The Archers - Freddie is getting OUT: will Russ hop it? Helen is falling DOWN: is Lee still in the frame? Tom is heading UP: will Natasha be the boost his sausage needs? (Thread no. 101

[DadDadDad]

We're still here and still discussing TA (The Archers). We welcome newcomers and old hands, so if you have a question or a point of view, please dive in. No spoilers - if you've seen info on future storylines, there's a separate Radio Addicts thread for that.

I loved all the name changes on the last thread. Don't forget to change back! (If you want to).

Who's going to get Russ out of LL? Freddie? Lily? Elizabeth? Or is it Freddie who will head off?

To be fair to Shula I assume she did wrestle with her conscience, but that's an assumption. It's the job of the SWs to show us in some way that she did wrestle with her conscience.

So if Alasdair has walked that would be fine? Because he made the same vows but didn’t believe them? How do we know he didn't believe them? He can have believed in the vows without believing he was making them before God. Do people really get married without intending it to be forever? One or two, i suppose, but as a general rule?

But no, it wouldn't be right. They both promised each other they'd be there for each other for ever. So it's not right for either to simply walk away. Of course, if one side has broken the vows anyway (eg Rob), it's fine for the other to simply walk away. But if it's simply a growing apart, then both owe it to the other to at least talk about it before making the decision to walk. What Shula did was unutterably cruel, and nothing in Alastair's behaviour made him deserve that cruelty.

Though if Alastair really hadn't believed that he was promising himself to Shula for life, had intended all along that it should be "until I get bored", then I'd say that he was wrong and deceitful from that point.

I don't think she was just bored she stated she didn't love him anymore. If she had stayed with him knowing that it would have been unbearably cruel. She would have been making do, unbelievably unkind. She did the right thing. Perhaps next time Alistair is doing a marathon to raise money she should refuse to talk to Jim about it after all she no longer needs to be polite

Poor Shula. I like her and don't understand why people think she is smug.

I don't pretend to understand it, but wasn't part of Shula's decision prompted by Caroline's death and the realisation that life is short etc? Also, her marriage to Alastair had never been easy ( her affair, his gambling - both things that could destroy a marriage) so in a way they had both already done their fighting for the relationship previously.

What is the Church of England's view on terminating a marriage simply because one partner no longer loves the other?

So if Alasdair has walked that would be fine? Because he made the same vows but didn’t believe them? Actually I think if he had done the same - ended the marriage with discussion - I would feel the same. But had the roles been reversed Alistair would not not have been trying to make himself feel better by doing good deeds around the church, much less preaching. That's the problem for me - Shula doesn't seem to see any disconnect between the way she behaves and what she believes, which would be fine if she weren't taking it upon herself to preach to others. Jim has called her out on this and he's hit a nerve because she knows deep down that what he says is true. Leave your husband because you are bored and think you could have more fun without him, but don't then make a pretence of being devoutly Christian.

Sorry - ending the marriage without discussion.

Does Shula know it "deep down"? I think she was genuinely shocked by Jim's comments. She then expected Alistair to confirm to her that he's got it wrong and that she's not a hypocrite - surely, she wouldn't have asked if she was aware of the truth in what Jim said? Hence, second shock came when Alistair didn't give her the answer she expected. Maybe now she will go away and think about how her actions are seen by others.

I just think Shula has put up with sooo much crap from Alasdair over the years that him going all self righteous now is a bit steep to put it mildly.

There's been crap on both sides - I think leaving him for his gambling debts and deceit would have been understandable. Leaving him years later because she is bored - coming from the dullest woman in Ambridge - is the pot calling the kettle black.

Shula is not the most exciting woman in the world, but she didn’t me bring them to the brink of bankruptcy with a secret gambling addiction, or perve over work experience students in the stables......

LillianGish spot on!

As far as I remember, Christian marriage does not have a get out clause for boredom. Worse, she has treated Alastair cruelly, about which she is completely unrepentant. Here lack of self-awareness is astonishing

Does Shula know it "deep down"? I think she does - but it is buried very deep. Her frenzy of church activities and good deeds is a bid to convince herself that it is not the case, to atone in some way. She was secretly pleased when Alistair was caught out with Lavinia - although shocked at the same time that he should so quickly find a new admirer - because she could pretend she had made the right decision to end the marriage and let him share the blame for the break up (I know someone in real life who has done just this). She knows that what happened with Richard Locke was wrong and when she lied to the police about the hunt sab (that one must really play on her conscience in view of how Knob subsequently behaved), but she avoids dwelling on these things and hopes no-one else will notice by focussing on weeding the churchyard, finding a donkey for the Easter Service and now even preaching sermon so the St Smugula mask remains firmly in place.

