Old (Hall), New (build), Borrowed (money). Will Ambridge be feeling blue the morning after? Discuss The Archers wedding and the aftermath here.

[PseudoBadger]

Roll up roll up for The Wedding special from Catheter Hall. Is the lark flying high? Will Krusty jam that ring on the porky finger?

Thanks Zero - makes sense in a way I suppose, still it's taking the soul out of the farm for Tony I would think. No wonder he's impulse bought some more livestock - must have been horribly quiet without them country girl roots showing through.

As regards educational opportunities they've narrowed things down incredibly over the past 30 odd years. It was amazing to recall from the blog that John was a boarder at Brymore (previously a specialist agricultural school and apparently now an academy) and I'm fairly certain Helen went either there or somewhere similar. And David too?

Elizabeth I think was expelled from boarding school... Rambling - but apart from Ruairi no child has been allowed to attend anything other than the most local school for ages. And it's the same with university - only Alice was allowed a traditional university career away from home. It's extraordinary that Pip, despite her time away now, is essentially studying from home. I do wish they would allow themselves to think beyond the obvious and "acceptable" I used to enjoy learning about different forms of education from the programme.

zero that's interesting about previous coverage of different forms of education

i listen to farming today most mornings on my way to work, and you hear some really interesting new initiatives for young farmers (of course i can't conjure any up right now!)

Hell Willie, you've got an early commute! I set my radio to come on for the start of Farming Today, with a view to getting up when it finishes ... doesn't always happen.

Perhaps I shouldn't complain; I guess, when TA started, while rich or ambitious farmers were sending their children either to public school to learn how to be gentry or to specialist schools to learn how to keep hold of their land, the children of the people they employed would have been leaving school at 14 / 15 to take up unskilled jobs or long, impecunious apprenticeships.

So I suppose they are, as S O'C avers, simply reflecting the changing times. But it makes for a duller listening experience.

Freddie and Lily go to Felpersham Cathedral School, as did Dan. Not the nearest school in either case. Where did Amy train as a midwife? Was it Manchester?

Yeah - how many of the current crop of younger ones have actually been away to university/college or plan to go?

Jamie, Dan, Will, Ed, Jazzer, Fallon, Pip, Chris - all of them have either not bothered with higher education, or studied from home.

I can only think of Brenda & Alice.

I do wonder sometimes at how little the cost of living seems to impact on most of the characters - there are the "comedy lower classes" (that only exist in a show that's been going for 60 years) like the Grundys, and people who have a man running in front with a red flag reading "poor" (Nic, Sharon & Kylie). But do Alice & Chris, or Roy & Hayley have trouble paying the rent? Or get sacked and rehired at a lower rate of pay?

Oh I'd disagree Mimsy! Compared to Nigel's preferred boarding option Felpersham Cathedral School was very much the local (less listener antagonising) choice for the twins. Both Elizabeth and Shula are very much the sort of parents who might have chosen boarding thirty years ago; for them, now, Felpersham was the nearest "acceptable" alternative.

Which is why Dan's Sandhurst adventure will be interesting - it seems a brave choice for the BBC to make.

(And please don't get me started on Amy. I'm not recognising that particular story until they have her retrain as a Doctor. It makes me furious that blah blah blah....)

Elephants

Alice and Chris live in her cottage on Home Farm. (It was employed as a holiday cottage until she decided to live in it with her new DH.)

And Roy and Hayley live in the bigger converted half of Mike's house - Roy's childhood home.

The education or lack of it, of Ambridge residents is a weak spot, I agree. Running through those currently under 50(ish):

Roy went to Felpersham to do Business Studies. Brenda got her marketing degree there, but that was a comedown after she abandoned her degree in Radio Production or whatever it was at Bournemouth when Betty died. Hayley is a qualified nursery nurse.

Ruth and David both have agricultural diplomas from specialist colleges. Pip is studying for a degree in agriculture. Josh and Ben will presumably also be encouraged to go on to higher education.

Elizabeth has a marketing qualification but it's not even close to degree level. (Nigel had nothing beyond A level, if he even got that far, but that is not so unusual for one of his age.)

Helen has the equivalent of a degree or an HND in Cheese Studies or similar from a place called Reeseheath (it's a real agricultural college). We don't know what Rob's qualifications are. Jess as a social worker must have studied to postgrad level, which may suggest that Rob did too.

So far as we know, Kirsty has no degree. Tom definitely doesn't. He dropped out of college when he was about 17/18, I think.

We know nothing about the education/training of James or Leonie or Coriander as far as I can recall. Very remiss!

Adam has a degree in agricultural economics from Newcastle. Ian must have had some sort of vocational training.

