S Poddar
June Spencer died quietly. The iconic star of the BBC radio drama The Archers has spent some 105 years on this earth.
Her family said that she peacefully fell asleep in her bed early yesterday morning. They also put on record deep gratitude to all the staff at Liberham Lodge who had delivered outstanding care over her final two years.
Spencer was one of the original cast members of the Archers when the programme opened in 1950. In the early days, she played many different types of roles: amongst them an Irish baker’s assistant called Rita Flynn, a Scottish maid and finally, the legendary character which has become truly hers, Peggy Woolley. Her interpretation of Peggy made her a name around the house and soon became one of the UK’s most popular radio dramas.
BBC 2012 interview, Spencer considered the popularity of the show, recalling how in the early years, members of the Archers cast were highly sought after for public functions: “We Archers stars were extremely in demand for opening fetes. We rarely had a free weekend,” she recalled. “I can remember one time when I was flown down to Cornwall in a quite aged Dakota that had been very loosely adapted to civilian use. By the time we arrived, I discovered it was a vast aggregation of Women’s Institutes. The programme was so popular that I was literally mobbed. Crowds came in and the organisers started shouting: ‘Don’t come any closer! Do you want to kill her?
‘ It was quite frightening.”. Spencer stepped down from The Archers in the middle of the 1950s, and at this stage, actress Thelma Rogers played Peggy in a caretaking role. However, Spencer resumed playing the role of Peggy Woolley in the 1960s and continued until 1977.
During these years, Peggy became the landlady of the Bull pub. It was in this position that one of the most dramatic moments on the show occurred: Peggy unwittingly causes a riot and is later charged with breach of the peace.
Perhaps the most emotional and memorable storyline for Spencer was when her character, Peggy, experienced the death of her husband, Jack Woolley, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. Spencer taped this storyline shortly after her real-life husband, Roger, died. He had also battled Alzheimer’s and Spencer cared for him in his final years. In 2021, when The Archers was reaching its 70th year, Spencer attended the sixtieth anniversary celebration with Camilla, now the Duchess of Cornwall, of The Archers, by cutting an Archers-themed cake made from a tractor.
By this point, Spencer had long retired from the soap; she officially left in August 2022, aged 103. Her lines were recorded via a studio that had been commissioned to be fitted into her Surrey home, as it had become far too hard for her to travel to Birmingham to record them at the show’s studios.
Throughout the years, Spencer was awarded many accolades for contributions to radio and acting. In 1991, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire and received a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2017. In 2010, she was granted freedom in the City of London as testament to her long-standing impact on entertainment within Britain.
June Spencer is the last of an old order for The Archers, the show that, since the early 1940s, has been woven into the very fabric of British radio. Her portrayal of Peggy Woolley will be recalled forever, and she goes out as one of the most beloved figures in British drama history.
