Born and Bred

- Season 3

(2004)

Deborah loses her baby and, in addition to keeping an eye on her kids over the festive season, she has to endure Arthur playing childish pranks on Tom. Len and Wilf dress up in drag in order to catch a pair of burglars disguised as Santa and an Elf whilst the Reverend Brewer raises eye-brows by announcing that he will be refereeing a female wrestling bout as the village Christmas extravaganza. At least Jean and Eddie seem to be getting it together - despite interruptions from Wilf.

Despite the rumours to the contrary Harry Woolf, Phyllis's errant husband, is still alive and returns to Ormston where Phyllis, against her better judgement, agrees to give him another chance. Unfortunately the pub is still also in his name and, before he departs again, he has bet it as stakes in a poker game with Arthur, only narrowly avoiding disaster. Deborah's cousin Pearl comes to stay, to give birth to a baby which she claims she does not want. This builds up the Cosgroves' hopes of adoption - but these are dashed when Pearl changes her mind having seen the ...

Radio producer Clifton George is head-hunting a child to play the eponymous role of Tiny Terry for a children's hour programme and Michael gets an audition, accompanied to the studio by Jean and Eddie. Unfortunately for Michael it turns out to be Jean whose voice is considered to be more suitable. Helen starts work as nurse at the cottage hospital and has to deal with cantankerous old Elizabeth Grimshaw. Elizabeth's daughter Amanda, the village librarian and ex-girlfriend of Boynton,finds it hard to relate to her mother's demands until a brain tumour is diagnosed. ...

Dennis Tyldesley's arrival in the village provokes jealousy from shoe-maker Hubert Gough, who suspects his much younger wife Janet may be planning to run off with him and curiosity from everybody else - particularly because, in addition to painting the countryside, he is also prone to blowing parts of it up. The reason for this, he explains, is that a new road is to be built, which will run right through the middle of the village!

Due to a mix-up Linda and Len, newly approved as foster parents, end up,not with the baby they expected but a brattish twelve-year-old,whom they struggle to control. With the brewery now the owners of the pub, thanks to Harry, a new barmaid, Rita,arrives with a view to replacing Phyllis as the landlady. She has ideas to expand business - which the locals, fearing change, attempt to sabotage. Rita does leave Ormston but this is because Tom diagnoses a rare heart condition,which has not been helped by the locals' efforts to undermine her.

Tom is not happy that Arthur has hi-jacked his plan to move to New Zealand and taken the post himself, sending an old friend of his, Donald Newman, as his replacement. Eddie is referred to the hospital with suspected testicular cancer but the scare proves ill-founded and he and Jean plan their wedding. Wilf also discovers romance with under-taker Ivy Hackett whilst the vicar gets locked in a potentially fatal contest with his brother,after they learn that a recently-departed uncle will leave all his cash to the brother who can best demonstrate avoidance of the Seven ...

Linda and Len have a new foster child, the sweetly innocent-looking Brenda, but she too is a handful who indulges in a spot of joy-riding. Phyllis's godson Eric finds romance with polio victim Norma but Wilf's dream of love ends abruptly when Jean tells him that Ivy is married. Deborah and other parish council members discover, via old headmistress Myrtle Miniver, that the man behind the evictions and road scheme is London civil servant Mr. Ffotherington.

Mr. Ffotherington comes to Ormston and explains that the new road could be avoided. At an emergency meeting everybody decides to be as nice as possible to him and impress him with lavish hospitality. The Reverend Brewer and Mr. Boynton have their suspicions though and ultimately expose him as a con-artist on the make. The so-called road building is all a scam. Wilf robs Jean's wedding dress fund to buy drink to drown his sorrows after Ivy's departure and is told by his daughter in no uncertain terms that he can now supply her dress for the big day.

It's the inter-village pub games when Ormston competes with nearby Thursvale. There is a cash prize, which will come in handy for Phyllis to buy back the pub from the brewery. Tom's daughter Catherine collapses during a race with appendicitis on which Donald performs an emergency operation and the village goes on to win the crucial tug-of-war, despite the fact that tug-of-war captain Daisy has fallen out with husband Edgar when she found he was in the Thursvale chess team. Tom receives a present from his father in New Zealand - a book entitled 'Dr. Gilder's Golden ...

Jean and Eddie finally get married despite the inevitable set-backs. Wilf decides to cut costs and make the wedding cake but uses contaminated flour which causes some of the guests to hallucinate. Furthermore his ex-wife Violet turns up and, whilst she gets on well with Jean, Wilf insists he will not attend the wedding if she is there. He does relent when he finds out that she is terminally ill however and there is reconciliation. Whilst Donald looks out for young orphan Niamh,Tom decides to visit Arthur Down Under.