The Archers is a UK based radio serial, which is broadcast on Radio 4 by the BBC. My name is David and i'm an addict (of the show).

I first started listening to the show while a small boy. My Dad was then a regular listener and you couldn't really avoid listening in our house on a Sunday morning while consuming the bacon & eggs.

I had a 10 year break from the show in the 1990's. It was not to my knowledge broadcast outside the UK and I then lived in Australia. But then the happy day came when it became available on line via the BBC's web site. Having now returned to the UK I can once again listen on the radio, but do occasionally catch up online.

The series is the worlds longest Radio serial having broadcast more than 15,000 episodes, the first of which was broadcast in 1950. The series was originally described as an "everyday story of country folk" but that hardly really applies today. Yes it's set in Ambridge which is a small country village but it's more about the lives of the people that live there with a smattering of farming added in.

The characters lives cover every socio economic group, some with a lot of money, some without any at all, some young, some old, some intelligent and some not.. You name it they have covered it in the Archers, there was a minor scandal recently were two of the characters in a gay relationship entered into a civil partnership (shock horror) and more recently Brian Aldridge has had to take on his illegitimate child , about which his family not least his wife are not entirely happy.

The main thing I really like about the series is unlike television it allows you to do other things. You can read the paper while it plays in the background, you might not actually listen to all of it but it doesn't really matter. After all I missed 10 years of episodes and very quickly got up to speed again once I resumed my duty.

There are several excellent web sites on the internet and not least the BBC's official site Also Wikipedia have a top notch reference and for that reason I won't go into more detail. But if you have heard the series before or haven't had the pleasure give it a try..