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1-36 of 36
- 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 Book of Rules' - he is not amused.
- 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 child.
- 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!
- 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.
- When the local home for disadvantaged people is forced to close Deborah welcomes one of the residents, Eileen Fisher, in her house but had not bargained for Eileen's admirer, Jimmy, following suit. Jean gets a surprise visit from a tax inspector whilst Donald is irate when he finds Nick practising emergency surgery and is only too glad when the young doctor announces that he is leaving Ormston.
- 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.
- Local festival Apple day arrives as does Len's tubby cousin Elton, to act as chef. However he has a medical condition and ends up in hospital. Phyllis and Donald start to get cosy as she asks him to be her escort for the day and Nancy loses no time in getting on the dance floor with Nick Logan.
- Eddie's uncle Fred, the drayman, has leukaemia and is anxious that Eddie, whose garage is beginning to thrive, should succeed him when he dies. When Rev. Brewer tells him to live his last few months to the full, Fred gets Arthur to help him fulfill his wish list of final acts including a race with Eddie to the top of steep Castle Hill, where he collapses. Eddie saves him with a blood transfusion but he dies next day. Arthur has persuaded him not to make Eddie leave the garage but Eddie is touched when Jean offers to take over driving the dray. Elsewhere a mysterious rash which has gripped the village is traced to Michael's love of itching powder and the vicar leads the revolt when Wilf discovers an ancient by-law allowing him to charge people to leave the station.
- Swaggering Frank Cosgrove, older brother of Len, injures himself driving his train when he stops to avoid a dog. He is a rude, reluctant patient but Tom discovers his twin secrets - he has diabetes, which is affecting his sight, and he is not the war hero he has always claimed to be. However he rises to the occasion when Tom's daughter Catherine gets trapped beneath a car and Len also proves himself to be a hero, apprehending a smooth con man who has robbed Jean. Tom bans his father from the hospital for using it to store his explosive home brew but there is a reconciliation at a family christening after the villagers have turned out to rescue Catherine.
- Tom is perplexed by carpenter Bert Cartwright's hostility to doctors until he learns that Bert blames Arthur for the death of his little boy years earlier. When Annie, Bert's wife, falls ill, Bert resists her hospitalisation but, in her delirium, she mistakes Michael for her son who 'watches over her' and agrees to go, saving her life. Michael finds ancient coins in the woods but when the Reverend Brewer and station master Wilf start digging for treasure they unearth an unexploded bomb. Fortunately ex-munitions worker Phyllis knows how to defuse it - or thinks she does, but at least the remainder of the coins are unearthed.
- As Deborah continues to run the hospital with Donald, she becomes involved with the problems of local laundress Janette Locke, who likes a drink and appears to be ill-treating her son. Nancy Brisley, Deborah's flirtatious younger sister,arrives, to add to her worries and instantly sets her cap at Nick Logan. Jean and Eddie becomes temporary landlords at the pub whilst Phyllis recuperates from an injury.
- Edie McClure's eldest daughter Joanne falls pregnant after a one night stand. She goes into premature labour at her father's iron works but Tom delivers the baby and keeps it alive in a fish tank with hot water bottles round it. To the Cosgroves it is harsh to see others bear children as Linda has a condition, caught from a G.I. in the war,rendering her virtually barren.When the village water supply gets cut off Deborah,researching local customs, sees the opportunity to help Linda by staging a fertility rite,which involves village women dancing naked. The water is restored,not due to any ceremony but to Michael,who has climbed into the well. In the absence of water the vicar and his chums have been drinking brandy after two crates,destined for the bishop,have erroneously been sent to him.
- Helen returns to Ormston to join the villagers in paying their last respects to Tom. Nick Logan is settling in but has his patience tested by hypochondriac Albie Thwaites whilst Henry Williamson, the surgeon general from Rattenbury hospital, suggests to Deborah and Donald that they sell the cottage hospital to the N.H.S.
- German Hans Gothard comes to Ormston and tells Wilf he killed his brother Charlie in the war. Charlie wounded him but,as Charlie lay dying, he and Hans got to know each other. Wilf refuses to forgive Hans,who collapses. Charlie's bullet is still in his back and is slowly killing him. Initially he refuses to have it removed but relents having made his peace with Wilf after going to bury Charlie's gun under a bridge where Charlie and Wilf played as children. Arthur breaks his ankle and is a most troublesome patient whilst young artist Connor Docherty sets the girls' hearts in a flutter.He paints Jean,who thinks he is wonderful and is inspired to tell Eddie her true feelings for him but, before she can do it, Eddie drops Helen,feeling their relationship is going nowhere.
