Leeford Village drama serial to be broadcast over the airwaves

Two writers are getting ready to hear the first episode of their drama serial broadcast over the airwaves for the first time.

Mike Hands and Jon Markes pictured when they launched their serial Leeford Village

Leeford Village has been penned by Mike Hands, from Wordsley, and his friend Jon Markes, who is originally from Wolverhampton but now lives in York.

They describe the serial as “a cross between the 44 Scotland Street stories written by Alexander McCall Smith and The Archers but without the farming”.

It follows the lives of 31 characters living in the village, located in the fictional Midland town of Banfield, which is based on Kingswinford.

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So far they have written 38 episodes of the drama, which are being published on the Express & Star website every fortnight.

Now a pilot episode of audio recordings they have made for Leeford Village will be broadcast on Black Country Radio this Sunday on Billy Spakeman's The Omma 'n' Chain Show between 4pm and 6pm.

Mr Hands, who writes as Michael Braccia, said: "We are both very excited about the prospect of our work being broadcast.

"We run a Facebook group called 'Leeford Village Readers' Group' and I offered a preview of the recordings to our members a couple of weeks ago.

"This helped me to get into the routine of recording the episodes and I have even written a theme tune - a very short piano piece, which, hopefully, will become as famous as the Archers' theme tune

"Anyone who is interested in reading Leeford Village can apply to join the group. Although we promote Leeford Village through general postings on Facebook and Twitter, we put more detailed information, and, of course, copies of the audio files, on the Readers' group.

"The next stage for us is to find an agent or publisher who is prepared to take on the publication and promotion of Leeford Village,the novel,, which will be based on the serial. There will, however, be additional chapters that have never been published, developing the characters who live in the village. The stories will be the same, but the novel will contain much more than just a re-print of the episodes."