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!!

Can't see how pip would know rob. Didn't she go to Reesheath - or was that Helen?
Helen did cheesemaking studies at Reeseheath. Pip went to Felpersham - where Josh is also intending to go (if he does enough work to pass his A-levels, instead of designing egg-mobiles.)

Thank you Ebear knew it was one of them!

I've wondered lately if they're building up to Josh failing all his A' Levels (but becoming a chicken millionaire in his teens).

It would be a neat contrast with Phoebe.

I personally don't think Erin Pizzey has much to add to the topic of DV any more. Of course women are often fighters, also abusive themselves quite often, but the lean in DV is about the control of women from their (male) partners. Why pretend this is otherwise?

The Helen Story. Hmm. I have enjoyed the ongoing unravelling of this relationship but I find this nearly dead Rob story disappointing. 1. Because I don't think most DV cases resolve in this way and 2. I don't think heavily pregnant Helen would be capable of overpowering Rob, even with the kitchen knife he had handed her.

Most of it has been totally spot on. But this stabby resolution from the victim, Helen?, no, I think they have plunged us into a drama far beyond the mundane slaps and crushing of soul that women in real life have.

Interesting article in the Telegraph about how much worse Rob's survival will make Helen's legal defence. www.telegraph.co.uk/radio/what-to-listen-to/helen-titchener-now-faces-a-legal-nightmare--if-only-rob-had-die/

midwives ask about abuse, but that is not m uch good when the abuser is with you in the room.

you can get out without help. i ran away with the children after an attack. harder to do if you have been under coercive control, admittedly.

Nelson: I love this line about the Archers past and present: "it wasn't all bumble bees in jolly fields".

(That's you told, then, Jill.)

I get what people are saying about how she wouldn't want to give him the knife BUT her having the knife in the first place is bollocks.

Here take this knife.
Go on kill yourself.

Er. No. Fuck off.

Who would take a knkfe in those circumstances? (Shane anyone?)

This is leaving aside Rob handing a knife to his incubator.

Ok (straps on disbelief suspenders) so she has the knife. He goes for Henry. It is almost inderstandable and defensible for her to stab him accidentally or otherwise at this point. ( I go nowhere near my kids in a tussle with a knife in hand. But hey.)

Having stabbed him I wouldn't give him the knife. But i might drop it or tell him to back off.

Hoiks up disbelief suspenders a bit further.

Ok. He lunges at her. Gets stabbed again. Twice. By accident/self defence.

I often hated my ex but at this point I'd still call him an ambulance because a) I don't actually want him dead b) (more importantly) one of my biggest fears is not being there to look after my kids.

But mostly I just fucking hate this climax to the sl.

It coulda been better. It shoulda been better. And almost anything but this woulda been better.

It is voyeuristic, exploitative crap.

It is like SOC tried to recreate Little Mo or Jordache but didn't lay the groundwork properly and failed to hit the mark. So it isn't good drama (too holey) and it isn't good awareness raising either.

I am watching in fascination not to see what happens to Helen but to see what further ridiculousness the sws come up with. For me they have now become the characters whose motivation I try to second guess. Right now I am saying they have had a loss of control

Sorry if my levity was misplaced - I hadn't refreshed the page for some time before I posted. My heart goes out to BlackeyedSusan and others who have escaped such awful abuse. I hope your life is so much happier now

greengager thanks. That is interesting.
I suspect they kept him alive so he can be caught in a heinous act further down the line. Thus, oooh surprise, getting Helen off just in the nick of time.

Indeed you can blackeyedsusan.
With or without help women can and do escape I wish they had portrayed that story.

Oh and vango 👏 bravo for your feat of memory or archiving. And thank you. What a pertinent piece of info to refresh. I remembered the gist but not the detail.

put it on there to say it is possible to leave... in contrast to this crap story line. It is important for people to know you can leave. there are several examples on the thread.

thankfully mine wasn't coercive/vindictive so less messing with head mentally at least.

