Anyone for a fondant fancy? Let The Archers eat cake...

[PseudoBadger]

TA is in a purple patch at the moment, rewarding listeners for wading through the dross of the previous year few months. Welcome all!

That was a chilling moment- I thought I had misheard at first.....very subtle indeed, especially for he normally clunking Archers!

Just have yo gate crash this thread to ask - was that watch one that belonged to Jess??

My DDs says her first memory is sitting on her Grandpa's knee, waving her arms about to TAs theme tune. My PIL used to look after her, whilst I worked and listened to it every lunch time.

She's 23 now and still loves the tune, she doesn't listen to it apart from when she's back home. When Tom comes on she says "Is he still wittering on about sausages?"

I think I started listening when I was a postgrad - certainly when I started my first job I'd listen to the omnibus in bed on a sunday morning.

The first storyline I remember was Elizabeth being abandoned at the service station by the bloke who had got her up the duff. She went on to have a termination and Shula got v upset as she offered to bring the baby up as she and Mark were having major issues conceiving.

That must have been early 90s. Quite controversial to have a termination storyline on TA back then.

18, when I was living abroad and Radio 4 LW was te only English language radio station I could get!

I now have a fuzzy feeling for cricket commentary too

It's been there all my life, my parents listen and i considered it to be the epitome of BORE.
Mid 20s I caught a Brian/Siobhan episode and was hooked! I now listen more than my parents!

Yes pseudo I hated it as a child/teenager. Woe betide any of us who spoke during the omnibus. She would be out of the kitchen usually with an electric carving knife in hand yelling 'do I yakk through your stupid bloody tv programmes? Do I? Do I?'

Yes pseudo I hated it as a child/teenager. Woe betide any of us who spoke during the omnibus. She would be out of the kitchen usually with an electric carving knife in hand yelling 'do I yakk through your stupid bloody tv programmes? Do I? Do I?'

My first Archers experience was the omnibus on a long drive to Holyhead with my then BF, now husband. It was the time of the Grundy's fake number plate scandal.

I'm hoping that watch was one he gave Jess and when she rocks up at the door tonight to tell him she's pregnant she will see it on Hellqueen's wrist.

Rob's control is scarily well done. Helen's breathless gratitude for everything could be grating but at the moment is just spine tingling.

As for new Tony, he's going to have a massive stroke in amongst the cabbages at this rate.

When I was a baby, TA was the sound of my bathtimes apparently. I'm 40 and have been listening independently since my late teens on and off. What a loser! We used to tape the Sunday ones and send them to my ex-pat mother from boarding school. She still thinks of them all as her friends.

How annoying was the Susan's-won-the-lottery plot? I've just become a SAHM (belatedly: DDs 9 and 11!) so R4 is a constant companion.

My mum listened to TA in the 50s before her family had a TV, but later it was something she only heard if it happened to be on when she was in the kitchen, as she always put the radio on in there while she was cooking, baking, washing up etc etc. When I was growing up, it was always on in the background on Sunday morning while we were having breakfast and washing up.

I paid it all very little attention at that point but when I left home I started listening to R4 from choice. This is nearly 35 years ago and I had no access to a TV, which probably had a lot to do with it. Anyway, initially if TA came on I didn't bother to switch the radio off but I wasn't really listening. Fairly rapidly I moved to the point I've been at for 30 years now, viz, I actively choose to listen and fret if I miss an episode. I only vaguely remember what was going on back then, but I think it was when the Grundy family were being introduced and Nigel Pargetter was going out first with Shula and then with Elizabeth.

When I was in my 20s I usually listened to the omnibus but since I had my children I've usually listened to the evening episode. The advent of Listen Again has been a godsend, as I never miss an episode now . No one else in the house listens except by chance. They all affect to find TA very tedious but I notice that if they do happen to be in the room while it's on they do seem to follow what's happening.

I didn't start listening until I was a student when I was sharing a flat with someone who listened to the omnibus religiously every Sunday. I think I was about 20.

