meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Desert Island Discs: Archive 2005-2010

June Spencer

Desert Island Discs: Archive 2005-2010

BBC

Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4804 Ratings

🗓️ 28 February 2010

⏱️ 39 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Kirsty Young's castaway is actress June Spencer.

She is one of the best-loved matriarchs in broadcasting. As Peggy Woolley in The Archers, she's the only original member of the cast still in the show. It's 60 years this spring since the pilot episodes were first broadcast and, although she is now aged 90, June has no plans to retire. She says, 'It's a great bonus for me that The Archers has run as long as it has, and I've gone along with it.'

Record: Concierto de Aranjuez played by John Williams Book: Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome K Jerome Luxury: A Scrabble board.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young.

0:01.9

Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4.

0:06.4

For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

0:10.8

For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.org.

0:15.9

...rash radio 4.

0:37.0

My castaway this week is the actress June Spencer.

0:42.1

As Peggy Woolley in The Archers, she is one of the best-loved matriarchs in broadcasting.

0:46.0

It's 60 years this spring since she took on the role.

0:50.0

Back then, the Archers was reckoned to be a Dick Barton for Farmers,

0:56.5

a program not of actors playing roles, but of real people whose lives we were overhearing.

1:00.3

She is the only original member of the cast still in the show,

1:05.8

and over the years she has seen it all, alcoholism, gambling and bereavement, to name just a few.

1:10.9

These days, she has one of the most demanding and moving storylines in the programme,

1:13.9

caring for a husband as he succumbs to dementia.

1:21.5

Now aged 90, it might be reasonable to speculate on whether she plans to retire any time soon.

1:26.4

No way, she says, not until I fluff my lines or miss a cue.

1:31.3

The Archers then has this unique place in British life, June.

1:37.2

And the idea is a really beguiling one that we somehow have an ear against the radio hearing a slice of real British rural life.

1:41.5

Given that you've played the part for so long, a lot of people must confuse you

1:46.1

with Peggy, do they? I think sometimes they do. I don't think we have all that much in common.

1:52.6

I love my garden, and I can't do much in it these days. And Peggy loves her garden. And of course,

1:58.6

both had husbands with dementia. But people meet me they say oh you look

...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -5462 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.