Thank you Charlotte Robertson, agent and chum, for dreaming up the entire enterprise and shouldering it through with equal parts charm and muscle.
Thank you Jeremy Howe, editor of The Archers and integral, beloved cog in the book’s machine, and thank you to the other BBC folk who patiently answered my every question about horses and threshing machines and family trees. Charlotte Davey, Sarah Swadling, Mel Ward and Hannah Ratcliffe, your ideas are all over the story.
Of course, thank you to my editor, Clare Hey, for pushing and pulling and guiding us through a difficult period with all her usual sang froid.
Simon & Schuster I salute you all, but especially this lot – thank you Gill Richardson, Joe Roche, Amy Fulwood, Laurie McShea, Polly Osborn, Judith Long, Dom Brendon, Ian Chapman and Suzanne Baboneau. I will press wine on you when we can all be together in some ghastly pub once more.
Most of this book was written at one end of a long table while my daughter sat at the other end, taking part in her Zoom school lessons. So, the last thank you is to Niamh Strachan, who let her mother wander off to Ambridge at a time when all we had was each other.
Catherine Miller
London/Ambridge
July 2020
We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook.
Join our mailing list to get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2020
Copyright © Bernadette Strachan, 2020
The right of Bernadette Strachan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
‘BBC’ and ‘Radio 4’ and ‘The Archers’ are trade marks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence.
© BBC 2020
BBC Radio 4 © BBC 2020
The Archers © BBC 2020
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
1st Floor
222 Gray’s Inn Road
London WC1X 8HB
www.simonandschuster.co.uk
www.simonandschuster.com.au
www.simonandschuster.co.in
Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney
Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4711-9548-8
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4711-9549-5
Audio ISBN: 978-1-4711-9551-8
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Archers Page 30