Recalling JCB on a Soap Opera

If I’m totally honest, I don’t watch a lot of television, I’m just too busy these days, however I do have a rather sad confession to make, its very rare for me to miss an episode of the Yorkshire Dales based soap opera Emmerdale!

The recent departure of the quirky character Bernice Blackstock played by actress Samantha Giles, who first appeared in the show in 1998, reminded me of the time when she got up close and personal with a JCB 3CX backhoe loader in an episode aired in 2016.

In the episode concerned in typical Bernice style, she has a rant at her then new husband Lawrence White accusing him of cheating on her and then goes on a bender, before going on a drunken rampage in the JCB 3CX. Somewhat amusingly Bernice climbed into the cab and quickly discovered how to start the machine, and without any training managed to select forward drive with the direction lever, and then smashed the machine into the fictional Mill that was being renovated by her husbands construction firm, causing the building to partially collapse.

Then having stoved the front end into the building, she spun around to the backend before raising the dipper up and into the scaffolding surrounding the building! I remember cringing as the chrome rod of the bucket ram came into contact with the metal scaffold poles!

Anyway, its always great to see earthmoving machinery product placement on TV shows and of course in the movies, a topic we have covered on this blog in the past. You can check out Bernice’s demolition job in the video clip below.