Good Life

Tom and Barbara are depressed when their latest crop is a letdown, so when they go to Margo and Jerry’s for dinner are not in the best of moods. The Leadbetters persuade them to take a weekend break in a luxury Mayfair flat belonging to a friend of Jerry’s, as a rest cure, and Margo and Jerry volunteer to look after the animals while they’re away.

Tom and Barbara are in desperate need of manure for fertiliser, and get the idea to go up to Margo’s pony club and ask for some there. Margo forbids them to do so, but they ignore her. Although Margo claims to be going riding every week, and keeps going out of the house dressed appropriately, Mrs Holman, the riding stable’s owner, mentions that Margo hasn’t been up there for months. The Goods then see her in town, going into a building which appears to be a private flat, and jump to the conclusion that she’s having an affair.

Margo asks Barbara to give a talk on self-sufficiency to the Townswomen’s Guild in front of Lady Truscott (Angela Thorne). When the talk is a success, Lady Truscott gets Barbara to give a succession of talks to other groups. Meanwhile, Tom is left to try to put up a new chicken shed on his own, whilst Margo sends Jerry to Fortnum & Mason’s to buy a hamper so they can entertain Lady Truscott. Robert Lindsay appears in a small role.

After a successful crop of soft fruits Tom and Barbara have a float of £10, but on a visit to Dorking with Margo, who on impulse buys a spinning wheel as a curio, Tom spends all his money in buying a second-hand loom to use with it to make clothes, which he sees as a further step on the road to self-sufficiency. Meanwhile, Jerry seeks Barbara’s advice about Margo’s extravagant spending, advice which leads to him refusing to pay for the spinning wheel, so Margo leaves him.

Tom and Barbara are busy making a suit for Tom using sheep’s wool with dye made from stinging nettles, while Margo and Jerry are preparing for an important dinner party at which Jerry’s boss, Sir, will announce his retirement from JJM. Jerry writes a business proposal on how he would take the company forward, if chosen as Sir’s successor, but then accidentally forgets to take it with him to the restaurant.

Mrs Weaver has moved to Esher, and Tom wants to take the oil from her central heating tank so he can swap it for some straw. Meanwhile, Jerry is trying to discredit Snetterton (Philip Madoc) in the race to succeed Sir at JJM, and Margo is asked to play the lead in the Music Society’s production of Sweet Charity.

Due to the oil leak caused by Mrs Weaver’s faulty tank, much of the Goods’ garden is unusable and Geraldine isn’t producing any milk. These problems mean Tom is not in the mood to celebrate either his 42nd birthday or the second anniversary of self-sufficiency; but after Jerry succeeds Sir at JJM, all four celebrate. However, when they return to Tom and Barbara’s they discover the house has been broken into and the living room vandalised.

1977 Christmas Special It’s Christmas Eve, and in the Goods’ house Tom and Barbara are making home-made decorations and crackers in readiness for Christmas Day; while at the Leadbetters’, Margo has sent back her whole order because the Christmas tree was six and a quarter inches too short. But when the shop does not deliver her order the following day, she and Jerry are left with no decorations, food or drink. So Tom and Barbara invite them round for a self-sufficiency Christmas of home-made paper hats and improvised party games.