OK - odds on for Helen to murder Tony.

[seeker]

Or vice versa?

Which would you rather?

I want the baby to be ok too (I'm 15 weeks gone and highly emotional - the JV trailer for tomorrow's show has me welling up), but Helen is just too bloody annoying. Maybe she's the bit that's been building up and the shocking Ambridge bit is going to be the fire/ice-skating carnage that will somehow be connected to Helen's tragic end?

RE Eleison's "We need to do a thread of Helen's posts on MN.

'AIBU to think that MIL shouldn't ignore her grandchild just because MIL is non-existent, and also that if he stops ignoring her grandchild and actually gets off her backside to do something that is because she thinks I can't manage alone and she has been Against Me From The Start for having AI.'"

Sorry, Helen, but YABU. Wonder what other people think?

I thought at the beginning of Helen's pregnancy that she would have a child with a disability (because Helen is so expecting perfection, and also because there is not a child in Ambridge with any kind of disability - the scriptwriters must be considering this now, surely?).

But with the 'nothing ever goes right for me' line from Helen a week or so ago, where we were all supposed to be sorry for her, I now think I might have been wrong about this. So maybe Helen has a darling dimpled baby - who will just give Helen grief as she/he grows up.

If the child turns out to be perfect it will have to be a horror when it's older. It will probably marry a Horrobin. Oh no, Alice has stolen that storyline... Maybe the baby will turn out to be black and that's what gives Tony his heart attack! Oh no, Kate's got two black children already... Is there really nothing new under the sun in the world of Borsetshire?

Disability it is then!

Daniel Hebdon has a long term health problem, no?.
There aren't that many kids in TA, though.

Daniel had a rheumatic heart, I think - but I also think he's over that now.

And not that many kids? Maybe that depends on what the definition of 'kids' is? If we're going for the under 18s, we have not only Daniel, but 'Pipsqueak', Josh and Ben; Freddie and Lily; Jamie; Rory (in all his many spellings); Georgie, Mia and Jake; Phoebe and Abi. That's 13 of them, off the top of my head (bound to have forgotten someone!).

(Am not counting the unheard but often talked of - such as Oscar, Nolly, Sepoh [sp?], Molly Button, etc.)

I think Pip will crash the car during her driving lesson with David and run Helen over-life or death for some or all of those involved

So when is this core-shocking event? Want to make sure I am caught up to date.

Correction, Daniel had childhood arthritis, the meds made him fat for a while, but I'm not sure if he's still on any.

I'd drop Pip out of that kids list for being too old, but add back in Abby/Nolly/Nolly's brother to make 15 in total (?).

I am just thinking in terms of what % you would expect to have a significant disability, 0/15 is not implausible.

As children, Helen had her hip, Elizabeth had her heart problem, so TA kids not perfectly without issues. I just don't want HELL of all people to have a child with significant disability, yet another matyr card (blech). And it rings of something she somehow brought on herself -- that would be a grossly unfair representation of how disability usually happens, no? If anyone could be a terrible example of how to parent a child with disability, I think it's HELL, or are they going to completely reinvent her afterwards? I know parents of disabled kids who say the disabled child was the best thing ever happened to them, made them a much better person and parent.

But that would be one HELL of a transformation if Helen turned into a sensible upbeat mom in response to her child's problems.

And somebody needs to have a Hellish induction and C-section ordeal. Am a bit tired of these straightforward births.

following car crash (see above) Helen's baby is born premature with multiple long term health issues

What about the Vicar and Usha? Where have they been lately? Maybe they have both turned away from God and to the dark side? Are they in cahoots with Tiger and Pusscat, who has also been quiet of late, has their new property company sold the church and cottage to devil worshippers?

Pat could not handle anything major, she was super distressed at the raspberry yoghurt mislabelling, which is the one and only ep that DH has listened too and thought it was crap, of course he failed to understand the depth and meaning behind it all.

Areantfanny - I'd thought about Kenton booing Lizzie to death too!