Just reached page 24 and must give up as it's past my bedtime and it's been a trying few days, here as well as in Ambridge. But one or two comments -

How do we know what Helen told the psych? We only know what she said to Knob she had said. By then she was starting to realise what was happening, maybe she told only what she though Knob wanted to hear but told Psych the real truth.

I hope - as in all good police/murder dramas like Lewis, Morse, etc. - the evidence over the wrist wound will turn on handedness ..... Do we know which wrist was stabbed? Is Knob a leftie and Helen a right-hander or what? and btw where IS Kavanagh QC when we need him.

Another thought though, if Knob was so ill with this collpased lung to need an emergency thoracotomy, was he just a few mins earlier well enuf to stab himself?????

www.independent.co.uk/voices/leaving-an-abusive-partner-is-dangerous-and-goverment-cuts-mean-its-now-harder-for-women-like-helen-a6969111.html

Refuge piece in the inde. At least they got in a decent point about how wonen might be helped to leave off the back of this botch job.

If only they had read this:

There is nothing more horrific than receiving a scathingly aggressive and sexually detailed letter from a male stranger in the law profession, in which he stands shoulder to shoulder with the man who abused you, in full fraternal support and belief and power and money and misogyny, as if they are longtime friends. They threatened me because they said I had damaged the perpetrator – because I had told the truth about him and the truth about him was terrible and damning and caused decades-long scars. For his victims. It is a mark of the cowardice and self-pity of narcissistic abusive men that what they fear most is one of their own victims showing them a mirror; the most dangerous thing they can envisage is simply the truth about themselves becoming known.

A dangerous woman is the truth incarnate.

From an article that just took my breath away on what it is to be a dangerous woman^
dangerouswomenproject.org/2016/04/03/bidisha-on-being-dangerous/

Maybe, yes, to last point above as a good 10 minutes plus must have passed before arrival of paramedics. And breathing from collapsed lung can change very quickly.

I too want baby to be a girl. Just to spite the Knob really. But I wonder hwo much helen cares about the baby anyway. Not just since the stabbing but since conception. Not a surprise considering the rape. She has shown absolute zero interest IMO. I've been saying for weeks now - to DH not on here as I've hardly been on here - that the baby could die and that would eb an easier way out for her. Even before the stabbing I thought this. Although the foetus has now reached age of viability, it could still be very small for dates, esp difficult if born this week due to ematrnal shock. Sorry if that upsets anyone. Who knows what si in store for us.

^I mean if only the SW had read this. Not Refuge.

The timeline of the night in question is very odd. It must be quite a lot more than 10 minutes that went by before the paramedics arrived, because Helen apparently had time to try to clear up the custard before Kirsty arrived and put Henry to bed. However, I really don't believe that Kirsty was that far away. I suspect that the business of Henry having been put to bed was some sort of script cock-up, because it makes little sense to settle him in front of a DVD and then, whilst still apparently sobbing and in shock, put him to bed.

Greengrager brilliant Telegraph article, thanks so much! I will be keeping it to refer to as the legal elements of the plot unfold.

BlackeyecSusan the first appointment with a midwife (booking appointment) is for the woman only - no partners allowed precisely in order to ask questions about abuse, drug taking etc etc.

Of course this was months ago for Helen, long before she had realised/admitted to herself what had happened and was happening. And even then I do wonder how often women choose that appointment to speak up.

I am aware of the location of the radial artery thanks. My point was that I don't think it is credible that an injury of that severity occurred in the way the SW want us to believe

Butteredparsnips dearest, we are all enjoying debating the plausibility of the story, are we not? That's what has generated 2000 odd posts in the last 2 days. It is not a personal insult if someone politely disagrees with one of your points.

The injury is credible. Stabbing injuries are extremely unpredictable. I once had a patient who was stabbed in the chest and leg with a 8 inch machete. Amazingly, he had no serious injuries at all in the chest, despite a very deep wound, but the much more shallow leg wound had severed a nerve and artery.

And Rob had been at that appointment, but had just been sent briefly out of the room.