- Deborah is less than pleased when her over-bearing mother,Dora, turns up unannounced to tell her that she is getting married again and wants to have the wedding in Ormston. After Michael believes he has seen a monster in the local reservoir Eddie investigates. The 'monster' is Wilf in an ancient diving-suit. Ever on the make he has heard that an Italian plane carrying the Papal Bull - which he wrongly assumes to be a statue - crashed in the reservoir in the war. Though disabused of the treasure by the Rev. Brewer his diving suit comes in handy. Shop-keeper Mr. Boynton has developed a condition called Pigeon Fanciers' Lung after years of rearing homing pigeons. He sends the pigeons away but, being homers, they return and Tom solves his problem by having him wear the suit when tending them. Helen goes to work in the shop after dropping out of college.
- Neville Manly, the shy new NHS inspector declares the cottage hospital the official annexe to Rattenbury General. To celebrate, Deborah revives the Flower of the Valley beauty contest, to be judged by Neville, who finds himself under siege from the competitive entrants. Arthur visits stroppy Sally Waddington, the local telephone operator,who has not set foot outdoors for ten months,since her mother was put in a home,suffering from dementia. She believes she too is going mad but she is agoraphobic.When Jean breaks her ankle Wilf rings for help but the ancient exchange, already faulty, blows up and Sally has to face her fears to fetch Arthur personally. In hospital next to Jean she tells Arthur, who is feeling side-lined, how much Tom appreciates him, as well as encouraging Jean to enter the beauty contest where the besotted Neville declares her the winner, restoring her self-confidence. When the celebrations end Arthur discovers that Tom and Deborah have moved him into their house.
- Molly, a deaf six-year-old,is found on the hospital steps with a note asking that she be looked after. She is sullen and destructive but eventually Tom locates her single parent mother,who has given up in desperation, and reunites them with Molly's father,who was unaware she existed. Grumpy Alec Rossendale insists that his house is haunted and keeps pestering the vicar for exorcisms. Phyllis believes the ghost is that of his late wife, tormenting him for his adultery and rigs a fake exorcism, which achieves closure - thanks to a supernatural intervention. Helen is frustrated by Eddie's inexperience and also wants to quit secretarial college whilst Wilf and Jean find treasure - and mice - in a job lot of stuffed animals.
- Nancy and Wilf decide to swap jobs,with predictable results,whilst Nancy goes all out to woo Nick. However,it's Deborah who finds herself spending the night with him when they are caught in a storm - and falling for him. Charlie Polson, the drains man, is depressed and feels that a romance with his assistant Hettie could be the cure but ends up in hospital when he tries to impress her.
- 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.
- The Cosgroves prepare for their latest foster child Laura whilst Nancy inspires the vicar to wax poetical. Nick shelters Albert Tooley, a young Army deserter and Mary Pilling, recently married to Cyril, fears that he has run away to be with her, unaware of her marital status. In the event it is Cyril Albert has come to see as the lads were once gay lovers. However,with homosexuality being illegal the relationship is doomed to failure.
- 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. Phyllis is devastated to hear that Harry has sold the pub to the brewery.
- Tom is appalled by the informal way Arthur runs his practice but both men combine to try and talk sense into their cleaner Edie McClure, sister of pub landlady Phyllis, whom Edie disdains for giving up on her marriage. Edie has a weak heart but is determined,against doctors' advice, to see through her seventh pregnancy as she has six daughters and is desperate for a son. Matters are taken out of her hands when she miscarries but reconciliation with Phyllis follows. Eddie,the hunky garage mechanic ,asks for advice from scrap-dealer Jean about dating Tom's teenaged daughter Helen but Jean misunderstands and assumes he wants to date her whilst Tom's son Michael gets revenge on a bullying schoolmaster.
- Deborah's mother Dora and her groom Derek arrive in Ormston for their wedding. Deborah foregoes her initial animosity when she learns that Derek has a form of dementia but the ceremony runs far from smoothly when Len, under orders to up the local arrest rate, decides Derek is a jewel thief and refuses to let the wedding go ahead until he proves his innocence and a parrot bought by Arthur as a wedding present gets drunk and causes havoc.Tom takes up cudgels for injured farm worker Bill Driscoll against his apparently negligent employer only to find that Bill's drinking caused his accident.
- Jean is suffering from stomach pains,which she puts down to food poisoning but she is actually pregnant. Wilf organizes a fund for the baby and falls foul of new vicar Snaith,who accuses him of stealing the church chalice. Phyllis finds herself at the centre of an unexpected love triangle when window cleaner Silas Craddock and Donald are prepared to fight for her. Nick leaves Ormston for Rattenbury but Deborah, now definitely in love with him, pursues him and they return to the hospital for a romantic dance together.
- 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.
- The 1950s :- GP Tom Gilder and his family leave Manchester to attend a wedding in Tom's native village Ormston, where his father Arthur is the doctor. Arthur's nurse Linda is marrying local copper Len, who wakes up nude in the centre of the village after a raucous stag night. The train carrying wedding guests breaks down and Linda has second thoughts but the wedding goes off well though one of the guests collapses.Father and son work well as a team to treat him and Arthur, who mistrusts the N.H.S. and is considering retirement, is pleased when Tom wins over his wife Deborah and agrees to take over his father's practice,with Arthur as consultant in charge of the cottage hospital.
