Ambridge and the Sisterhood

Ahh, sisters…. there’s friendship, there’s rivalry, there’s often love… and occasionally a little hate too. This intricate relationship is the subject of a new Radio 4 sitcom written by, and starring, Susan Calman and Ashley Jenson. So we thought we’d turn our attention to the sisters of Ambridge – past and present...

Lilian Bellamy and Jennifer Aldridge

A funny pairing, this. Lilian seems on the whole to be the more likeable sister, probably because she has come to terms with her roots. She is as equally at home with the Grundys as she is with Caroline Sterling, and will happily help anyone out in a crisis. Her own shortcomings (disastrous relationships with toyboy Scott and the shifty Matt Crawford spring to mind) help her to avoid being judgemental. She is happy to remember that she was a landlady’s daughter and even takes her turn behind the bar when the need arises.

Jennifer, on the other hand, is crippled with social insecurity and as a result is regularly punished by the scriptwriters by being forced into situations in which she has to mix with what she would regard as the hoi polloi: a memorable dinner party with the milkman’s wife Vicky Tucker springs to mind, as does Jennifer’s horror at discovering that her daughter Alice had married the blacksmith, Chris, in Las Vegas. Jennifer is regularly appalled by Lilian’s boozy behaviour and flagrant disregard for her own health or what others think of her, and Lilian delights in teasing Jennifer for her snobbery. Nevertheless, Lilian and Jennifer have both supported each other through some tough times, and we still grin every time Jennifer says ‘Oh LILIAN!” in the exasperated tones she reserves for family.

Susan Carter and Tracy Horrobin

Just as Jennifer’s dearest wish is to forget she lived in the Bull, Susan’s dearest wish is to forget that Tracy Horrobin is her sister. Susan is a positively Alpine social climber, and it was a happy day for her when she discovered that Chris had married into the Home Farm Aldridges. Tracey, on the other hand, is Jeremy Kyle writ large, and having shed a husband arrived with her children to live in Susan and Neil’s pristine home (much to Susan’s alarm). Susan has much to put up with from her family of origin: a criminal brother, Clive, the cause of Susan’s prison sentence, a fairly useless TV-obsessed father, Bert; various dodgy extended family members and her sister, the noisy, ebullient Tracy, who mortified Susan by enthusiastically pursuing Freddie Pargeter’s maths coach Ifthikar. Tracy is Susan’s social nemesis. Some skullduggery took place with Tracy persuading her father to sign his house over to her in the event of his demise, so Archers listeners are currently waiting for ‘Tracy Horrobin: The Return’.

Shula Hebden-Lloyd and Elizabeth Pargetter

Both dark horses, these Archer sisters. Churchgoing, horsey Shula may strike you as the archetypal straightforward countrywoman but underneath that quilted jacket beats a passionate heart. She had an affair with the recently returned doctor, Richard Locke. The accusation of hypocrisy is often levelled at Shula: when her sister, Elizabeth, had a relationship with the vile Cameron Fraser, which resulted in Elizabeth choosing to have an abortion, Shula was extremely critical of Elizabeth’s behaviour. In recent years though, when Elizabeth, after the death of her husband Nigel - who took a header off the roof of his ancestral pile, Lower Loxley - had an affair with her married events manager Roy Tucker, Shula managed to remain supportive. The two sisters regularly communicate without informing their brothers, Kenton and David, to solve family problems, and have definitely bonded more in the last couple of years…