Aldridges Assemble! Await the return of the prodigal daughter to Ambridge with the rest of The Archers audience

[PseudoBadger]

I can't resist alliteration

I think the die may be cast for pip - though if she ends up doing a solid job of being the next archer to run Brookfield that would be ok - so please let phoebe have learned so well from her mother (ie from her mistakes and avoiding at all costs) that she gets through education and into a good job.

I'm sure rob will try to drive a wedge between Helen and her family - I do hope it backfires. When he first targeted her, the dynamic was different - they were still in the walking on eggshells around her mode and she treated her parents pretty abominably. But since then, what with Tony's accident and toms woes, they seem out of that.

We're all agreeing with you lottie - but some of us have ranted about this over several previous threads - the SWs aren't listening.

Amy has a proper job outside Ambridge. But, ever since Alice told her that black people don't ride horses, they've clearly felt it's too arduous and awkward and quite beyond their writing capabilities to have her in the main prog. (Except for the anomaly of a certain New Year jolly at LL.) So she only had a sub-Helen story on AmEx. (Perhaps they think she's "urban" and so only suitable listening for the billions of youthful listeners they drew to 4Extra. ) No one starting now would ever know Alan had a daughter.

mummytime, I agree. It's all the more astonishing given that for 30 years TA had female editors and more female writers than male.

Brenda - her story makes me spit tacks. She had brilliant A levels, but chose not to go to university at the time because she had a place on a BBC trainee scheme. Unfortunately, to pursue that storyline to its logical conclusion she would have had to leave Radio Borsetshire and move to Brum or London or anywhere other than Ambridge, so so that didn't happen. Eventually she did go to university but of course then Betty died and instead of pursuing her prestigious course in radio journalism at Bournemouth she switched to Marketing at Felpersham.

Debbie went to university, was upset by Simon, dropped out, came back to Ambridge. Yes. Her subsequent success seems to be built on nothing more than Brian believing the sun shine out of her rear end. She is working abroad now not because that was a credible storyline development but because Tamsin Grieg's career has taken off and she no longer had time to be in TA much.

Shula fluffed her A-levels - before my time, but for men rather than horses? I don't know but she's not the sharpest knife in the drawer. She did take a professional qualification of some sort in estate agency - land agency? I don't think she's a chartered surveyor. She also took exams to qualify as a riding instructor. In many ways her sl is the least disappointing and the most believable.

Lizzie - degree? boy-crazy, upset by the one who climbed out of the window, hung around at home long enough to attach to lovely but not obviously aspirational (at the time) Nigel. As far as I can recall, Lizzie doesn't even have A levels. She took some kind of marketing course, possibly from a correspondence college. She certainly didn't go to university. That isn't so very unrealistic for an unacademic young woman in the 80s.

Did Kate ever attempt university after school, or get wrapped up with the bastard Gibson then her alternative lifestyle too early? No, Kate's GCSE results were abysmal, and led to her running away from home for many months. She didn't even attempt A levels. This is why I was spitting tacks when Felpersham University was alleged to have accepted her onto their certificate course purely on the strength of having written a short guide for volunteers at her orphanage.

Alice got her excellent degree, with prospects and ambition - chucked career aside to support pleasant-enough Chris. At least she has stuck with her studies all the way through to Master's level. And she is still working in the field she trained in. I'm not holding my breath for a stellar career in engineering, though.

Helen and Ruth have farming-related qualifications. Usha is professionally qualified. Amy, the vicar's daughter, is now a midwife. Fallon did something to do with music technology but then nothing more. Emma got some sort of basic catering qualification and has never gone back to education. Kathy (remember her?) - teacher who got fed up with teaching (sadly fairly common) and switched career to working in the hospitality industry as a manager. Caroline's career in hospitality appears to have started with a cordon bleu cookery course but after that she just worked her way up. (Coming from a wealthy family and marrying a lot of rich men was a help, of course. )

Hayley is a qualified nanny and the nous to end up running a nursery or being an assessor for Ofted or a trainer or something like that, but of course none of that happened.

There are more men with recognisable careers and training behind them, yes. Adam - degree in agricultural economics, related career. Ian - probably studied at catering college. Alan - qualified accountant, switched to vicar. Alistair - vet. Dr Locke - doctor. David - agricultural college. Robert - degree? Had a career in IT, anyway. Jim - academic. Daniel - fast track to commission at Sandhurst. Will - some kind of gamekeeping qualification. Chris - farrier.

