Actor Bob Arnold, who played Tom Forrest in The Archers for nearly 50 years, died on Thursday. REG LITTLE pays tribute to one of Oxfordshire's top countryside personalities, pictured right in 1937...

He was more than just the most instantly recognisable voice on The Archers. For millions, Uncle Tom's rich Cotswolds tones somehow captured the irrepressible spirit of the English countryman.

Veteran west Oxfordshire actor Bob Arnold played Uncle Tom Forrest for nearly half a century in the BBC Radio 4 soap opera.And as Archers' addicts and the programme's cast at BBC's Pebble Mill studios were struggling to come to terms with the prospect of an Ambridge without Uncle Tom, all were in agreement about one thing - he really was an original.

His daughter Barbara, at whose Salisbury home Bob died on Thursday, aged 87, easily understood how Bob Arnold WAS Tom Forrest to his countless fans. She said: "He lived and breathed the role of Uncle Tom. He simply adored the Archers." The Archers' editor Vanessa Whitburn said the secret of his success was simple. "He was a true countryman who turned out to be an extraordinary talented actor," she said. "I loved working with him and I will always remember fondly the many hours we spent in studio together. He was just a delight to work with."

Bob was born in the west Oxfordshire village of Asthall, near Burford, where he lived all his life. It is almost impossible to believe he came close to being rejected by The Archers because his dialect was just too strong.

The Archers' spokesman Donald Steel recalled: "They didn't initially want him because of the strength of his Cotswold accent. The original idea was to set The Archers in a place that was unrecognisable." But he ended up being the defining voice in the everyday story of country folk. Two things in the early days made him realise The Archers was built to last. One was the way listeners jumped on even the smallest of mistakes and the other was the endless shower of invitations he received.

"Before long if you wasn't out every Saturday opening a fete or something between April and September, you wondered what was happening," said Bob. "Then, of course, you went on the autumn and Christmas bazaars."

Bob's father ran the village pub in Asthall and it was there that as a youngster he first developed his love of folk songs. "Practically every night in the pub the old boys used to get together for a sing-song," he said. The village school closed when Bob was 11 and he walked a mile each day for lessons at Swinbrook. Leaving at 14, he worked as a butcher's boy in Burford before spending 15 months in bed with TB of the spine.

After hospital, Bob worked for the county council painting white lines down the middle of the road. His big break came in 1937 with a radio programme called In the Cotswolds. A BBC reporter saw him with his painting machine on the A40 and stopped him for an interview. Bob told him a few stories and sang a few songs and a radio career was born.

Bob gave his own version of events to the Oxford Mail: "Captain Kettlewell of Burford had written this script and wanted someone with an Oxfordshire accent to perform it. I had a bit of a reputation round the clubs and pubs as a teller of tales and singer of folk songs. So somebody suggested me." Bob joined the cast of the rural soap in 1951, just four months after it first went on the air. For 30 years Tom Forrest the gamekeeper introduced the Sunday omnibus edition with his own nature notes.His own favourite period was in the second half of the 1950s "when I was courting dear old Pru. She used to be serving behind the bar in the Bull and Billy Larkins was sweet on her too.When he got killed in a poaching accident everybody thought I'd shot him on purpose until after the trial., Then they got the band out to welcome me home."

He once said: "Tom Forrest and I are growing old gracefully together. We've got through four Dans and two Walter Gabriels."

But to the cast Tom Forrest was Uncle Bob, always ready with a friendly word or to chat about his collection of Roman coins - he found his first one in a newly ploughed field as a boy.

After the loss of his wife Dorothy a few years ago, the cast became a protective second family.

One of his dearest friends, Patricia Greene, who plays Jill Archer, summed up the feelings at the BBC Pebble Mill studios. She said: "His voice was authentic because he was of the country. We will miss him desperately."

It is certain to be the same story at Ambridge.

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