June Spencer from BBC Radio 4’s The Archers dies aged 105

The family of June Spencer has announced the BBC Radio 4 actor has died peacefully at the age of 105.

Better known as the character Peggy Woolley, formerly Archer, June was part of the radio soap from when it launched in 1951 till her retirement in 2022.

Mohit Bakaya, Controller of Radio 4 paid tribute: “June Spencer has been a longstanding presence and companion for Radio 4 listeners during her exceptional run on The Archers. Many have grown up with June as Peggy and listened as she journeyed through life’s many chapters, with all of its ups and downs.”

“In her later years, her portrayal of a devoted wife caring for a husband with Dementia, including their very moving final goodbye, was deeply poignant and powerful radio.

“We send all our love and condolences to June’s family and the many people whose lives she touched.”

Jeremy Howe, Editor of The Archers said: “Working with June was like working with a legend, and has been one of the great privileges of my time at the BBC. Here was this person, immaculately dressed and sitting bolt upright in the Green Room at BBC Birmingham, script at the ready, all meticulously marked up with little pencil squiggles and dashes like musical notation, who had been in the first ever episode of the Archers back in 1951.

“June Spencer wasn’t just a brilliant Peggy Woolley, the ultimate matriarch of Ambridge, but a brilliant actress. I only ever worked with her in radio, but her technique, her precision, her delivery were flawless.”

“One of the cast once remarked that in all her time in the show he had only ever heard her fluff her lines the once. She was an actress who revelled in her craft, someone who could score a bullseye with a gently insulting cough as if it were a bon mot from Oscar Wilde.

“She was also a great company member – funny, sharp, warm, never gossipy, but with wonderful stories of the early days of radio drama, self deprecating and a great companion.

“The two things I would never commit to with June were being driven by her at the age of one hundred and one or taking her on at Scrabble. She was a Scrabble demon.

“June’s Peggy Woolley was and always will be the Queen of Ambridge, and with her death The Archers has lost its link with the birth of the show over seventy years ago. It is a humbling moment for us all.”