Veteran actress June Spencer delighted The Archers listeners and the Queen with her role as strong-minded Peggy Woolley for decades.
She died “peacefully in her sleep” in the early hours of Friday at the age of 105, her family said in a statement shared by the BBC.
Spencer first appeared in The Archers’ pilot episode in 1950, and on air her storylines saw her character deal with alcoholism, gambling and bereavement.
A few years after the show’s launch in 1951, Spencer took a break to focus on her young family and Thelma Rogers replaced her in the role. She returned in 1961 and remained in the role until her retirement in 2022.
Peggy was often viewed as a traditionalist, a conservative character in the long-running drama charting the ups and downs of life in fictional Ambridge.
Arnold Peters and June Spencer starred alongside each other in The Archers (Stuart Wood/BBC/PA)
Peggy’s first husband, Jack Archer, was a gambler and an alcoholic, and her second, Jack Woolley, played by Arnold Peters, suffered from dementia, which led to her being involved in a moving dementia storyline long before the condition became a national talking point.
Away from The Archers, the Nottingham-born actress suffered her own personal grief, with the death of her husband and their adopted son.
Her husband, Roger Brocksom, died in 2001 after having dementia, shortly before her on-air husband in The Archers had Alzheimer’s, and her son David, a dancer, died after suffering from alcoholism.
Her many fans over the years included the Queen, who in 2021 invited Spencer and her co-stars to Clarence House for a reception marking the show’s 70th anniversary.
Camilla also made a cameo appearance as herself in a special episode marking the 60th anniversary of the show.
In a statement at the time, Camilla called Peggy “a true national treasure who has been part of my life, and millions of others, for as long as I can remember”.
The Queen, then Duchess of Cornwall, with June Spencer cutting an Archers-themed cake during a reception to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the show (Kate Green/PA)
Spencer was made both an OBE and a CBE for her services to drama and charity.
In June 2010, she also received the Freedom of the City of London and was awarded a lifetime achievement prize at the 2014 BBC Audio Drama Awards.
She celebrated her 100th birthday in 2019, and in an interview to celebrate the milestone, told the PA news agency about keeping her mind healthy.
She said: “I do a lot of Scrabble clubs. My husband used to play with me, and when he died I founded one.”
Spencer said she also did crossword puzzles and was “addicted to Codewords”.
BBC Radio 4’s The Archers celebrated 40 years on the air with a special edition featuring the wedding of Peggy Archer and Jack Woolley (Michael Stephens/PA)
The actress also revealed in a 2010 interview with the Church Times, that she had “played two characters in The Archers when it started — I was also Rita Flynn, the flighty Irish girl”.
She added: “Most of us had to play different characters then. I could disguise my voice, and did masses of Children’s Hours. I could play a 12-year-old girl in rep when I was 23, because I was small and slim”.
Outside her acting work, Spencer enjoyed gardening and had won awards at village horticultural shows for her roses.
She also had a second home in Menorca.
In the last two years of her life she was cared for at Liberham Lodge care home in Surrey.