Mollie Harris

Mollie Harris (born Mollie Woodley, 23 June 1913 – 2 October 1995) was an English actress and author, known for her appearances as village shopkeeper Martha Woodford in the BBC Radio soap opera The Archers.^[1]

Mollie Woodley was born in Ducklington, Oxfordshire^[2] and raised in that county.^[1] After World War II, she became a writer and broadcaster for BBC Radio, on programmes such as In The Country, with Phil Drabble.^[2] She joined The Archers in 1970. and appeared as a "castaway" on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs on 8 October 1983.^[1]

Harris's books about her life in Oxfordshire, include her three-volume autobiography, A Kind of Magic (1969), Another Kind of Magic (1971) and The Green Years (1976).^[2] She wrote From Acre End (1982) about Eynsham, the village where she lived,^[2] under the nom-de-plume of Margaret Woodford. Mollie Harris wrote the book "The Archers Country Cookbook" and was for a while a country cook resident on BBC television programme Pebble Mill at One". She also wrote books about privies.^[2]

She married Ginger Harris, a heating engineer, in 1937 and adopted his surname.^[2] He died in 1982.^[2] Harris died on 2 October 1995 in Oxford.^[2]

The painter Gary Woodley, who illustrated some of her books, was her cousin.^[2]

Bibliography

• —— (1969). A Kind of Magic. 
• —— (1971). Another Kind of Magic. 
• —— (1976). The Green Years. 
• —— (1977). The Archer's Country Cookbook. 
• —— (1982). From Acre End: a portrait of a village. 
• —— (1984). Cotswold Privies. 
• —— (1987). The Magic of the Cotswold Way. 
• —— (1989). Where the Windrush Flows. 
• —— (1990). Privies Galore. 
• —— (1991). Wychwood: the secret Cotswold forest. 

References