Pip celebrates in style.

Radio Times: Elizabeth puts on a brave face and it is a birthday to remember for Pip.

Characters: David, Elizabeth, Jill, Pip, Ruth, Usha

• Pip’s eighteenth birthday has arrived, and for everyone except Lynda, it far surpasses the royal visit. Pip is overcome with delight when she sees her car, and offers to take her brothers to the bus in it straight away.
• Someone who finds the day harder to bear is Elizabeth. She meets Usha in Felpersham while she waits for the twins’ interviews at the Cathedral School to be over. Soon Freddie appears, saying it went well, because the Head thought Nigel’s dibber a very interesting thing to talk about.
• Pip drives to show her car to Jill, who is suitably impressed, and who joins the rest of Ambridge in a sneer at Lynda and the royal wave. Pip is concerned that her excitement is insensitive in the face of Nigel’s death; Jill reminds her that life must go on.
• Usha calls with a present for Pip and admires the food, though Ruth admits that the family were mainly responsible for it. Usha is suitably supportive when Ruth tells her about the row over the bull. She asks Ruth to join the book club she is starting to enhance Ambridge’s cultural landscape. Ruth confesses that she has not read a book in ages.
• Elizabeth and the twins arrive at Brookfield with a nodding cow for Pip’s car and some pearl earrings. Pip wishes she could do more to help Elizabeth, to repay all she did for Pip during the Jude episode. With a struggle, Elizabeth tells her to help Ruth, because David is helping her at Lower Loxley. Meanwhile Pip must enjoy life while she can.