I'm getting DS into it, he recognises George now :o

I must have started listening to it after university but my main memory is of hearing the Sid/Jolene shower scene at one of the v early Green Gatherings. We were in the Groovy Movie tent (solar powered) and the Archers theme music came on. The rush of dreadlocked hippies to the tent had to be seen to be believed

TA was on all through my childhood, though mum stopped listening to it regularly when i was in my teens as she was busier with work and younger siblings and no iplayer then

then i listened a bit in my later teens

then on and off - if i caught an episode i would listen but didn't follow religiously

i'm now in my late 20s and it's only in the last 2/3 years that i've listened to every episode and actively sought to catch up on one i've missed, because i started a job with a very long commute by car so it's part of my routine of listening to R4 in the car. i actively look forward to my drive home as a result - evening comedy followed by TA and front row. lovely

I accidentally heard the episode where John fell off his tractor (I thought it was the afternoon play!) and I was amazed and hooked then when I was a postgrad R4 was always on in the lab. The archers and GQT :) My parents did listen when I was small but it didn't impact on my consciousness in the same way as The Budget (turned up extra loud), pm and sing something simple, which used to make me want to weep. I still can't bear that style of music.

Info about the watch please!
Has it made an appearance before last night?

I've been listening since i met my DH (25+ years ago) and my DC have been listening since they were born.

Tom is the character who really annoys me at the moment. I mean how arrogant to ask for an advance on his inheritance!

And his sister isn't much better either

No-one listened to the Archers in our house (I think my Mum was more a 'Mrs. Dale's Diary' person - 'I'm very worried about Jim' etc etc). But after I'd left home and was living in Big Bad London, I worked with someone who was an Archers fanatic (a man, interestingly enough - to generalise hugely, I get the impression that women are generally more keen on TA). He ALWAYS listened to the next-day repeat and if he was out at lunch, we had to record it for him. So I got drawn in that way.

At the time (1980’s) Brine was shagging Caroline and they used to have passionate clinches in the hedgerows, iirc, with much heavy breathing.

Agree that it's come back into its own with the new editor, and about time too!

CuttedUpPear no it's just me speculating about Jess climbing out from the under the patio knocking on the door tonight and being mightily aggrieved at the sight of goldilocks Helen wearing her special watch that Rob gave her on their first valentine's day together and more importantly sleeping in her bed . Jeez feel like I've use all of MN's special effects there.

I'm 35 and Radio 4, and thus The Archers, has been soundtrack of my life - we didn't have a TV until I was 9yrs old so radio was all there was.

I can vaguely remember when Lizzie was wild young thing, silliness with Nigel and gorilla suits. Remember her abortion storyline quite clearly. By late teenage I'd decided it was dull and when I left home didn't listen until I got reeled back in by Brine/Siobhan fall-out, excellent stuff.

Don't think the watch does belong to Jess, it's just part of the pattern of excessive gestures/expensive gifts at the beginning of the relationship before he turns nasty, leaving Hellin to look wistfully back at when things were 'perfect'...

Oh and my mum (in her 60s) who has supported women in abusive relationships throughout her working life, says Rob is definitely a baddun, red flags a-gogo...

i hope someone points out to tom the difference between peggy loaning him the deposit money and her giving it to him as a no-strings-attached gift in terms of the mortgage company

and while a £20k wedding is fab if you can afford it, who in their right mind has one if money is tight? there isn't a gun to his head!

AND it's only just over two months until the wedding and they still haven't organised the bloody venue, which is needed before they can sort out food and drink, music, decorations, sorting out invitations etc!

I agree the whole lavish wedding is very unKirsty.

I also agree that the wedding is very un-Kirsty (and not very Tom either really) and the house thing is crazy. She could have an amazing eco house on Bridge Farm land Anyway, back to the wedding, you know that massive empty cow shed? I reckon all other ideas will come to naught and they’ll end up in there with guests sitting on straw bales covered in interesting blankets and everyone will have a fantastic time. That’s what I’d do. Also, Miss ‘I think some distance from your family would be a good thing’ might not be too happy with Tom going cap-in-hand to his grandmother. We only know he’s spoken to Roy about it, don’t we?

I LOVED the subtle ‘outfit change’ bit. In fact I had to listen again this morning after coming on here because it passed me by last night.

I’m alternating between wanting to throttle and hug Tony at the moment – what a martyr! This storyline would definitely have been beyond Colin wotsit wouldn’t it, poor thing? David Troughton is getting up a good head of steam, and Tony’s definitely going to keel over in the kale sometime!

Can’t wait for tonight!