. Just what impact did the war effort have on the Ambridge farmers? How did rationing change their practices, their crops, their livestock? I enjoyed the relationship shenanigans and pleasingly hammy lines such as, 'Evil's come to Ambridge – and we know who to blame!', yet I yearned to learn more about the realities of British farming in 1945.
Monday's Farming Today (Radio 4) suggested an opportunity missed, as Vernon Harwood took a look at how the conflict brought about a revolution in the way we grew food in Britain, as the government pushed the sector harder and harder towards commercialisation to meet the growing demand. 'Many of the fault-lines in British agriculture today were created there,' said historian Alex Langlands, and Victory at Ambridge would have been better still if we could have heard these fault-lines being created. A couple of hours in Ambridge is never time wasted, whatever the era, but I'd rather we spent more time in the fields and less in The Bull.
Not at all lacking in nitty-gritty was the excellent Conscripting Beethoven (Radio 3, Sunday), music historian Leah Broad's exploration of how two extraordinary female pianists used Beethoven to change the wartime culture of Britain and Germany. For Myra Hess – British, Jewish – Beethoven's work represented strength, indomitability and democracy, for the German Elly Ney, it was the triumphant background music to the rise of Adolf Hitler. 'Audiences at their concerts would have heard exactly the same music,' said Broad, 'but would have come away with two very different impressions of Beethoven. As a peacebroker and philosopher in Britain, and as a warmonger and combatant in Germany.'
It was the similarities between the women that were striking. Not just their success in overcoming the patriarchal structures of the time, but their zealous efforts to bring Beethoven to the masses. Hess's famed National Gallery concerts, which went on throughout the war, were for everyone: 'Everyone was very busy during the war, so there was no one there to tell people this sort of music would go over their heads. So they came in and they enjoyed it.' Ney's concerts, arranged by the Nazi Party, were like 'Holy Masses for Beethoven', with Ney playing the part of the high priest. Educating people about Beethoven was to emphasise German supremacy. At a time when we talk constantly of 'culture wars', the programme was a beautiful illustration of how one shared piece of art can be pulled so violently in different directions.