'I love Wolverhampton': BBC Radio 4 Archers' writer on an 'overlooked' city

Mrs Toye admitted her love for the 'overlooked' city, despite being born and bred in Harborne in Birmingham, as she spoke exclusively to the Express & Star about a special Archer's programme she has written.

She said: "I love Wolverhampton. I came early the other day just to look around and go to the art gallery.

"Growing up and living in Birmingham it almost feels like you're on holiday when you come to Wolverhampton with all the beautiful buildings like the Chubb Works and the art gallery.

"I think Wolverhampton is unfairly overlooked as a city."

Mrs Toye has written an hour-long programme, entitled Dead Girls Tell, looking back at Grace Archer's shocking death 60 years ago. It will air on Radio 4 later today at 2.30pm.

Grace's death rocked the nation as 20 million outraged listeners heard a beam fall on her as she tried to rescue her horse Midnight from a barn fire. The death outraged a nation and left the BBC switchboard jammed for two days. Mrs Toye said people were 'weeping in the streets'.

The show will take listeners back to 1955 and give them an insight into the writing and production behind Grace's death.

One of the stories Mrs Toye has written into the one-off programme is that of a West Bromwich factory owner who rang the BBC switchboard to complain that his staff had stopped working following Grace's death.

Mrs Toye said: "Making the programme was fascinating for me. Nowadays we have a number of writers who take it in turns to write weeks, but back then it was just two writers writing every show. If you made a mistake you had to start the whole show again as it was recorded on a big old fashioned disk.

"For Grace's episode the writers wrote it on the day as they got bulletins from the day's news in, how's that for pressure?"

Today's one off special will also feature Ysanne Churchman, who played the original Grace Archer.

The episode of Grace's death was hugely controversial at its time of broadcast as it coincided with the launch of ITV. Many sceptics have said that this was done intentionally to attempt to overshadow ITV's launch but Ms Churchman insisted it was the other way round as they tried to use ITV to bury Grace's death and a controversial change of storyline for Archers listeners.

Mrs Toye started writing for the Archers in 1984, having been a producer on the show for five years prior to that.

She said of the writing and producing: "I got to read all the scripts as a producer so I learnt what kind of things went in and what lines were omitted. I got offered the chance to write for the show on the same conditions as all the other writers – that I went freelance.

"People have said to me they find it too restrictive but I've never experienced that.

"Obviously you've got to work within a storyline and you can't just have people disappearing off to Germany or something like that.

"But there is a lot of freedom and they let you work in some quirky ideas."

Now, despite being 'retired', Mrs Toye has written this one-off programme and also written the following week's shows, including one on the direct anniversary of Grace's death which she said will also bring closure to a current Archers storyline.

"You can never really leave the Archers", Mrs Toye said after her third failed retirement, "it'll always be a part of me."

Asked about making this one-off programme, Mrs Toye said: "It was different as obviously I'm normally used to writing for 15 minute slots and this was four times the length. But it was actually ok because I knew what I wanted and what direction I wanted to take the programme in."

Mrs Toye will be appearing in Wolverhampton for a show in November at the Lighthouse theatre, but no date has yet been confirmed.

She has written a number of books on the Archers including an encyclopaedia and 'Shula's Story', the life story of Shula Hebden who was the elder daughter of Phil and Jill on the show.