“What’s the story in Balamory? / Wouldn’t you like to know?” It’s a refrain that will need no explanation to viewers of Balamory and their parents. This month, though, the story is that the soap for the under-fives, set on a Scottish island, airs for the last time. According to a BBC Scotland spokesman: “There were no more stories left to tell in Balamory.” Having watched all 265 episodes, your correspondent is less than convinced. No more stories? What about this lot?
THE STORY ABOUT HOW JOSIE JUMP GOT AN ENTIRELY NEW BODY AND PERSONALITY
In 2003, it was the talk of Britain’s toddler groups. How had the Balamory fitness fanatic Josie Jump morphed from a slight, well-spoken young thing into an East London youth project leader? Theories abounded. Those of us who spotted the young Edie McCredie in The Wicker Man suspected that she may have sacrificed the original Jump in some kind of pagan ritual. After all, as the local bus driver, she would have been well placed to transport the body to the peaty bogs of northern Balamory. Her attempt to cover her tracks might seem crude to those in the cosmopolitan metropolis — she merely freighted another black woman into Balamory, secure in the knowledge that in a remote community people think “they all look the same” anyway.
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THE STORY ABOUT ARCHIE AND HIS COMPULSIVE DELUSIONS
Everyone remembers the sorry plight of Peter in Michael Apted’s seven-yearly Up documentaries, which chronicled the progress of a dozen or so children born in the late 1950s. Tormented by his demons, Peter moved to a remote Highland settlement where the locals accommodated his delusional excesses with compassion. Maybe a similarly tragic tale precipitated Archie’s arrival in Balamory. A self-styled “inventor”, prone to sudden rages, his obsession for making things out of old yoghurt pots is indulged by fellow islanders — most notably when he atoned for a failed trip to the farm by making a special yoghurt-pot cow.
THE STORY ABOUT JOSIE JUMP’S LACK OF SPORTING PROWESS
Of course, it’s possible that the original Jump’s departure had something to do with her pitiful performance on her signature song. Watch on the line “Score a goal!” as she tries the most half- hearted penalty kick since Diana Ross’s toe-poke in the opening ceremony of the 1994 World Cup.*
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THE STORY ABOUT THE QUAKER CONSPIRACY
If the streets of Bournville in Birmingham seem quiet at around 11pm, that might be because, true to its Quaker origins, it doesn’t have a pub. Uniquely among soap operas, Balamory doesn’t have a pub either — although Suzy Sweets’s unsteady interpretation of The Different Coloured Houses Song suggests that people may be relying on something more bracing than the sea air to get them through the day.
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THE STORY ABOUT PC PLUM AND MISS HOOLIE GETTING IT ON
The usually decorous Miss Hoolie has been known to come over all peculiar in the company of Plum. On her birthday, they very nearly got it on when Plum offered to take her to a restaurant on the mainland, but he spent so long removing a cat from underneath Edie’s bus that they missed the ferry. Edie then enlisted Suzy Sweets to cook a special meal but, fatally, Edie stayed to serenade them on the accordion. Having seen Plum tear into The Different Coloured Houses Song with the gusto that one would normally reserve when presented with the backing track to I Will Survive in the karaoke podule at G.A.Y. club in London, some have suggested that he missed the ferry deliberately. Next year, he should just save himself a heap of trouble and buy her a Gaydar.
*As the ball rolled slowly towards the corner flag, the goalpost broke in half, giving people at the far end the impression that Ross’s Roberto Carlos-esque left foot had shattered it.
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