The Aldridges :::
Brian is that vanishing breed, the Gentleman Farmer. He is best described as an aging lothario, having propositioned most women in Ambridge at one time or another. He even tried it on with his cleaning lady Betty Tucker,
although you have to be very long in the tooth to remember back that far.
( Betty had blotted her copy book somewhat in ruining the fish knives by loading them into the dishwasher, and nearly had to pay by sacrificing her honour and giving into Brians constant entreaties to take her drawers off ) Brian shares the same ethical code as Matt Crawford, although he tries to cover his tracks better, with the aid of tweedy country clothes, whereas Matt is all winkle pickers and Brylcreem. His last sexual encounter was with an Irish green-eyed tart and this resulted in his only admitted issue on the wrong side of the blanket. This little boy is now being brought up by Brian and his wife as one of the family. Brian is now in his twilight years, sexual romp-wise but us regulars hope that there may be life in the old dirty dog yet.
Jennifer is sometimes described as a saint, having to put up with her husbands continual marital wanderings, but is really nothing of the sort. She would put up with anything to maintain her position as Ambridges greatest snob and Most Self-Important Woman. She will not give up her wonderful spacious home, swimming pool, expensive holidays and new fitted kitchen for anything. She did cause a major scandal back in the sixties by having a child out of wedlock, or a bar steward as they were know then, and this is Adam Macey, one half of Ambridge's Official Gay Couple. It is some considerable distress to Jennifer that she is now related, by marriage, to one of the families forming the Lower Orders in Ambridge, A pig breeding family called the Carters. But that isn't her fault but her daughters for marrying Chris Carter, a local blacksmith and Muscle Mary. Susan, Chris's extremely ambitious Mum is the villages most aspiring resident and unlike Jennifer, is delighted to be linked to the County Set.
Its difficult to say anything much about Debbie Aldridge, Brian and Jennifer's daughter, as there are Silent Characters that more to say than she does these days. She lives almost permanently in Hungary, managing a farming Estate there but in reality she is always in the West End in some blockbuster play or other, having a double life as one of our up and coming actors. She has known despair and disappointment in love, the last being her ex-husband, a Canadian college lecturer, who was busy shagging everything in a skirt behind her back. ( Comment is sometimes made about the fecundity of Ambridge males and I can only put it down to something in the water...its all that run-off of fertilizer from the fields apparently ) Debbie is some kind of agricultural genius, who has had many heated rows with her half-brother Adam over farming policy, but she always wins, being the apple of her fathers eye. Personally I can't stand the snobby, imperious,
supercilious, conceited, disdainful, and overbearing cow.
Two typing fingers tied now.