The formative years

All my hopes and dreams are tied up with an innocent TV show

Too much TV gives a girl ideas

The question I get asked most often when I meet someone new or catch up with someone I haven’t seen in a while is…Why did you move to Orkney?

I often answer with a shrug. Not because I don’t know but because in truth, it was nearly 40 years in the making.

The path was set after I first saw The Good Life, aged under 8. I think it was more like 5 but I know I couldn’t have been more than 7 years and 4 months old because I distinctly remember watching it in the lounge of our flat, deep-red patterned wall paper, a massive tropical fish tank and a tiny TV set. It was the 80s after all!

After that, seemingly little things pushed me a little further, All Creatures Great and Small, choosing to study Agriculture at Edinburgh, the advert in The Scotsman (?), the obsession with farming shows, country vets and wildlife and the overwhelming desire to get out of the claustrophobic towns and cities and into the wide open air.

The short answer, we wanted to ‘escape to the country’ and this opportunity came at just the right time. We were renting after selling our house in York, we had some cash in the bank and we were feeling reckless.

But here through a series of posts, I’m going to take you through the longer version.

The Good Life

My formative years.

That show has a lot to answer for. If you haven’t seen it, here’s a brief overview…

It’s a ‘classic’ British sitcom that aired before I was born (just) from 1975-78. Tom is the main protagonist with support from his wife Barbara and their pals and next door neighbours Jerry and Margot Leadbetter.

It’s set in Surbiton, which until today I did not realise was a real place. I always thought it was a play on suburban but it is in fact in southwest London.

Tom quits his corporate job and him and Barbara embark on creating a self-sufficient lifestyle growing veg and keeping a few animals. Jerry and Margot however, are living the trad suburban life, good job, money, fancy dinner parties etc.

It is extremely dated and does not age well. Neither women ‘work’ in the traditional sense, yet Barbara does most of the hard graft while Tom dicks about. While Margot supports Jerry brilliantly making sure everything is perfect for any promotion he may need and enabling their climb up the social ladder, every housewife’s dream right?

In spite of that, I find it hard to put into words how impactful the show was on me. I can still see Barbara (Felicity Kendall) getting stuck in, looking happy but exasperated. Of Tom trying to manage Geraldine, their beautiful, headstrong sow. Of homemade wine that looked like it tasted of vinegar but still did the trick.

I really wanted to include a photo from The Good Life, but I don’t know how it works with photo ownership/use/credits and I can’t afford to mess it up!

It wasn’t just that, I also remember Tom being useless, of Barbara wishing she had more, of Margot looking down on them, of the struggle and hardship as they figured out what they could afford to buy. Always putting the livestock first.

It screamed joy and hopefulness to me, but most of all, freedom.

No-one to answer to, no parents, no teacher, no boss. Just them, doing it for themselves.

Of course we have to overlook the fact that they were living in a 1930s semi-detached house in a London borough. They were surrounded by a bunch of middle class wankers, sorry I meant bankers, who believed the kind of car you drove and what you served at dinner was of the utmost of importance. This was the 70s afterall, although in some circles absolutely no progress has been made.

Barbara wore dungarees, she didn’t fanny about with her hair, she wasn’t worried about whether her homemade wine paired well with her root veg stew. She had food, wine and the stove was warm. What more could you want?

To be honest I don’t know, did Barbara want more? I was young and I only remember the good bits, the romanticised version of it. Interestingly I don’t remember the subject of children ever came up. Children would have changed the dynamic and the show wouldn’t have worked, now I wonder if Barbara had more influence on me than I ever gave her credit for.

Of course now I realise there’s a lot more I could want, including, an 8 metre Polycrub, central heating and proper wine. Which is why I still work. I love the idea, but I do love my home comforts. I almost said convenience, but Hoy isn’t the most convenient place to live, it makes things just inconvenient enough to make you question if you should do that, go to that place or if you really need to buy that thing.

After The Good Life, I became obsessed with All Creatures Great and Small, both the books and the show and that was that. It was decided, I was going to have a small holding. Well I was going to be a country vet with a small holding and 25 children, for which I blame The Darling Buds of May.

We know that didn’t happen, I am not a vet, I do not have a small holding and I chose not to have children.

So what happened?

I expect it was a mix of feminism, cynicism and self-doubt.

Stay tuned to follow the story