Born and Bred - Season 3 (2004)

Dennis Tyldesley's arrival in the village provokes jealousy from shoe-maker Hubert Gough, who suspects his much younger wife Janet may be planning to run off with him and curiosity from everybody else - particularly because, in addition to painting the countryside, he is also prone to blowing parts of it up. The reason for this, he explains, is that a new road is to be built, which will run right through the middle of the village!

Due to a mix-up Linda and Len, newly approved as foster parents, end up,not with the baby they expected but a brattish twelve-year-old,whom they struggle to control. With the brewery now the owners of the pub, thanks to Harry, a new barmaid, Rita,arrives with a view to replacing Phyllis as the landlady. She has ideas to expand business - which the locals, fearing change, attempt to sabotage. Rita does leave Ormston but this is because Tom diagnoses a rare heart condition,which has not been helped by the locals' efforts to undermine her.

Tom is not happy that Arthur has hi-jacked his plan to move to New Zealand and taken the post himself, sending an old friend of his, Donald Newman, as his replacement. Eddie is referred to the hospital with suspected testicular cancer but the scare proves ill-founded and he and Jean plan their wedding. Wilf also discovers romance with under-taker Ivy Hackett whilst the vicar gets locked in a potentially fatal contest with his brother,after they learn that a recently-departed uncle will leave all his cash to the brother who can best demonstrate avoidance of the Seven ...

Linda and Len have a new foster child, the sweetly innocent-looking Brenda, but she too is a handful who indulges in a spot of joy-riding. Phyllis's godson Eric finds romance with polio victim Norma but Wilf's dream of love ends abruptly when Jean tells him that Ivy is married. Deborah and other parish council members discover, via old headmistress Myrtle Miniver, that the man behind the evictions and road scheme is London civil servant Mr. Ffotherington.

Mr. Ffotherington comes to Ormston and explains that the new road could be avoided. At an emergency meeting everybody decides to be as nice as possible to him and impress him with lavish hospitality. The Reverend Brewer and Mr. Boynton have their suspicions though and ultimately expose him as a con-artist on the make. The so-called road building is all a scam. Wilf robs Jean's wedding dress fund to buy drink to drown his sorrows after Ivy's departure and is told by his daughter in no uncertain terms that he can now supply her dress for the big day.

It's the inter-village pub games when Ormston competes with nearby Thursvale. There is a cash prize, which will come in handy for Phyllis to buy back the pub from the brewery. Tom's daughter Catherine collapses during a race with appendicitis on which Donald performs an emergency operation and the village goes on to win the crucial tug-of-war, despite the fact that tug-of-war captain Daisy has fallen out with husband Edgar when she found he was in the Thursvale chess team. Tom receives a present from his father in New Zealand - a book entitled 'Dr. Gilder's Golden ...

Jean and Eddie finally get married despite the inevitable set-backs. Wilf decides to cut costs and make the wedding cake but uses contaminated flour which causes some of the guests to hallucinate. Furthermore his ex-wife Violet turns up and, whilst she gets on well with Jean, Wilf insists he will not attend the wedding if she is there. He does relent when he finds out that she is terminally ill however and there is reconciliation. Whilst Donald looks out for young orphan Niamh,Tom decides to visit Arthur Down Under.