Rob - dead? No, no, he's, er, resting. He's just pining for the Canadian plains. As Helen is taken into custardy, discuss the Archers here.

[PseudoBadger]

24 hours for 1 thread!!

Also, as far as the support network goes, as soon as he wins over her family she can rationalise everything with "but mum and dad like him". Her objective method of weighing anyone up, and her fail safe for making bad decisions (family who will intervene and stop her) has comprehensively failed. Anything after that can be rationalised away with "mum and dad would say if they didn't think it was right".

Thanks Patrick. That is shocking.

BeaufortBelle I commented along same lines about a million threads back a couple of weeks ago, that Knob always seemed to have been a right Billy No Mates, only interacting with Ambridgians. Not sure if that was poor scriptwriting or Deliberately Ominous.

I've just had a quick look on wiki. Pizzey started of what became Refuge. But her M was very violent, and that's her view, that 60% of DV is both parties.

I can only speak for me. I never laid a hand on my abusive X.
So thanks for that Erin

First cut wasn't that bad. He tried to get knife off her so she fought back - second, third and fourth stab?

Landowning family, small community, strong willed, recovered anorexic. Wouldn't have done the baby thing and had moved away to be totally independent but yes I can see parallels. Helen fundamentally knows normal and I find it hard to believe she wouldn't have had a bigger voice of doubt. Least of all where was Knob's substance?

Why would rob and pip have friends in common?! He's about 20 years older than her. And there are lots of places in the uk you can study agriculture.

Vango - you are a woman of mystery. (I'm going to assume you are a woman on the basis of probability). You don't record every episode and then transcribe them, do you? Come on, your secret's safe here - it's only the world wide web!

I don't think the friends thing is that weird. Helen doesn't exactly have that many friends, and all of hers are local. She probably thought it was fairly normal. Plus rob's whole thing is that he can explain away anything and make it seem plausible.

To be fair to no-mates-knob, where are the friends of any of the incomers? Harrison, Charlie and loads of others I can't be bothered to think about or type....

The thread is going to be full whilst pseudo is still eating her birthday meal if we're not careful!

Tbf most incoming characters don't have much substance behind them. It could get a bit confusing otherwise!!

Beaufort I can completely believe that she fell for rob in the first place. The DV I will remain quiet on as I didn't listen to the whole thing.

Had I not had the most ill feted marriage ever I would have trouble believing Helen would end up with rob. Unfortunately after my experience I'll believe anything...

Let's de-rail this thread now shall we DDD. How dare you assume I'm a woman? Where's words (I think) when you need her?*

*But yes, I am a woman

I think farming families have a lot of connections. If not Pip, David and Ruth then. Everyone knows someone whose cousin was at Cirencester with their best friend's sister's husband. They just do.

Mrsmorton - I am absolutely confident that there will not be 200 posts between now and 7am when it normally gets busy again.

Interesting reading from the past. I love KateHA's comment:www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thearchers/entries/364e8050-3b04-3507-b2c4-a92174b2a7ff?sortBy=HighestRating&sortOrder=Descending&filter=none

Vango - nice side-stepping of my question.

Sorry thinking aloud and trying to be logical. Perhaps I'm just naturally mercenary and suspicious.

Oh yes, true. I hadn't noticed the time and I'm suffering from a spot of insomnia. The voice of reason dad

In ambridge no one knows anyone outside a 5 mile radius though!!

(Well, assuming some joker doesn't go rogue with the keyboard and mouse!)

Sheesh, I remember lots of lines of old dialogue from TA! Stuff that's stuck in the mind for various reasons. People can remember things even if they don't spreadsheet it, right?

Vango, I think that if she'd given him the knife after the first stab, then yes, he might well have killed her with it. We will never know for sure, but in her position, and especially with her being heavily pregnant, I don't how much of a risk she would be prepared to take on her safety around Rob at that point.

Fair point, Seek, and I'm not particularly good at remembering what I hear. But to remember large chunks verbatim from a couple of years ago still seems very impressive.