Over the decades the Archer matriarch presided with an iron moral compass over her troublesome family (sexually wayward Lilian, Jennifer and comparatively blameless son Tony, on whom she was oddly hard) and their gradually modernising ways. Grandchildren and great-grandchildren flourished; at the centre of the web Peggy remained powerful – and in widowhood independently wealthy – deploying as strong a will as her savage cat Hilda Ogden (wittily named in honour of Coronation Street).

She was flawless in technique, precision and delivery

She was pivotal in a recent plot, offering a grant for a rewilding project, that set family and village in competition. The prize was very on-message for the 2020s. Peggy’s morality twice saw her at odds with the clergy, boycotting a vicar for baptising the villainous Rob and demanding to fund a new stained-glass window honouring no actual saints but her own great-grandchildren.

Great entertainment, and an elegant illustration of changing times. Jeremy Howe, taking over as editor in 2018, wondered how he could direct a legendary woman approaching her centenary, but her professionalism made it “a cup of tea! Flawless in technique, precision and delivery, always well prepared, scripts all marked up, and took notes like a dream.” She was also a living repository of the soap’s history. “If you went against the history of Peggy, she’d let you know. It’s a mark of good continuing-drama acting that the keeper of the keys is the actor.”

Loyalty to a role can be double-edged: had she ever balked at monstrous Peggy moments: scorn of female vicars, an un-Christian attitude to evil Rob? “Oh no, she rolled with the punches. The most interesting discussion was about the rewilding grant: she thought Peggy would make herself too poor, having given away much of the fortune. We sat down and went through Peggy’s bank account and convinced her.”

As to the character’s elderly barbs, “I remember once walking with her to the studio, and her saying, ‘What I’m really enjoying now is playing the comedy. Never done much of that…’ Rather than playing the barbs as malicious, she loved the comedy, could score a bullseye with a gently insulting cough as if it were a bon mot from Oscar Wilde.” In fact, Spencer in her younger days wrote and performed comic skits and material for the comedian Cyril Fletcher. And she once summed up Peggy as “a nice old thing but quite narrow-minded, unlikely to see a joke”.

Howe remembers her now, “self-effacing at the back of the green room, taking everything in, immaculately dressed and made up”. Immaculate in every way: aged 102 she observed that infirmity meant she worked sitting on a chair, so if the script had her rising, she’d “fake the sound of trying to get up”. A radio-drama legend.

Pat Gallimore (Pat Archer)

“June was a wonderful actress and friend — my Archers mother-in-law for 50 years. As the matriarch of Ambridge, she taught us so much and was much loved. I’m so lucky to have worked with her for so long. I cherish the memories of times we shared on and off the microphone. Dearest June, I shall miss you greatly.”