Debbie never finished her degree. She dropped out during the second year after having an affair with a lecturer (Simon Gerrard, whom she later married and divorced).

Kate of course has her postgrad certificate in International Development from Felpersham, which she was able to enrol for even though she doesn't have a first degree.

Alice - chartered engineer. First degree and an MSc. By far the best qualified younger person in Ambridge. Christopher - qualified as a farrier.

Ed - nothing except the Thinking Skills course the court sent him on after his car crash and Sheepshearing 101 last year. Will - basic training to be a gamekeeper. Emma - NVQ in catering and basic hygiene certificate.

Fallon - something like an HND in music technology.

Jazzer - Sheepshearing 101, with Ed.

What's wrong with Amy being a midwife, Zero? She wasn't portrayed as a straight A student like Alice, so she would have had very little chance of getting onto a medical degree. We do need good midwives! OK, I know on the basis of what we've heard of her she might not be a brilliant example, but in principle it seems like a perfectly respectable career choice for her to make.

And..... (just to increase your listening pleasure Elephants not because I'm having an unexpectedly lazy afternoon. )

Alice - aside from being local royalty as the youngest daughter of the richest farmer - is also an aeronautical engineer who, as we saw last year, should be able to take her pick of jobs across the globe.

Chris is set to be staggeringly successful as a blacksmith. While there are still hunts and stables and little girls on ponies his livelihood is secure - as long as he avoids further accidents. And he's married to an heiress. (Although one fifth of Home Farm may not be the greatest prize ever...)

Roy does have to rely on an employer but he's built up a good CV and shouldn't expect to find himself unemployed. (I cant remember how big their mortgage is...)

Hayley's job always seems on the cusp of disappearing so she is the most vulnerable to local economics.

Your knowledge is terrifying yet wonderful, Mimsy. :o

I can think of a few people who could do a PhD in Cheese Studies from the eating side of things.

While the experts are here, one of my first memories of being upset by The Archers was when Debbie was picked up by her brother (I think?) from some flat when her boyfriend had been beating her up. Or something similar. When/who was that? I miss Debbie, and get very confused as to how she combines farming with living next door to Dylan Moran & Bill Bailey.

Sorry for the distraction from (non) wedding chat.

...farrier not blacksmith.... (I am an idiot)

Mimsy - one word: Windrush.

(It was a bloody lazy choice of career for her )

Thanks Zero! Just after posting I remembered the rubber houses in Ambridge that seem able to stretch to fit the number of local inhabitants, and the "spare" accommodation that's always lying around. Is that more work from the Ambridge fairy - that if Kate for instance brought her family back to the village, someone would say "Oh, lucky that Hyacinth and her 6 children have just spontaneously combusted, so she can have Cowspit Croft"?

Thanks, Elephants! What is most terrifying is all the genuinely useful stuff I could be remembering that has been displaced by the Archers trivia.

The violent boyfriend would be Simon Pemberton, who had previously hit Shula. He was prosecuted but got off with a very light sentence - fine or community sentence, I think. His father, Guy, who was lovely and not like him at all, was married to Caroline, who is now married to Oliver. (Guy died of a heart attack.) They own Grey Gables.

I miss Debbie too!

Zero, it makes me cross that so little has been made of Hayley. When Mrs Antrobus died, she had been so fond of Roy and Hayley that I had hoped that she would leave her house to them and they could turn it into a day nursery. It would have been so great to see people from the lower orders making a real go of a business.

Kate also owns a Home Farm cottage!

Jenny and Brian built them for their daughters to provide them with an income. I'm unsure of whether Debbie has one.

Sorry, Zero, with you now. Yes, from that point of view I see what you mean, but was her mother a midwife or a nurse by any chance? It might be a little bit less lazy if she was following in her deceased mother's footsteps. Maybe she will end up running the midwifery services for Borsetshire? Doing a Ph.D.?

Ewieindwie1- Thanks for the explanation. You paint a charming picture.

Oh yes, I loved that story, Ewie! What a character she sounds.

I must say, every single time Elizabeth worries about LL's income I fear for Hayley's job. It often seemed, in the past, that the SWs havered on the edge of making it a story but always let it drop. Perhaps they just can't think of anything else to do with her?

Ooooh, it would be gorgeous if she opened a nursery in Ambridge!

I always wonder where all the second home owners are.

Wow, John Archer went to Brymore, never knew that! I drove past the school this morning on the way to see MIL who lives in the next village. The school still runs as an agricultural school as well as following the national curriculum, perhaps another character will go there one day?

BOFster, if you went to school with Annabelle Dowler, you may come from my home town in the NW?

Down the road, Halsall. Back in the day, nice Catholic girls from your town had to leave the enclave and come to us!