'I'm an Emmerdale superfan and want to be on it'

Steve Marshall with the bell from the Woolpack pub and the coffin plaque of vicar Harriet Finch

An Emmerdale superfan who has turned his home into a shrine says his dream is to feature in the TV soap as an extra.

Steve Marshall, 47, from Bridlington in East Yorkshire, spends his weekends showing visitors around the famous TV village and says he has conducted more than 1,000 guided tours.

His love of the long-running soap began when his parents took him to the original sets at Leathley and Esholt when he was young.

"I remember standing there and thinking 'wow, this is just magic'," he said.

Over the past nine years, Mr Marshall has been conducting the tours at Harewood House, in Leeds, where the TV drama is now filmed at a purpose-built set.

He gets up at 03:45 BST every Saturday, "whatever the season", and makes the trip to West Yorkshire, arriving just after 06:00.

"People think I am mad," he told the BBC.

"When our first coachload of guests arrive, it is magical. The early mornings are a price worth paying just to see people’s faces when they enter the village."

Steve Marshall said he dreams of appearing on the TV soap as an extra

He says he is yet to miss an episode of the long-running drama, which began in 1972, and can still remember those trips to the sets as a young boy.

The setting is just as important to him as the storyline and characters.

He added: "It’s Yorkshire and I am Yorkshire born and bred.

"What you get with Emmerdale is the splendid countryside where the village is located. That all comes across.

"The scenes that you see really show off the Yorkshire countryside and there have been some iconic characters who have lived in Emmerdale."

Biggest wish

However, despite his many years on the set, he says there is still one thing missing.

"If there was one wish it would be as an extra, somewhere in that magical village or in the Woolpack," he said.

"The Woolpack is that iconic location. If anything usually happens, it happens in the Woolpack.

"I have been lucky to be associated with Emmerdale through the tours but that would be a dream come true if I was in the Woolpack and someone shouted ‘Action!’."

Mr Marshall is a long-standing member of the Official Emmerdale Fan Club, amassing thousands of items of memorabilia in his home over the years.

What started out as a postcard from the post office in Esholt has continued and includes a whole range of merchandise, as well as props from the set.

His proudest moments connected to the soap came in 2013 when he was asked to do a reading at a memorial service for Richard Thorp, who played Alan Turner, and attending the service for Steve Halliwell, who played Zak Dingle and died earlier this year.

Mr Marshall explained: "They were a real privilege and these are the unique moments that if I wasn’t part of the tours and what I do, I would not have had the opportunity to do those."

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