Patricia Greene

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 27 December 2015

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Patricia Greene.

For nearly sixty years she has played the role of Jill in Radio 4's The Archers which celebrates its 65th anniversary on January 1st 2016. Over the decades the storylines have followed her character through one marriage, four children and since 2010, widowhood.

Born in Derby in 1931, Paddy's love of acting began early on inspired by her father who was a keen amateur actor. As an only and independent child she was surrounded by the adult world and would often eavesdrop as she hid under the kitchen table. Her parents loved entertainment and would take her to the cinema every week to see Hollywood romances or comedies.

After attending a grammar school she went to the Central School of Speech and Drama in London in 1951. She wanted to be a classical actress, but then a phone call from the Archers production office changed her career path and she joined the cast initially on a six week contract in 1957. Her character Jill went onto marry the farmer Phil Archer, and is still there with a recent storyline seeing her return to Brookfield, the family farm.

Patricia has been married twice and was widowed in 1986. She was awarded an MBE in 2007.

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4.
0:06.0	For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.
0:10.0	For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk.
0:17.0	Radio 4. My cast away this week is the actress Patricia Green, as Jill in the archers, she's played the part of the most famous farmer's wife in Britain for nearly 60 years, the lynchpin and matriarch, with a voice and
0:46.1	character as familiar and comforting as a slice of my deer cake and a nice cup of tea.
0:51.6	Jill Archer is the personification of caring common sense. of and hijinks. These days Jill is back where she belongs at Brookfield Farm,
1:05.0	tending her bees, popping a pie in the Aga, and supporting her son David and his family
1:09.6	with a warm embrace and a backbone of steel. That's just the part she plays of course. So what about the real Patricia Green or Patty as she's better known?
1:18.0	Well as a child, she says she was a little show-off and her love affair with the world of Megbelieve began in the bleak
1:24.7	years of post-war Britain when she went to watch a performance of Oklahoma. As a young
1:30.2	actress she toured behind the Iron Curtain performing in Czechoslovakia, Romania and
1:34.8	Poland. It all sounds a long way from Borsecher. She says of the archers and the role that
1:40.7	has defined her career, we all care about our characters. I feel I know my character
1:46.1	backwards and she is very, very good. So welcome, Patty Green, it is so nice to have you here.
1:53.0	So first conceived of course as this everyday tale of farming folk as we know.
1:57.0	January the first 2016 will be the 65th anniversary of its first broadcast.
2:03.4	That's a long time.
2:04.7	How does it feel to be part of the archers?
2:08.4	You don't ask yourself how it feels, you just do it.
2:11.6	After a lot of years, it's just do it. After a lot of years it's just second nature really, plus nerves. I was doing
2:18.1	a charity thing a very long time ago standing next to Dame Sybil Thorndyke and she said to me are you
2:24.5	nervous I said yes I am and she said it gets worse and if you know particularly
	...

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