But:

Roy - has a degree but has not had much of a career on the strength of it. He should have moved away a long time ago.

Ed - no qualifications, except for the Thinking Skills course he went on after the TWOCing incident (and what an improvement in his thinking skills we saw subsequently - not).

Shula went to Grammar school, but it wasn't that normal at her time to go to Uni (and remember a lot of Oxbridge colleges were still all male when she'd have been going, not that she was Oxbridge material). It was quite usual to go for some kind of secretarial career with A'levels. She did get a bit more ambitious and do her "Estate Management" qualification. However she was always horse mad, and is running a good rural company with the stables.

Elizabeth went to boarding school, dropped out/was expelled. She did A'levels at the local Tech I think, but had too much of a good time and flunked - except maybe Environmental Science. She had wanted to go to Agricultural college.

Kathy should probably have gone back to teaching or working as a TA, surely she could have been a HLTA and earnt more than as a receptionist or whatever at Grey Gables. It would have been good to have her and Hayley working with Bethany.

I think the problem is there are more "obvious" rural careers for men, though there was Hannah the pig girl in the past.

Most of the women should be commuting out of the village to jobs in Felpersham and Borchester. I'm also surprised there aren't a few lecturer's from Felpersham Uni living in the village, it sounds just the place they might want to live.

I don't have the energy - but what we need is a proper breakdown by age, class - landowner or not, incomer or native, etc.

(It always seems hilarious to me that Ruth, (whose real, proper university study was unusually closely followed on air) needed qualifications to get into Ambridge and to establish her life there.)

One of the things I find unwatchable on EE is the way incomers arrive in a suit, with graduate level education and a salary and inevitably end up working "on the market". At least Usha has managed to avoid that so far. But Alice ... So little time spent at work, so many balloons to blow up ...

Amazing knowledge on the thread

I only have one question after tonight's episode: where is Iain??

Thanks for filling in the facts!

Shula has talked about how she'd have liked to have been a vet but didn't get the A-levels. Agrees she's not the sharpest tool, minimal analytical skills, all dependability and 'common sense' and her application would not have impressed.

I just feel there is an irksomely repeated storyline of 'young woman seems bright and ambitious, could have a career, finds unsuitable boyfriend, gets upset, drops everything, the end'. Alice had a 'stands by good bloke' twist. As if there is a long-standing propaganda line of 'women, know your place, it is in the service of men. Rebel and be damned'.

All the women with drive and ambition, or a 'standard career' are incomers; Pat, Ruth, Usha even Amy who moved there in her teens. Kathy's not from Ambridge is she? Don't think Caroline is either. Siobhan, Janet.

Of course most of the professional men are incomers too; every doctor, vet and vicar. Jim followed Alistair.

But, all the men are allowed to develop their career and have relationships, including disastrous ones - David, Tony, John, Tom, Jamie, Chris etc while women are defined - and so often humiliated and destroyed - by theirs.

I don't come here often, or post anyway, just get the occasional urge to unload!

Shula went to grammar school? David went to boarding school, Lizzie somewhere private. Kenton? Does that signify that Shula was meant to be 'the bright one' or did Phil and Jill have more money available for the younger ones?

I think Shula's school was a Direct Grant Grammar that choose to go private, when the grant was removed in the 70s (I'm sure she campaigned against it). I don't think it is now the Cathedral school in Felpersham so I'm not sure what happened to it. Or maybe it didn't go private and became part of Borchester Green?

I don't know where Kenton went, before my time and he was away with the Merchant Navy as far back as I can remember (and he didn't mention it to moan like Shula did).

Shula would presumably have been in the 25% who passed the 11+ - no superselectives back then and the primaries taught the test so you didn't have to be that bright. (Did Kenton fail and go to a secondary modern?). By David's time could have gone comp? And def would for Lizzie.
Shulas A-level cockup was mainly that she didn't do sciences so of course ruled out being a vet.

It's astonishing now, but apparently Kenton was the bright one and David wasn't expected to pass the 11+, which is why he was sent off to boarding school as the only socially acceptable alternative to going to the secondary modern. No idea why Lizzie was sent to boarding school, especially given her childhood health problems (heart).

Back in the 60s about 25% of the child population went to grammar school whereas now the few that survive are mostly superselective and are drawing from the top 5% of the IQ range.

Mmm ... Your narrative certainly adds something to my own interpretation lottie. For me it's land that makes a difference rather than love. (And I'm only really thinking of lost female potential.) Last time I tried to make a list some people didn't quite fit my theory - so I've adapted it. ()

What appears to define Ambridge women's futures is possession of land in the previous generation before the time a woman begins studying for public exams. (Roughly.)

