No more walking on eggshells for Helen! Heading for an eggsplosive Easter weekend in The Archers - will Helen Archer be resurrected by the end of this thread?

[PseudoBadger]

Helen knows she's not cracking up - Knob is an eggomaniac.

Are we eggshausted with this storyline?

Helen is going to have the whole lot of them to deal with if she tries to leave Rob. They will all be trying to shove her back into his arms with bracing advice about every marriage having it's ups and downs and how she must give him another chance etc etc on and on.

Semi-Klaxon. Knob free. Helen, Pat, Peggy, Elizabeth, Richard & Lillian were all there.

Disappointed! She still thinks Helen is the problem

Peggy should have perhaps had a word about 'hormones' 6 months ago when everyone started tiptoeing around Helen because of her condition. Am amazed that she has never said anything about how Rob has had Helen under house arrest.

I think rob will be a family annihilater, Helen will attempt to leave with Henry and the baby and he will kill them all and then himself. And the rest of his crimes will emerge after, and the village will be left in shock and guilt at not having noticed.

I liked that line. Totally in character for Peggy. My mum is a decade or so younger and often comes out with lines like 'We never had counselling, we just had to get on with it' in relation to all sorts of traumas arising out of the war. In her case I have attempted to suggest that there were lots of people who would have benefited from some form of counselling or therapy and she grudgingly concedes that there might be something in that. Peggy would be just the same. Jill is a bit more open-minded and probably wouldn't say something so crass.

TopOf - yes, precisely. And she won't necessarily realise for ages that she isn't mad, she doesn't set out to ruin everything, she isn't a terrible erratic mother, so there's no guarantee she wouldn't believe them.

However - we do have Kirsty, possibly Tom and Tony, Fallon, Emma, Shula etc who might be a bit more ready to understand. here's hoping.

She does have a point about looking after two small children though. Most parents just do roll up their sleeves and get on with it. Some even have three or four by the time the oldest is five.

Pot not is still firmly in place then! I hoped for so much more tonight.

WannaBe, I know there's no watershed on Radio 4 but even so I can't for the life of me imagine the BBC broadcasting an episode like that at a time when lots of people are listening while bathing small children, driving home from work or preparing the evening meal with children in the room. Please, please no!

Yes I think it was totally Peggy. But I also think Peggy would have been very surprised at how indulgent Helen was being by doing nothing all pregnancy. A little prodding from her could have then thrown up that she had been persuaded not to drive/work/have any friends/think for herself.

But ultimately Peggy and Pat like Helen being married and looked after I guess.

TopOfTheCliff, yes, lots do. But if I had a family member with a history of anorexia - a volatile, prickly person whom the rest of the family tiptoed around - I'd be very worried too about her coping with a newborn and another young child. Physically tiring, disturbed sleep, emotionally charged - these are the things that everybody struggles with to some extent at those times. For a perfectionist like Helen, very tough.

I actually thought the Helen/Peggy/Pat interchanges there were pretty good. Pat and Peggy haven't a clue about what has really gone on. It's credible (to me, anyway) that they are taking Rob's version of events at face value. Helen isn't giving her side of things yet.

But ultimately Peggy and Pat like Helen being married and looked after I guess

And she sold them the Happy Family dream in a very determined way right from the start so why should they have reason to doubt its veracity now.

Exactly.

I wonder how this whole thing will change Helen or maybe it won't. She was always one of my least favourite characters. Of course I feel sorry for her now but I wonder what she will be like in a year or two.

Goodness Peggy was irritating this evening. Especially her comments about Henry being too old for cuddly toys at five and going on and on about how wonderful Rob was. I'm not surprised Helen snapped at her.

Why the random mention of Lower Loxley being insured against lightning strike?

Storm Katie approaches...

Checking in. I was so glad tonight that Rob was not appearing & Helen sounded back to almost normal. She's been so downtrodden.
Nasty biatch Peggy saying Henry is too old for soft toys- but it would be ok if he were a girl. Peggy makes my skin crawl.

Perhaps lightning will strike Rob down. 'Go on Rob just check the flag on the roof . . .'

Someone slap Peggy. She is so irritating with her lack of insight and sympathy. never liked her anyway

Hellin is on to knob and is just drawling into herself and asking herself if she really is psycho or she's been trussed up like the proverbial kipper. She is just observing the situation and interactions without cold clarity.

I think this uncovering of secrets will confirm what she is slowly realising.

She will need to approach Pat carefully and resist flipping out. she should get tom and tony there too and knob locked in his car at the bottom of the Amme safely out of the way.

cross post with Emily

During the war, so many people lost so much. There was no time to think about the dreadful loss. Many men couldn't go back to work. Many couldn't speak about their experiences, psychiatry was right at the beginning. And then there was the whole thing of getting women back in the home, away from making bombs and inventing windscreen wipers. Men like Rob are two a penny. Women were chattels and rape within marriage was legal. I think Peggy can only speak from her own experience. The rape law in England only changed in the early 1990s. In Scotland they understood better. Grrrrrrrrr

I heard the film this morning & I was really choked up by it- for Helen & Bert's sakes.

Yes, Kingscote that was strange wasn't it? It almost made me wonder if the pressman interviewing Elizabeth was the mystery arsonist with all his questions about insurance. Do you think that there will be a fire at Lower Loxley next?

Tim Watson needs a beard. I'm just saying. Because Rob Titchener MUST have a beard. I can't imagine Knob without manly beard

I heard TW on Broadcasting House. He only needed to say about 10 words b4 revealing his true personality to be a total lovey. Kinda funny. Great Actor.

It's raining hard, Rob. Before you go out onto the roof to check the flag, just pop on this metal helmet and steel-toed boots.