WHEN playwright Kevin Laffan was approached by YTV about creating a rural soap opera, the brief was simple: “Write 26 episodes about a Yorkshire farm”.

The first episode of Emmerdale Farm went out on October 16, 1972. More than four decades, and thousands of episodes, later, Emmerdale is stronger than ever - even winning a Bafta this year.

This week sees the Yorkshire soap’s 45th anniversary. Originally a lunchtime drama, it was a gentle tale of rural folk, centred around the Sugden family, their farm and their neighbours in the fictional village of Beckindale.

Back then, snippets of gossip in the Woolpack, with landlord Henry Wilks holding court, was about as shocking as it got. But over the years the village has seen murders, kidnappings, floods, explosions, car crashes, blackmail plots, racy affairs, teenage pregnancies, a deadly storm, drugs overdoses, even a ‘plane crash. “By ‘eck,” as farm matriarch Annie Sugden would say.

When Emmerdale Farm started life, on location in the Dales village of Arncliffe, a packet of Yorkshire Teabags was 36p, pint of John Smiths bitter was 19p, 200g of Wensleydale Cheese was 10p.

A parish council meeting was held to approve filming in the village. When locals struggled to watch early episodes because their sets didn’t pick up ITV, a screening was arranged in the village hall. Former Craven Herald Editor Andrew Hitchon was a pupil at Arncliffe Primary School at the time. “It was the helicopter that caught our attention,” he recalled. “It swooped low over Littondale and landed in a field outside Arncliffe. Children from the village school trooped up the road to get a closer look at the aerial newcomer, which was busy filming opening sequences for the new Yorkshire TV soap opera.”

The most recent appearance of a helicopter in Emmerdale was last year, when one crashed onto a wedding reception, killing Val Pollard.

Added Andrew: “Someone in the production team had the idea of drawing local children a little further into the world of Emmerdale. It started with us getting time out of class to hang around in the background during filming, then we were asked to react to what was happening in scenes.”

While most exterior shots were filled in Arncliffe, other scenes were shot near Otley and interiors were filmed in Leeds studios. Location filming was later moved to Esholt, where the Commercial pub exterior doubled as the Woolpack. In 1997 the show moved to the Harewood estate, where a village set was specially built, but coachloads of tourists continue to visit Esholt, and enjoy a pint in what the pub, now called the Woolpack.

In 1978 Emmerdale moved to an early evening slot and is now broadcast six times a week, in high definition. Over the years, many actors from the Bradford district have been in the cast. The late Clive Hornby, from Ilkley, played village stalwart Jack Sugden, Claire King, whose family were Bradford mill-owners, played scheming Kim Tate, and Natalie Anderson, of Guiseley, played Alicia Metcalfe. Current cast members include Eccleshill-born Duncan Preston, and former Brighouse High School pupil Matthew Wolfenden (David Metcalfe).

Emmerdale broke new ground when it celebrated its 40th anniversary with a live episode, shot entirely on location at Harewood, in 2012. Today, the Emmerdale Studio Tour takes fans behind the scenes.

This year it won six prizes at the British Soap Awards, including Best Storyline for a long-running dementia story affecting village vicar Ashley Thomas, played by John Middleton. An award-winning episode shown from Ashley’s point of view is being used by the Alzheimer’s Society as a training video to help people understand more about dementia.

John Middleton, who played Ashley for 20 years, based his portrayal of early onset dementia on Philip Carmichael, who played rugby for Bradford Northern and was a coach with Keighley Cougars, and was diagnosed with dementia aged 54. John met Philip through Bradford's Pathways Breaks, helping younger people with dementia, which worked with Emmerdale producers on the storyline.