To think that no sane person would actually fall for Rupert Campbell -Black?

[Bigearringsbigsmile]

Have just finished reading Riders for the nth time and I've got to say.. he really is repulsive.
He beats his horses.
He beats his wife.
He colludes in the rape of his wife.
He's foul to his son.
He ' s sexual incontinent and gives his wife gonorrhoea.
He thinks it's ok to have sex with 14 year olds.
His only humour is to make puns.
He bullies people all the time.
He's a tory.

Being rich and good looking surely doesn't over ride all that?

I loved Jilly's books, all the Rutshire stories, and the "name" books Octavia Harriet etc but sadly her attitude to women is stuck around 1965, which is far closer to the 1950s than to today. I don't think Rupert had a personality transplant between Riders and Rivals, he just got older (as did Jilly) and time moved on somewhat. Even Tony beats Cameron up. In Jilly's mind it shows passion...
I think all her fiction is pretty much unreadable now, unless you first read it back in the day and are able to ignore the nasty attitudes. It shows us how far we've come in the past few decades.

@kieren oh yes and Ricky the romantic hero who killed his own child drunk driving, and the only people who ever point it out are uptight wankers the "correct" attitude is one of pure sympathy and no blame, again, because "passion".

Think the 14 yr old was some girl ,tiffany bathgate?at the Olympia horse thing who rupert ditched when Helen turned up unexpectedly.
Billy ended up taking her and friend out for dinner cos they were gutted which is when they let slip they were only 14 not 16.

May I refer you to the several royal family threads from the past few days? Far more enjoyable than Jilly and a fair share of Rupert-type pursuits.

Those threads are in AIBU, and will be lost in the traffic.

Crying shame they weren't started in (or moved to) The Royal Family topic, where they'd be much easier to find and enjiy

They were great fun. I cant bear the usual grovelling stuff but they were witty and informative.

If it's a choice between RCB and Rannaldini then I'd go RCB everytime! Rannaldini was a proper bastard!! Loved Tristan in Score, Declan o ' Hara and Luke in Polo and Ricky FL
Hated Hermione with a passion! And anthea in Pandora!

He was vile in most of Riders, agreed, but awesome in Rivals. I did feel sorry for him when Helen left him in Riders, I didn't like her in any of the books, annoying, clingy and whiny, she had nothing about her at all and needed to be defined by her current man!! RCB was the Olympic hero in the end too remember. Jilly ruined him when he cheated on Taggie in the most recent book, I was distraught!

Ah yes, Tiffany Bathgate. And wasn’t there a later show where he said he had unfinished business with her?

The book set in the school is a bit grim too with the under age orgies and so on

*RCB is apparently based on Andrew Parker-Bowles.

HELL no!*

JC has never denied this and she's certainly a good friend of APB. I'm only surprised that no-one bumped off my putative OH earler.

The women I can't stand are, in no particular order, Helen, a drip, Declan's wife, a parasite, Hermione, for being herself and Daisy's MIL, an evil shrew!

Re books that form the opinions of young women, there's a photo of Princess Diana, aged 15 or so, reading a Barbara Cartland, shudder. Which may explain a lot.

Barbara Cartland was Diana's step-grandmother. Cartlands daughter Raine was married to Diana's father.

She was commonly referred to as Acid Raine.

Marcus is the only decent man, imo. It’s lovely when he gets his happy ending.

Jilly is a beautiful descriptive writer, she’s incredibly witty, and hugely perceptive. She has a very sharp eye for social detail. And, I think her greatest talent, she knows just how to put enough humanising vulnerability into a character that even an absolute bitch like Perdita feels worthy of redemption and a happy ending.

But I agree that her attitudes to women are so dated now that the books are hard to take. Even the men who aren’t rapists, gaslighters, wife beaters and cheats are controlling patriarchs. Luke is miles better than RCB, but there is still a narrative that Perdita is a wild, emotional harpy until she is tamed by a sensible man who can control her. All of the happy endings involve the submission of women to men.

Until about 10 years ago... like a rat up a fucking drainpipe.

It was written in the 1970’s, so lots of things were different. And I think he was meant to be a total cunt, in “Riders” at least. It’s the powerful gorgeous rich bastard = irresistible thing, only of course IRL you know he would be. The hunting alone would have been the red flag for me!

I am trying to think of a genuinely nice JC hero. Even ravishingly Patrick O’Hara is horrible to his current girlfriend whilst saving the desperately damaged Cameron Cook.

Luke Alderton?

Ricky France-Lynch is much nicer than RCB, apart from the drink driving episode?

Depressingly, Riders was published in 1985. And if you think of the way many women seem to worship Whatshisname in Twilight and Christian in 50 Shades things don’t seem to have changed much.....

• wouldn’t be irresistible, I mean!

The only decent man has been completely overlooked, Wolfie Rannaldini.

And maybe Blue from Appassionata.

The guy the headteacher ended up with in Wicked? Both their names escape me haha.....did he play Rugby? He was pretty decent from what I actually do remember !

The rape scene in Riders is quite cleverly done in that the intention of a foursome is stated and Helen goes into the bedroom (albeit reluctantly) which to Billy and Janet at least would have dignified consent.

However I never could reconcile Billy being supposed to be this wonderfully nice character when he has had sex with someone who is crying because they are hating it so much.

Jilly's has a lot of characters doing something terrible then saying to themselves "oh God I really shouldn't have done that" and it's as in Jilly's view that somehow cancels it out.

I am reading Appassionata at the moment and Rupert leaves Taggie on her own in Colombia and almost cheats on her just because she didn't want to come on a business trip with him then it's. "Oh no I shouldn't have done that" yet again...

Yeah like how he regretting having a fairly long affair right under his wife's nose, but only cos his mistress told him (in bed!) that Taggie had cancer. Like, oh now you think it was a bad thing to do??! Fuck off and die Rupes.

I can't think of any JC man I'd want a relationship with. If push came to shove, Freddie Jones in Rivals is a nice bloke and loaded, but he's so unattractive that sex would be an endurance test.

Sex with RCB would probably be OK, but only if you were happy to be shagged and dumped.

I always thought the 'point' of Taggie was that she tamed Rupert and he was faithful to her, despite temptation. The Buttercunt episode ruined all that. Rupert of Rivals-era would've been extra-solicitous to Taggie when she was ill. I do wonder what was going through Jilly's head when she wrote all that.

The man who played RCB in the TV series of Riders

Wasn't it Michael Praed, Robin, Robin, the hooded man?
Awful TV production of Riders though.

Sticky You got called an 'uptight wanker' for not liking Ricky? A fictional character?

Blimey, it's like that thread where the op thought that Line of Duty was real!

There's loads of JC characters that I'm not keen on (cough Taggie cough) but I can refrain from abusing those with a different opinion. About something that's not actually real!