Day of the Yokel

Day of the Yokel takes Ken out of the city and on to a farm under siege. Irene Maplethorpe is an elderly woman with a great deal of spirit, living at Moat Farm, and somebody is trying to drive her out. A dead sheep turns up in a water trough. Cattle get loose. The farmyard is flooded, the telephone rings with anonymous calls, and finally a JCB knocks down one of her barns.

The obvious suspects are a consortium of property developers, Rathbone, Keen and Blackwater, who want the land for luxury homes even though they do not yet own it. They are leaning on Irene's nephew, Philip Lainchbury, who owns the farm, runs a struggling sawmill and would like to sell. Irene, though, has the right to live there for as long as she wants.

Harry is drawn in from the other side. RKB offer him a stake in the consortium and take him shooting on the land next to Moat Farm. Irene tells them to leave her alone and, to make the point, shoots out the tyres of Rathbone's car. It is the moment the episode's title is built on: the old countrywoman the developers take for a soft target is nothing of the kind.

Harry sees what the consortium is doing and joins Ken on Irene's side. The answer to the pranks, in the fuller of the published accounts, is closer to home than the developers. The culprit is Philip's wife, Dierdre, who wants the sale money to pay for her taste in cars and clothes. Challenged by Ken and Harry, she admits it and promises to stop.

RKB do not get off entirely. Harry spreads word of their methods through the Chamber of Commerce and the Round Table, and an investigative journalist is preparing an article about them. The episode also finds room for comedy at Ken's expense: Debbie, who thinks he is getting unfit, takes him jogging.

Douglas Watkinson wrote the script and Alex Kirby directs. Phyllis Calvert, one of the stars of the Gainsborough films of the 1940s, plays Irene, and Anthony Head plays Rathbone, with Tim Bentinck and Christopher Godwin as his partners. It is a guest cast of real depth.

The twist is the episode's strength and its weakness. Moving the blame from the developers to a member of the family is a good surprise, and it gives the story a domestic sting. But it also lets the consortium, which applied the pressure in the first place, off with a little bad publicity. The developers are the episode's real villains, and the ending treats them more gently than the setup suggests they deserve.

Even so, Day of the Yokel is a lively hour, and Irene is one of the most memorable clients of the early series, a woman who needs Ken's help less than the developers assumed. Harry's switch from would-be investor to her ally also shows the decency beneath his schemes.