Ruth Archer - the life
12 June 2008

With Ruth's 40th birthday looming, we look back at the history of this central character.

Felicity Finch (Ruth Archer)

Ruth the student

An only child, Ruth Pritchard was brought up in Prudhoe in Northumberland, where her father Solly managed a factory making toilet rolls. She left school with two A-levels and worked on a kibbutz in Israel for a year, followed by six months on a friend's smallholding.

In 1987, she had been accepted for an HND course at Harper Adams agricultural college when she applied for a student post at Brookfield.

David wasn't sure about Phil's decision to appoint a 19 year old woman. But when he needed someone to share his feelings of resentment over the care his parents lavished on prodigal elder brother Kenton, David found a sympathetic ear in Ruth. Her landlady Marjorie Antrobus noticed their growing closeness.

By the end of September David and Ruth announced their engagement. As Ruth's mother Heather was ill, Jill took on much of the wedding arrangements, coping with Ruth's insistence on a woman priest, no bridesmaids and a reception in the village hall. The wedding was on 15 December 1988.

Married Ruth continued her studies at Harper Adams College, visiting Brookfield at weekends and in the holidays. Ruth's perception of herself as a farmer, not a "farmer's wife" caused friction with Jill's traditional idea of how a wife should behave (which didn't include bringing fish and chips home to eat in front of the telly).

It wasn't ideal and the couple jumped at Brian Aldridge's offer of a cottage at Home Farm while Ruth did her one year practical study there. David had to adjust to times when he was expected to have a meal ready after Ruth had done a long shift in the lambing shed but they gradually developed a good working relationship.

While at Home Farm, Ruth felt that the foreman Bill Knowles underestimated her abilities; he was always giving her menial tasks. It was after her return to college in October 1989 that she found out that he had been fiddling Brian. She told Brian and the man was dismissed.

Ruth found it difficult getting back to the academic side of her course after so much practical work. Her four main subjects were: dairy, beef and sheep, cereals and combinable crops, and new business opportunities.

After a few months back in Ruth's old flat at Nightingale Farm, their newly-built bungalow at Brookfield was finally ready. An in June 1991 Ruth learned that she had passed all her exams and gained a credit.

Ruth the farmer

The next two years were spent working hard at Brookfield. Ruth took on special responsibility for the dairy herd - and resisted Jill's continued attempts to mother David. Eventually Jill realised she had to let David and Ruth run the marriage their way and Ruth started to accept the occasional donated casserole with better grace.

Ruth's first pregnancy was much welcomed, although hard for David's sister Elizabeth, who had recently had an abortion. Easing off the manual labour, Ruth used her time to set up a successful feed purchasing co-operative with other farmers. On 17 February 1993 Phillipa Rose (Pip) arrived, a noisy baby who made the subsequent lambing a tough time for her father.

Ruth was made a full partner in the farm in 1997 and she and David established their Hereford beef herd the following year.

Ruth and David's second child, Joshua Matthew, was born on 13 Sep 1997. Raising their growing family, the couple faced the burdens of TB attacks in the dairy herd until, in 2000, Ruth herself fell prey to a much greater threat.

Ruth the survivor

In May 2000 Ruth went to her GP Tim Hathaway, having found a lump in her breast. She was given her full diagnosis on 16 June: breast cancer. It was multi-focal, so a mastectomy was recommended.

After the operation on 9 July, her surgeon told Ruth that there had been no problems; everything was very simple and straightforward. Her chemotherapy was an injection every three weeks, for six cycles of treatment. Due to the treatment Ruth suffered hair loss, so she had all her hair shaved off. Pip and Josh gave Ruth a baseball cap to keep her bald head warm.

Once her chemotherapy was complete, Ruth had to go back to the hospital to make sure the cancer hadn't spread, and was monitored every two months with one routine mammogram a year.

David did a great job supporting his doughty wife through this punishing treatment. At Christmas 2000 he presented her with an eternity ring, as they faced a slightly more promising future together.

Ruth the frustrated

It was at this time, as Phil faced the increasing imperative of retirement, that Elizabeth insisted that she should inherit her portion of Brookfield and questioned distracted David's management of the farm. Eventually David's dedication persuaded Phil that Brookfield should pass to him and Ruth.

Almost immediately they had to put the farm in quarantine following the 2001 outbreak of foot and mouth disease. But that didn't stop the conception of Ben on a hay cart on a balmy June night. Fortunately Ruth was assured that, because her cancer was ER negative, the hormonal changes would not trigger a recurrence.

The pregnancy proceeded smoothly and David had to draw on a lifetime's lambing experience as Ben decided to arrive on 15 March 2002 while the midwife was still speeding towards Brookfield.

With three children, even Ruth had to admit that she couldn't do as much hands-on farming as before. She and David took the decision to contract out the arable work to Home Farm. In May 2004, in response to the changing economics of agriculture, they decided to expand the dairy herd and recruit a specialist herdsman - Sam Batton.

By 2006 Ruth felt constricted - becoming that "farmer's wife" she had so long resisted. As she started to redress the balance, David became more acquainted with the dishwasher and the kids' homework timetables. But it brought Ruth into increasing contact with Sam, whose admiration for her was growing into something far more dangerous. The return of David's former fiancée Sophie Barlow was the spark, igniting the tinder keg which the Archer marriage had become.

Ruth the tempted

Believing that David and Sophie were having an affair, Ruth found sympathy in Sam's willing arms. As her naïve and scandalised husband was rejecting Sophie's advances, Ruth agreed to a night in an Oxford hotel with Sam. Inventing a visit to an old college friend, Ruth set off for the tryst. But in the end, she couldn't go through with the adulterous meeting.

With the combination of Ruth's devastated emotional state and Sam's peremptory resignation, David soon realised what had been going on. The ensuing months were perilous, as they struggled to rebuild their trust in each other. Even the following year, when Ruth finally decided to have a breast reconstruction, David wondered whether it was for the benefit of another man, until Ruth managed to calm his fears.

Now recovered from the operation, with her marriage mended and with agriculture booming, Ruth faces her fortieth birthday in good heart.

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