I Am A Swede

The Hughes family felt a little like a new version of the Merrick family, and in a way as a replacement. Pat had of course died a few years before Kate, Rachel and Mark turned up, but within a year after their arrival both Jackie and Sandie Merrick were also gone from the show.

I never really felt that Joe and Kate were right for each other, but looking back now that was the case with nearly every girl Joe got involved with. He really didn't have much luck in love.

I can't speak for anyone else of course, but I never thought that Kim was dead.

I think Kate's friend Fran was with her in the car when she hit Pete Whiteley (Rachel's married lover), so that must be close to these episodes.

Thankfully Emmerdale has never resorted to the back-from-the-dead scenario that is so common on American soaps. Even though there are characters I wish they hadn't killed off I'm still glad they've never gone down that road.

Anyway, this channel I'm not sure of, as at first I thought they were just uploading stuff taken from other channels, but they put up an episode from 1990 when Amos has his stroke, and I don't think it's been on Youtube for a while, if ever (although I remember seeing it at some point).

This was such a transitional time for the show. In just a few years several long-running characters left the show: Amos, Henry, Matt, Dolly, Jackie, Sandie and Reverend Hinton. This was also the period when the Tate family moved into Home Farm, and of course the show changed its name from "Emmerdale Farm" to just "Emmerdale".

It really was the end of an era.

Sorry...

Which did you prefer as Dolly?

My channel, Steph Stokes, has 4 consecutive April/May 1983 episodes and 1 December 1986 episode I hadn't seen anywhere on Youtube. After the two July 1986 episodes that's all I have, but I hope more will pop up. It's strange how there's as much of 1986 up as of almost every other year in the '80s combined.

I think my avatar answers your question about which Dolly I preferred.

I hope more 1980s Emmerdale will pop up as well, but until then I have some more 1970s episodes to watch. Hopefully there will be more of that too. Especially 1975, 1976 and 1977, years that are, for the most part, sorely lacking right now.

I keep wanting to see more of this Dolly, but she seems so wan compared to Katherine Rogers, who was a real firecracker.

I think you're mixing up the two Dolly's.

Katharine Barker was the original Dolly, and Jean Rogers was the second one.

Can't wait to see those two 1986 episodes though. There's so little 1980s Emmerdale Farm on Youtube, at least that I've found so far.

Some early Roxette. This is from their first album "Pearls of Passion", released in 1986.

One of the directors, Duncan Foster, tweeted today he was about to start shooting Emmerdale's "biggest episodes ever."

It will have to be pretty big to top the plane crash episodes....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L0H_w9kBx8

It's true. It's been confirmed on the ITV website

http://www.itv.com/emmerdale/news/bye-val-charlie-hardwick-to-leave-the-dales

One of the all-time greats in women's tennis, Doris Hart, passed away on the 29th of May, aged 89. She is one of only three players who have won singles, doubles and mixed at all four grand slam tournaments. (The other two are Margaret Court and Martina Navratilova). During her career she won a total of 35 grand slam titles, which puts her in fifth place on the all-time list (tied with Louise Brough) behind Margaret Court (64), Martina Navratilova (59), Billie Jean King (39) and Margaret Osborne du Pont (37).