Tony could delivery Helen's baby with one eye shut and the other on Countryfile after all the livestock he has delivered in his life. Alistairs the vet could do it too, village being snowed in and all, but uses a horse tranqulister in the wrong dose and Helen is curtains.

And am shocked that Tom is not the original sausage empire building king and it was someone elses to start with!

Also can just see whale music aromatherapy candles hypono water birthing Helen sinking her nails and teeth into Adam during the birth and screeching for f'ing epidural!

The reason Tom was so driven to become Sausage King was because he was following in John's footsteps I think.

Also, wasn't Chris Carter born with a cleft palate?

After tonight's episode with Nic engineering a Grundy fight club over the Yuletide turkey (pore fule, she kno not wot she do) , surely the murderer has to be Will and the victim Ed and/or Emma? Clarrie powerless to intervene due to her wrist fracture, Eddie will be drunk and Joe incapacitated by farmer's lung. Will is a psycho with easy access to firearms and an exaggerated but not entirely misplaced sense of grievance.

The Tony/Helen storyline is a red herring.

ragged - gosh, sorry, I just read my last post back and it sounded a bit rude, which I really didn't mean. So sorry if it came across that way!

Have given up counting the children on the Archers. Will say only that ALL of them are dislikeable little squeaks.

Re: a child with a disability - I do recall hearing about Elizabeth being born with a heart problem, Helen being born with a hip problem, and Daniel being unwell as a little kid. But none of these things have affected these characters' day-to-day lives in this soap. (Obviously, Elizabeth had to worry when pregnant; Shula was worried about Daniel, etc. - but I don't remember anything that changed the lives of any character every day for the rest of their lives in the way that having a child with [say] Down's, or CP, would do.) I do think that the scriptwriters are overdue writing in a character with a long-term disability. BUT I also think you are quite right on this: if Helen, of all characters, were now to have a baby with such a disability, it would absolutely make it look like 'serve her right for being such a pernickety perfectionist'.

If there is a case for intoducing a character with a disability (and I think there is - to show that disabilities do happen and have to be lived with), then I agree that dysfunctional Helen is not the person to parent such a child.

OOh, spot the listener with longest memory -- Mustard Land agrees on Chris Carter being born with a hare lip or cleft palate or somesuch.

Has Helen had her Flu jab?

I remember clearly Chris Carter being born with a cleft palate (god I'm old). Well, it's Susan's reaction I remember.

I remember the Chris Carter thing - Susan didn't take it at all well of course.

then I agree that dysfunctional Helen is not the person to parent such a child.

IRL presumably dysfunctional people are at least as likely to wind up parents of SN children as anyone else. It can happen to anyone from Prime Ministers to junkies.

I think we can all agree Helen's not ideal to parent any child (Calm Down Ladies).

Apparently something terrible is going to happen on Jan 2nd. Food poisoning?

Grimma - yes, of course, anybody in the world can be the parent of an SN child. My point (I think this was ragged's point too) was that if, in this soap opera, one of the most dysfunctional characters is going to have a child with a disability, then that may just add to the cliche that 'only dysfunctional parents have children with disabilities'.

It would be a much more realistic and thought-provoking story line if dysfunctional Helen were to have a perfectly ordinary baby (one that cries a lot and drives Helen up the wall with sleepless nights), while someone in a steady relationship (e.g. Emma) were to have a child with a disability. And then just love the child to bits/integrate her or him in to ordinary family and village life etc.

Oh God, but in my scenario smug Helen would be the queen of smug smuggery telling Emma where she went wrong. For ever...

I give up with predictions.

But I'm happy to note that I don't remember Christopher Carter's birth - even though I am very old, and no doubt will be shortly starting to knit for grandchildren in front of the wireless.

Right. I haven't listened to the Archers since approximately the time when Chris Carter was born with a cleft palate, but if a significant event is about to happen then I'm back in.

So what do I need to know?

Clearly Helen doesn't like her father.

You want the back-story for the last twenty years!?

Helen doesn't like anyone. They all disappoint her.