Lesley J. Saweard (born 13 August 1934[2])[3] is a British retired actress. She played Christine Barford in the long-running radio soap opera, The Archers, from 1953 until 2019.[4]
Saweard was born in Grimsby, Lincolnshire to parents William and Hilda (née Kiddle).[5]
Career
Saweard began her career as a teacher, and also appeared in the local amateur dramatic society ‘Playgoers’. In 1953, she began playing the role of Christine Barford (the sister of established character Phil Archer) in BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers; she remained on the programme until 2019, apart from a break during the 1960s, between 1962 and returning in 1968.
As of 2024, she was a volunteer for the Lincoln and Lindsey Blind Society, which produces an audio version of the newspapers in and around Louth.[6]
Personal life
Saweard lives in Louth. In 1956, she married Geoffrey Lewis, whom she met on The Archers two years before. They had two children before his death in 1997.[4]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