I think that explains Emma. Nothing can quite explain Brenda but, without checking, I'm assuming Mike's compensation and subsequent purchase of land happened after she was born.

Daughters of inherited land all had some education away - before coming back to employ other people on that land. Unlanded women on the other hand, no matter how vast their ambition or whether or not they get to "uni" almost invariably end up scrabbling for the few low level village/Borchester jobs that don't involve land. Bar work, cleaning, shop assisting. Poor Kirstie.

Where is Hayley working now she's escsped?

Well, oh dear, some people aren't\don't want to be defined by their careers and don't fancy highly stressful commuting\hours in offices. They're lucky to have the choice IMO.

My mental and physical health would've suffered if I'd taken a headship so I didn't. Does that make me a failure?

I'd love to listen from the beginning. In sequence I mean.

But my point is that the native women of Ambridge never do seem to have a choice. A normal professional career, like teacher, is never an option. They must be felled by a relationship, brought to heel and tied to Ambridge forever.

But ppeat we're not talking about RL individuals who've lived with their own circumstances and decisions. What I, at least, am questioning, is an editorial policy, for a fictional () prog, that relentlessly undermines women's legitimate aspirations.

(FWIW if my own "career" trajectory was presented as fiction not a single person on earth would believe it.)

Mmm. ... In fairness to the SWs - if the women of the village, landowning or otherwise, did all leave for normal jobs outside, there would be no show. If all the men paired up with incomers those women would be encouraging their own children to go out into the world. There would be no community. (Again Ruth is an anomaly as she's a real farmer as well as an incomer.)

"My mental and physical health would've suffered if I'd taken a headship so I didn't. Does that make me a failure?"

No of course not! But it would be pretty unlikely if the same applied to every single other woman of working age in your community, surely?

Oh it's not RL???? well let's see Christopher is a blacksmith, Jamie is a woodsman, Mike. is a milkman etc. Lilian runs a property company , Shula runs a stables, Debbie manages a farm in Hungary or wherever. Lizzie manages a stately home as does Caroline. I think the SWs are not as sexist as you'll seem to think.

If you don't want to work your sox off and you don't have to then why would you? I don't reckon gender enters into it really.

Sorry - back to Knob. He is UNSPEAKABLE. Pat may have put him on the spot, but what about Tom? Surely someone can wake Helen out of her stupor. The man is truly vile. Makes me yell at the radio in fury which is clearly a sign of quite good writing by the SWs

Yes Merse and he's been quiet for a while ,almost normal with Hel,l but what tf does he want her to do?

Surely the farming men would mostly marry women with farming or rural roots but from other villages - roughly equivalent backgrounds to their family members but we'd be introduced to more new characters and lose more local women. Ruth is an example, is Clarrie? Don't think Pat was from a farming family?

What is odd is all the 'failed and returning spinsters', a role that's been played at some time by most of the central native women.

Land inheritance is an interesting underpinning to it all. In the past, we might have expected more girls of farming families to leave the village and marry and/or pursue careers elsewhere, as they wouldn't have expected to inherit.

But, inheritance has changed, coinciding with greater career opportunities for women generally. So, presumably Phil inherited Brookfield outright and Christine gained nothing but, she grew up at a time of limited career opportunities, so marrying locally doesn't seem so surprising for her (or was she too brought to heel by an early disastrous relationship? I've no idea).

Now that they stand to inherit equal shares of the family business, it's less surprising that Debbie, Helen and Pip have stayed involved. Though that shift from primogeniture to equal shares did see a wobble from old 'fundamentally decent bloke doing the right thing for Jenny's children' Brian, when Ruaridh came along.

It's just the 'every young woman must go out with a cad before she learns better' theme and, far more so 'her life must be shaped by her relationships, not her abilities or interests' that irks me.

On the first part of that, alarm bells certainly rang over Alex, with his self-possessed smarminess with Phoebe's family and the featured phone conversation about whether she was still 'ready', which made him sound like (yet another) arch manipulator and cad. Though I think they may just have been clunky signals that 'something was going to happen' which was actually just Kate making Phoebe's love life a proxy for her own present lack of one. I suppose we shall see.

Sorry ppeat - but you've just emphasised my point. All the women you mention are working as employers in businesses they either own or have a stake in through their family connection to a landowning man. (Lillian has Amside because she is, or was, a rich widow.)