It would have been much more cruel to stay with him. Actually I think a lot of people in shulas position would have had an affair as a means to escape or would have just carried on pretending all was fine. I think she has been brave.
Leaving my Shula obsession! I have a bad feeling about jolenes tour , I think she might meet someone.

I thought Jim was bang on and the revelations are way overdue. I agree with a PP that it is less what she has done (hey, we're all fallible) but then to be preaching to others is the bit that grates. I also didn't think much of her comments to Freddie about being worried Pip wouldn't christen Rosie - it's nothing to bloody do with you Shula.

I hope the rest of the village tell her to get stuffed with her pious stations of the cross art

Hello darlings [voice of Liilian] I've been lurking for a while as I can't log in on my phone where I usually follow proceedings. It's great to be back.

It's definitely a boop for Jim from me. I don't think you get bonus points for not having affair. I've said this so many times, but for me the hypocrsiy in ending the marriage comes from the lack of effort she put into saving it. They'd still be together if Alistair had agreed to recklesssly abandon his practice (and her the stables and hunt,) and swanned off on a financially ruinous midlife crisis gap year. He wouldn't go on holiday, tried to make her a curry = end of marriage with callously little explanation. She's perfectly entitled to leave her marriage as a Christian but she should have have attempted to save it first. Some couples therapy and a few minibreaks, a new shared activity? Maybe take up pottery or jogging together. You can't fix a marriage on your own.

Shula ending the marriage seemed to me to have had a fairly definite start-point.

When there was all the hoo-hah about Anisha being holier-than-thou because of Matt and of Alistair having gambled (which he told her he had, under her cross-questioning), Alistair went off to Gamblers Anonymous again, and didn't tell Shula what it was about; she had been worried because he was missing one evening and wouldn't say where he'd been, and then she overheard him on the phone making an appointment for an evening a few days later and was really worried in case he had started to gamble again. That got "sorted out" because she confronted him about it and he admitted what he was doing and what the reasons were, but I think it may have shaken her really badly, and made her realise that she was slightly on edge all the time in case he lost another hundred thousand pounds and this time they wouldn't be able to get him out of it with a new mortgage, because they already had one.

If she'd been able to say something about it to him maybe that could have been sorted out as well, but "I can't trust you about the gambling" is a conversation-opener which would have offended him so horribly that he would probably have left her, and I think she was scared of it.

I don't think Jim knows about that hundred thousand pounds, does he? I remember them not feeling able to tell him why they were so upset when he taught Daniel how to play was it poker? Something like that for money. That was at the time Jim gave Daniel an air-rifle for Christmas when he was thirteen, and generally did his best to get at both the son he despised and the daughter-in-law he abominated by encouraging their son to do things he knew they wouldn't like.

Yeah, that trip she wanted them to do, was the catalyst for the divorce, so now she's free and single, why hasn't she gone and done it? She wanted excitement, but nothing she's done since, is remotely exciting. She's just plodding along the same as she was before, except now, her savings are quite a bit lighter. And she still seems to spend as much time with Alistair, as she did when they were married.

And she was jealous of Lavinia when she had no right to be.

she's pleased that two atheistic parents are going to stand up and pretend that they will fight for Christ and raise their daughter in faith, as if Rosie will catch a little bit of Christianity

So from your point of view would it be better if the children of atheists weren't Christened? Do they not get anything from the act of being Christened? (Genuine question, in case my tone is unclear)

Those of you who think Shula is a hypocrite, at what point does she get forgiven? Or is it not time based, does she have to do something to redeem herself? Or is hypocrisy irredeemable?

DDD why do threads have to stay on topic? I like the diversions!

I loathe both Shula and Alistair. She totally deserved what Jim said and he deserves the lack of engagement from Jakob.

Really hoping the christening is an unmitigated disaster. I want Jill to cry 'noooooooo' when they announce Rosie's middle name

There is absolutely no way Peggy would have sacked Emma like that. Ridiculous.

So from your point of view would it be better if the children of atheists weren't Christened? Yes.

Do they not get anything from the act of being Christened? No. The children are usually under a year old. It's not an innoculation. If their parents and godparents are atheists then they will not continue the child's religious education. That isn't to say that the child will not be loved and brought up attentively and ethically by those people, but it won't be a religious upbringing. This being the case, why do it?

But so neatly putting Ed in a position where he simply can’t refuse Oatey’s driving offer ...

No I am not peggys biggest fan ( I save that for shula) but that just wouldn't have happened. I can just about believe Peggy giving Kate the work but she would have given Emma a pay off so to speak.