There's a slow hand clap for Knob. Will there be one for Toby? Discuss The Archers here.

[PseudoBadger]

Sorry for the poor title - the end of the last thread has arrived sooner than I thought and I haven't had the benefit of hearing all of the last 2 nights....

Oh sorry SingingAvocado It was rather a long time ago Maybe they've improved now

I really liked the scene with Lilian helping Helen sort through the clothes, her sensitivity and experience was just what Helen needed - in constrast to Pat's obliviousness. Got me thinking about my own aunt and how aunts/godmothers/grandmothers can be a great complement to one's own mother, and how valuable relationships between adult women can be...

I loved the Jill books, though I cared not a jot about ponies. I only realise now that Rapide should be pronounced "rap-EED" - I think I read them before I knew any French, and in my mind it was "RAP-eyed". I liked her sarkiness. I remember a joke about calling a house Bus Terminus Villa.

Lilian is

Oops Lillian is lovely in the scenes with Helen.

How on earth did I not have any of these 'Jill' books among my other pony stories?

I only very recently got the joke about Mrs Crosby NRTB - no relation to Bing.

I loved Wish for a Pony.

It was the cause of me impulse buying dd's pony- she is a grey Arab and I had a sort of brainstorm when I saw her tail as she went over a jump- but she was the best money I ever spent in my whole life. Ever. On anything.

I reread the Jill books once a decade. To re-sass myself.

Bertrand I had a very "pony book" little horse as well - very talented, very beautiful, very difficult (and very cheap to buy). Seeing her with her head hanging in a box when nobody wanting her and taking her home where she cheered up and we had a great time together. Sadly it didn't work out like a book though :(

And peat I would love to give Banner a home, but I have quite literally £2 to my name until the end of the month, so I'm in not position to.

Cecile- dd's pony book little horse was really a book type happy ending- so sorry yours wasn't.

I also loved Wish for a Pony. We did group reading at school and it was one of the books you could choose. So I did. More than once. My fellow group readers begged me to choose something else in the end.

Errol, if you haven't read the Jill books, Fidra have republished I think the first five or six, with the first edition text and the original drawings so you totally escape the updating the publishers indulged in over the years. They also junked a section on rationed cheese. And Ann's dressing table.

I loved Jill, apart from Pony Jobs. I have a theory that RF's books, which she wrote for her step-grandchildren, were just a bit too popular with them, and that to put them off working with horses, she wrote Pony Jobs. The whole thing is pretty inconsistent, as Jill is supposed to be the author of the books, for which she was presumably getting paid, and her mother was also a (reasonably successful) author. And there's a woman running (also successfully) the local riding school, and Mrs Grange-Dudley the headmistress - all these feisty women and then Jill calmly agrees to stop playing with ponies and go off and do a secretarial course. Pah.

I have to say, hauling this back to TA, that I don't really see Shula as a Mrs Darcy.

Bertrand even if the ending wasn't pony-story like, having a couple of years with such a lovely horse was worth all the heartbreak and more.

And ha, Toomuch, Shula wouldn't have lasted too minutes with Jill and Ann, they are far too much fun for her.

I thought the scene with Lilian helping Helen sort things out was nicely done.

This is what Bartalby looks like..........

Cecile, I think Shula is actually Cecilia, all grown up.

And I am sorry things ended badly with your horse.

DD was named after the girl in Wish for a Pony

I also loved, 'We Couldn't Leave Dinah' by Mary Treadgold. I was thrilled when I managed to get a battered old copy off Amazon.

Why don't farming children in TA have their own ponies in a paddock that can be seen from the bedroom window?

Does anyone ride in the generations below Shula? I thought Freddy was a budding rider once and Henry never did get that lesson did he?

Henry is a bit young, just about the age he might start (but they don't have a pony at present). Helen used to be Horsy, and so did Alice I think. I think both Lily and Freddie used to ride, but haven't heard much of that recently.
One of the Grundy kids should take on some of the exercising of Bartleby, maybe George to keep him out of trouble.

ooo er legal bills

£30,000!!!!!

YY, Bertrand, exactly that. Thank you.

£30,000 is staggering. I'm not surprised they feel sick. Do you think it will dawn on Helen at some point that these huge bills are in the offing?

she may have assumed legal aid would cover it, I would have