I read Linda Grant’s article in the Guardian on Saturday (The note from a fictional dead dog that taught me why the Archers will never end, Review, 26 September) with interest. When I was six years old, in 1948, my dad, Brian, came home from work and told my mum, Dodo, of his idea for a radio series about “country folk”. He was a BBC talks producer, based in Leeds, specialising in agricultural programmes and starting Farmers’ Half Hour, in 1946. He dedicated his first book, Breeding for Production, to Ted and Nora Drake, “farmers in the county of Yorkshire”.
At my mum’s suggestion he wrote up his idea and submitted it to Barney Colehan who, as far as I know, sent it on to BBC Manchester. The rest, as they say, is history – if it had been Desert Island Discs, he might even have had an occasional acknowledgment.
Peter Branston
Brentford, Middlesex
