When ITV was launched in the London region in 1955, the BBC radio soap The Archers sought to steal the commercial television channel’s thunder by broadcasting its most shocking story to date – the death of Grace Archer while trying to rescue a horse from a blazing stable.
Grace, played by Ysanne Churchman, who has died aged 99, had married Phil Archer only five months earlier in an Easter Monday wedding and had announced that she was pregnant shortly before the stable fire drama, which caused an outcry among the serial’s faithful listeners and the jamming of the BBC switchboard for 48 hours.
