Emmerdale’s big 50th episode

Fifty years ago ITV Daytime launched and with it came a host of new programming, including from Yorkshire Television in Leeds a rural twice-weekly serial called Emmerdale Farm. Created by Kevin Laffan, it aimed to reflect everyday country folk and how, sometimes, they would have to cope with far-from everyday events – such as cow stampedes, murders, kidnaps, plane crashes, lorry crashes, bus crashes, death by falling chimney and pubic lice to name just a few of the big topics covered in the decades that the show went from Annie Sugden to Alan Turner and Kim Tate to Zak Dingle.