A Pot Poruri

Welcome to the fifth series in the annual podcast programme from Academic Archers, bringing you papers from our 2024 conference.

This episode brings together three papers exploring money, hospitality and public health in Ambridge.

Looking After the Penny Hassets So the Pounds Look After Themselves - Katherine Jennings and Vikki Barry Brown

Money is everywhere in Ambridge, but rarely spoken of openly. This paper explores how financial norms, taboos and silences mirror English cultural attitudes.

From inherited wealth to debt, employment to entrepreneurship, money shapes status and relationships. Themes of shame, aspiration and social standing reveal how the programme presents financial lives to its audience.

About the speakers

• Vikki Barry Brown leads qualitative research at behavioural science consultancy CogCo and is completing her PhD in Human Geography at Queen Mary University of London.
• Katherine Jennings is Director of the Talking Taboos Foundation and a social researcher with Common Collective, focusing on taboo issues and behaviour change.

Grey Gables – Did It Need to Close During Renovation? - Katharine Hoskyn

Hotels often renovate or rebrand while remaining open, with mixed results. This paper takes a light-hearted, autoethnographic look at whether Grey Gables really needed to close.

Drawing on a recent stay in a hotel under renovation, and on hospitality and tourism literature, it considers alternative options that could have kept Grey Gables trading. The presentation explores the impact of closure, how other hotels have managed change, and what this iconic Ambridge business might have done differently.

About the speaker

• Katharine Hoskyn is based in New Zealand and manages a research project in the Faculty of Health and Environmental Science at Auckland University of Technology. With a background in social science and business, her research focuses on community issues. She has listened to The Archers since 1968 and is part of the Archers Cats online community.

Make Every Contact/Episode Count - Jane Lothian

Public health guidance urges professionals to “make every contact count”. In Ambridge, every episode offers an opportunity for health messaging. This paper analyses how immunisation and screening could feature more prominently in storylines.

Using demographic and medical knowledge of Ambridge residents, the paper matches national screening and immunisation schedules to the characters. It considers whether services are accessed appropriately, explores ethical questions, and highlights the challenges faced by rural communities in accessing public health interventions.

About the speaker

• Dr Jane Lothian has over 20 years’ experience in commissioning and managing population health services in Northeast England. With a background in medicine, public health, and law, she has worked across NHS and pharmaceutical sectors. An Archers listener for 44 years, she is particularly interested in the programme’s role in health education.

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