Storylines

David and Ruth - the history

David had qualified at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester and spent a year on a farm near Amsterdam when he returned to Ambridge in 1983. He treated himself to a red Triumph Spitfire and eventually became engaged to the ethereal Sophie Barlow.

David's father Phil had quite justified doubts about the match. He refused to make David a director of Brookfield's holding company Ambridge Farmers, fearing that in a divorce Sophie could take a share of the farm. By 1987 the engagement was over and David had to swallow the bitter fact that his dad had been right.

On 17 June there was a terrible accident. Brookfield worker Jethro Larkin (Clarrie's father) was killed by a falling branch while he and David were cutting a tree. Distraught David wasn't to know that the incident was to change his life. Phil decided to recruit an agricultural student to replace Jethro.

David wasn't keen on Phil's choice of a 19 year old woman, Ruth Pritchard from Northumberland. But when David needed someone to share his feelings of resentment on the care his parents lavished on prodigal elder brother Kenton, returned from overseas, David found a sympathetic ear in Ruth. Her landlady Marjorie Antrobus noticed their growing closeness.

Phil and Jill eventually realised David's resentment about Kenton and decided the time had come to give him that elusive directorship. After that, things moved fast. By the end of September he and Ruth announced their engagement. As Ruth's mother 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.

Casserole diplomacy

After a few months back in Ruth's old flat at Nightingale Farm, their newly-built bungalow at Brookfield was finally ready. In June 1991 Ruth learned that she had passed her exams with flying colours.

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 after being dumped by the swindler Cameron Frazer. Easing off the manual labour, Ruth used her time to set up a successful feed purchasing co-operative with other farmers.

On 17 December 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.

A keen cricketer, David was forced to leave the innings of a lifetime to be at the birth of their second son, Joshua Matthew, 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: breast cancer. David did a great job supporting his doughty wife through a mastectomy and punishing chemotherapy, and the haunting possibility that she might never see her children grow up. At Christmas 2000, he presented her with an eternity ring as they faced a slightly more promising future together.

Reap the whirlwind

It was at this time, as Phil faced the increasing imperative of retirement, that Elizabeth made waves of tsunami proportions. She 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.

Despite the additional health worries for Ruth, 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. 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. Sam appeared to be doing a good job, although his dogmatic insistance on a specialist vet caused a rift as David was forced to dispense with the services of his brother-in-law, Alistair Lloyd.

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.