- 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 Deadly Sins. Meanwhile the villagers receive their eviction notices in advance of the new road building.
- Jean invites Ruby, who used to baby-sit for her, to the Ormston Antiques Fair,where Ruby is the victim of a mysterious shooting incident. As Deborah and Nick get closer Henry offers him a post at the Rattenbury General whilst Nancy has a fling with builder Jack Lawler, who has come to work on a new dispensary for the hospital. Unfortunately part of a wall collapses,causing chaos for the staff.
- Whilst Tom is in New Zealand seeing his father Deborah and Donald, assisted by Nick Logan, a young doctor from Rattenbury, set up a blood bank at the hospital,which proves its worth when Donald has to find a match for teenaged haemophiliac Abel Marl. It's good news for Len,now set up in his own police station but devastating news for Deborah, when she learns that Tom drowned,trying to save a boy who had fallen overboard on the voyage home from New Zealand.
- With no cash available to pay builders the villagers rally to get the cottage hospital up to scratch before an N.H.S. inspector arrives to approve it.Despite being told the post is cursed Deborah becomes chair of the newly revived parish council and, whilst the villagers stall the inspector,who has arrived early, she tries to get cash from bombastic mill-owner Horace Trubshaw. He agrees providing Tom will pick three workers for him to sack,which Tom refuses. However he is 'persuaded' to provide funds when his put-upon chief clerk Jack Stubbs exposes him for embezzlement. Jack's son,who has diphtheria, goes missing and the inspector - who has been generally humiliated by the plan to stall him - is so impressed by the community's response to locate the little boy that he approves the hospital. Eddie finds he has somehow asked Jean AND Helen to the pictures and is dumped by both of them.
- The childless Linda is dismayed to hear Deborah tell Tom her pregnancy is unwanted whilst Michael,playing at being a spy, gets money from letting Wilf and Mr. Boynton out of a shed he's locked them in. Tory M.P. Eugenia Maddox arrives to inspect the hospital with a view to granting it extra funding but,as the Gilders are away,Phyllis gets Jean and Eddie to impersonate them. All goes well until the departing Eugenia is involved in a car crash with Tom - who innocently gives her his name and details. Seriously ill Archie Tomlinson,unwilling to see estranged son Sam, injects himself with a fatal dose of morphine, leading to Sam accusing Arthur of assisting his father to die.
- Eugenia decides to turn the hospital into a platform for Tory propaganda so Phyllis calls on Labour M.P. Reg Samuel to give her a run for her money. Wilf has taken to making pies since the baker has now retired and he gives Jean a batch to deliver to the hospital. In the confusion as the Labour group demonstrate against Eugenia the pies go flying and both M.P.s get hit with them ,being burnt by hot gravy. Eugenia initially wants Jean to be arrested but calms down as she and Reg bury their differences and are tended in the hospital. Helen plays Cupid for Jean and Eddie whilst the vicar tells Sam that he is duty bound to give Archie a lively send-off and not a quiet funeral. In the midst of all this Deborah collapses with an ectopic pregnancy.
- The Magnificent Colin, a fortune-teller, comes to Ormston, spreading happiness when he gives the vicar racing tips and tells Wilf he has royal connections,though the joy is short-lived. Jean falls prey to temporary blindness due to hard work and Eddie keeps a vigil by her hospital bed. Aggie and Bill Driscoll re-surface, evicted due to Bill's drinking. Tom feels sorry for Aggie and the children but ultimately finds out that Aggie has been lying about Bill and his supposed domestic violence because she has a crush on Tom himself. Michael discovers first love, Phyllis hears that her estranged husband Harry is dead and Deborah tells Tom that she is pregnant.
- Whilst Nancy advises Deborah to accept Tom's death and get on with her life, Deborah arranges a lunch date for her sister with the object of her affection - Nick. However, Deborah gets her to dress in a more demure fashion as befits a doctor's wife - something which leaves Nick feeling very perplexed. The heavily pregnant Emma Rowe is admitted to hospital and put in the next bed to the Cosgroves' foster daughter Laura. Both girls develop a fever and a curious Phyllis is left to work out the coincidence.
- Certain villagers with psychosomatic disorders believe that a statue of a donkey in the vicar's attic sale has magic powers, 'curing' them when they touch it. Amy Faulkner,whose young son Stuart is in a wheelchair after contracting tubercolosis, takes him to the church to touch it but her husband James,who has arranged to send the boy to see a specialist in Manchester,is angry and smashes the statue. Inside is a medieval map of the heavens and Stuart and Michel,both amateur astronomers, use it to run off and try to view a comet due to enter the Earth's orbit. The villagers send out a search party and James and his son are reconciled as the comet appears.Jean is given 'Pygmalion' style lessons in etiquette by Phyllis and Deborah in order to get her a job with antiques dealer Freddie McClintock. Freddie is impressed but Jean turns the job down as she does not want to leave Ormston after all.
- 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.