Emmerdale Farm in 1980

1980 was Emmerdale Farm's 9th year. Storylines included Joe Sugden's appointment as Assistant Manager at Home Farm, Jack Sugden's return to the village, along with the return of Pat, Jackie and Sandie Merrick and Dolly Skilbeck's miscarriage. 86 episodes were broadcast this year.
==Production==
 
The 1979 ITV Strike ended on 24th October 1979, though Emmerdale Farm did not return until 8th January 1980. When it did, as with Coronation Street and Crossroads when they had returned from the strike, a monologue read by Sheila Mercier as Annie Sugden appeared over the introduction of the first episode. Rather than attempt to fill in the gaps for viewers however, the first six episodes of the programme from Episode 543 through to Episode 548 were set in the summer of 1979 using footage already filmed from before the strike. Episode 549 began with another monologue from Sheila as Annie, this time setting the scene in the present time.
 By the time episodes began to air again, Anne W. Gibbons had taken over as producer. Anne felt that the strength of the programme lay in the serial element and she set about replacing the shorter stories that featured temporary cast members and characters with longer arcs featuring permanent characters. As a result, characters were re-introduced with Stan Richards being promoted to a regular cast member as Seth Armstrong and former characters returning, albeit with new faces. Jack Sugden, Ruth Merrick, Jackie Merrick and Sandie Merrick all came back to Beckindale, now played by Clive Hornby, Helen Weir, Ian Sharrock and Jane Hutcheson respectively. Ruth Merrick had also received a new name as well as a new face - now to be known as Pat Merrick forever more. Interestingly, the first Emmerdale Farm novel penned by James Ferguson in 1977 also saw Ruth's name change to Pat - three years before this was written into the series. When she had last appeared, Ruth had also had a third child - Tommy Merrick, but upon her return as Pat, there was no mention of this second son and he was never referred to again. As Pat's husband, Tom Merrick, also returned to the programme later in the year, now played by Edward Peel, it was left to Hornby, Weir and Peel to build on foundations previously laid by other actors in order to make their recasts realistic. As more permanent characters were introduced, this meant more scenes away from Annie Sugden's kitchen and the Emmerdale farmhouse and, though few and far between at this point, shifting focus onto other characters would go on to play a vital role in the show later in the decade and into the 1990s.
Another character to receive a makeover was Dolly Skilbeck as Jean Rogers took over the role from the Southern-based Katharine Barker who left the programme in order to spend more time with her husband and teenage son. Wanting to make a particular effort to make the transition as smooth as possible, crew members kept Dolly off air until April and hoped that when Rogers appeared on screen, the similarity between the actresses would mean that she would sneak in unnoticed with viewers unable to tell the change in casting. Needless to say, regular viewers did notice and Rogers would later refer to this period of the role as a challenge.
The programme once again took a summer break lasting from mid-July until September.
==Episodes==
==Main Cast==
Ranking	Character 	Played by 	Duration 	Number of Episodes	Running total	Previous year's ranking
1 	Amos Brearly 	Ronald Magill 	Full year 	86 	597 	1
1 	Henry Wilks 	Arthur Pentelow	Full year 	86 	598 	1
3 	Matt Skilbeck 	Frederick Pyne 	Full year 	83 	596 	5
4 	Sam Pearson 	Toke Townley 	Full year 	77 	560 	6
5 	Annie Sugden 	Sheila Mercier 	Full year except June 	76 	600 	1
6 	Jack Sugden 	Clive Hornby 	From February 	74 	178 	-
7 	Joe Sugden 	Frazer Hines 	Until March, from July 	58 	585 	4
7 	Dolly Skilbeck 	Jean Rogers 	From April 	58 	227 	7
9 	Judy Westrop 	Jane Cussons 	Until July 	50 	54 	11
10 	Richard Anstey 	Carl Rigg 	January to April, from September	49 	49 	-
11 	Seth Armstrong 	Stan Richards 	April to May, from July 	39 	64 	10
12 	Donald Hinton 	Hugh Manning 	Full year except July 	29 	149 	9
13 	Pat Merrick 	Helen Weir 	From July 	28 	40 	-
14 	Jackie Merrick 	Ian Sharrock 	From September 	17 	18 	-
14 	Sandie Merrick 	Jane Hutcheson 	From September 	17 	18 	-
16 	Maurice Westrop	Edward Dentith 	January, April to May 	16 	54 	8
17 	Tom Merrick 	Edward Peel 	December only 	6 	12 	-
==Storylines==
to be added
==Who lives where==
to be added
==Awards and Nominations==
to be added
Category:1980
Category:Emmerdale year-by-year