Emmerdale was on a long break from June 1999 until January 2000, when it moved from the 9 to 10 morning slot into early evening, 5 to 6 pm. This was not welcomed by the "original" fans, the farmers and their wives, who'd enjoyed watching Emmerdale on their morning break coming in for coffee from early morning milking and other chores in the barn. Or mothers of young children, whose would play and the baby might sleep or nurse, while mummy enjoyed Emmerdale.
This new slot was a bit early for a lot of people, who don't get home from work until a bit later. And what was bad for the mothers was that good children's programs coincided on the other two main channels. Thank god a lot of people have VCR:s and can tape the show and watch it when they get a better chance. The rates of course not only doubled, but more, and Emmerdale also got a lot more younger viewers, who found the time perfect after school and before night activities.
MTV3 also launched an Emmerdale website with a chat page, where a certain translator soon started to hang out and became a "mother figure", the "she-knows-all-about-Emmerdale" and if she doesn't she asks Jules or Karen at the Emmerdale... I'm very thankful for both of them. It was a lot of work trying to make the website a good one, and as none of the Emmerdale books were available in Finnish, I also included a lot of history on the pages, because so many questions popped up about the past years that we missed in Finland.
But it was also very rewarding work as I really felt my efforts were greatly appreciated by the Finnish fans. Not only felt, but got a lot of good feed-back on the chat page. Also I got a lot of help from other fans, who either had lived in England and could give juicy spoilers (there was a rule to always include the Finnish for Spoiler in the title of your message, so those who didn't want to know did not open it by mistake)
This year's trip proved to be too costly for the websiders, and although it was mentioned in a few articles about Emmerdale, it didn't attract as many people as I (and especially the travel agency) would have wanted. Out of the 21 that came four had been on one of the previous trips, and another Emmerdale translator came to see Yorkshire for the first time. Also one of my helpers on the website and in my translation work, Susanna Whitaker, was staying with her mom in Leeds and joined us in the mornings for a day long ride in the bus with us.
Again Eija was our England guide, but unfortunately Len could not make it and we had Tony instead, who could not read the map, as he'd left his glasses at home... But otherwise he was a jolly old fellow.
This time I was lucky as both Susanna and another member of the group, Paula, let me choose what I wanted of their photos for these pages. Without them you would have missed many a smashing scene, unfortunately do miss even now, but maybe you capture at least something of the great atmosphere on our trip. (S) and (P) indicate the pictures I got from them.
I must say I am rather addicted not only to Emmerdale, but to these trips as well. It is always so interesting to see who comes along and to notice how nice people Emmerdale fans are. Thanks to Emmerdale of course!
