The Aldridges

Adam was born in 1967, when Jennifer (a former rebellious teenager) was 22 years old and unmarried. She refused at the time to name the father; it later turned out to be Paddy Redmond, a local cowman. Adam was adopted by Jennifer's first husband, Roger Travers–Macy, and is still known as Adam Macy. Debbie is the only child of Jennifer's first marriage.

By 1975, when Brian Aldridge arrived in Ambridge and snapped up Home Farm, Jennifer and Roger were divorced. Brian and Jennifer met at a dinner party, and they married the following year. Brian then adopted Debbie, but (apparently) not Adam – who was growing up with issues of his own. Jennifer and Brian have two children together: Kate (born 1977) and Alice (1988). Brian also has a son, Ruairi – born in 2002 from Brian's affair with Siobhan Hathaway, who was married to a doctor. After Siobhan's untimely death from cancer, and much anguish and heart–searching, Jennifer magnanimously agreed to bring up Ruairi as her own son.

Adam is now in partnership with Brian at Home Farm, and is married to Ian Craig, the chef at Grey Gables. Debbie's marriage to lecturer Simon Gerrard was shortlived; she now runs a large farm in Hungary, for a consortium. She once had a serious relationship with Marshall Latham, a fellow farm manager in Hungary. But it didn't last. Kate has a daughter, born in 1998 and named Phoebe, from a relationship with Roy Tucker; Phoebe is currently studying PPE at Oxford University.

© Haydn Thompson 2021