Discuss The Archers - yes, this really is Thread 103. Are you going to vote for feet, stations of the cross, or a hologram? Will Natasha ever return? Will Russ ever leave?

[DadDadDad]

Exciting times - this thread will witness our 100,000th post in this long-running unbroken chain of threads.

New and old posters welcome. Don't spoil with any future plotlines.

And if you need a beginners' guide see here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3557323-For-Archers-fans-a-guide-to-acronyms-on-the-long-running-discussion-threads-and-any-other-meta-thread-questions-you-may-have

Carry on...

“Mia was dead keen on football and martyred herself by giving it up”

Blimey- you do know she’s 13, don’t you?

Yes; an age at which drama comes really really easily.

LillianGish
If Andrew is any sort of dad (and we have no reason to believe he is anything other) Mia should be living with him.

He was useless until suddenly he had a character change under a new editor and was wonderful. The last we heard of him before Nic's death he had gone out on an evening when he had arranged to have the children, because it wasn't convenient for him and he had just broken up with his girlfriend and didn't feel like having them.

Will is still too blinded by grief to see any of this - in losing Mia he probably feels like he is losing Nic all over again, or letting her down in some way. He genuinely wants to do the right thing, but hasn't got a clue what that is.

Yes, exactly. I feel sorry for him, and I don't feel like condemning him because he doesn't know how to go about dealing with a bereaved thirteen-year-old, when dealing with a thirteen-year-old who has no particular problems apart from simply being thirteen is often uphill work even for people with partners. As I know: one of mine was hell for ten years, as well as a real little expert on "divide and rule" when it came to her parents, and started to rejoin the human race when she was twenty-three. (The other was fine...)

I think what I meant about Andrew - who of course we have never met - is that he is certainly no worse than Will (which is perhaps not saying much), but if he is willing to have his children live with him then surely he should be allowed to. Imagine if Emma died (God forbid) - would Will want George to continue living with Ed? Finally where is Nic's mum in all of this? She would be a good person to intervene on Mia's behalf.

I feel a bit sorry for Will, because he is grieving, and trying to work full time and run a household, and having to chart unknown waters in parenting a teenage girl ...

But none of that changes the facts that:
a) he is a prize knob, very unpleasant, and just generally not a nice person

b) he is consistently pushing away any offers of help, and

c) the children shouldn't suffer because of his inability to cope. All of those kids, including Poppy, need to be taken out of his care and looked after by someone who can actually see to their needs. Leave him alone to sort his issues out and wallow in his misery, but don't make the kids suffer.

Also, I agree with pp that Andrew was always depicted as a distant and, frankly, crap father. Wasn't he borderline abusive with Nic? He's clearly been rewritten to fit the current storyline.

Regarding accents: we took the kids to a theme park in the Midlands and stayed in a B&B in Lea Marston. The woman who ran the place sounded exactly (and I really mean exactly) like Susan. It was uncanny. She must have thought I was a bit odd as I kept staring at her!

Isn’t Bev Nic’s mum?

Yes, Bev is Nic's Mum. It took me a while to work it out this evening because I thought she was Andrew's girlfriend, but she was obviously much older. Eventually I remembered. It also made the scene where she was talking about Poppy much more understandable because she was talking about her own grandchild, not her partner's ex's child!

Andrew has a new partner now. I agree that he was originally depicted as a bad 'un.

Will is foul. He is one of those men who expects to be congratulated for "helping" with housework or "babysitting" for his own kids.
He acted like he was doing Mia a big favour by incompetently doing some chores & got stroppy when he didn't get a round of applause. As for the holiday - that would be Mia doing the shopping, cooking & babysitting Poppy in a different location.

Different families negotiate chores for kids in different ways, and Mia is old enough to help, but it is not her work to do. Mentally scanning cupboards, working out shopping lists, lunchboxes, cooking the meals, soring out Poppy is not her responsibility. It is one thing to babysit Poppy for a couple of hours, it is something completely different to be arranging haircuts, keeping track of school trips & activities, sorting out her lunches. Will stepping up for a week does not make any of this right.

I suspect Poppy will regress in the absence of Mia, and Bev gave a very clear warning. Clarrie & Emma noticed problems but are too close to Will to act. Bev sounds like she will try & do the best for the kids regardless.

We don’t know who Mia is living with now. There was a pause in tonight’s conversation between Will and Beverley, when William assumed Mia was at Andrew’s, it made me wonder if she is currently with her grandmother. It possibly doesn’t matter as long she’s at least with someone she wants to be with who can look after her.

Will grew up with Clarrie, married Emma, and then Nic. All three women are copers and doers. He thinks Mia and Poppy will aspire to be like them. I imagine he thinks that his mum will also admire these qualities in Mia.

I believe Will thinks that he is doing much, much better than Joe, Eddie and Alf, and his brother Ed, by providing for his family financially, but he expects the women to enjoy being housewives, mothers and helpmeets to their men, and thinks they would prefer that to going out to work. He moves in a 'man's world' of the shoot and a bit of cricket.

Will is foul. He is one of those men who expects to be congratulated for "helping" with housework or "babysitting" for his own kids

I think that's a bit unfair. As others have said Will does work hard and does provide for his family. Given the hours Will worked with a wife who only worked part time I don't think it's reasonable to expect him to have to do housework as well. My recollection is he and Nic were both pretty hands on parents when they weren't at work. Weren't they into days out and family days?

He is a complex and believable character. He is often utterly horrible but a part of him knows that.

The recent Will and Mia and tonight's Will and Beverley episodes have been beautifully written and acted.

But the reason Nic only worked part-time was because Will strong armed her into giving up work. He was proud to be able to financially support his woman and made it clear early on (early enough that she should have seen the warning signs and run for the hills) that her being his dependent (this was way before Poppywas conceived so it wasn't a question of her being a SAHM to his kids) was good for both of them. She later had to beg him to go back to work at the Bull because she was bored stiff at home, he wasn't keen.

I may, of course, have misremembered all this. But that's my recollection of how it happened.

There was no reason they couldn't have both worked full-time and therefore both contributed to the housework, it was Will alone who wanted a housewife partner.

I may, of course, have misremembered all this.
It's how I remember it, too! Will doesn't 'provide' for his family because he wants to make them happy, he does it because he wants to feel superior to Joe/Eddie/Ed. He doesn't ask his family what will make them happy, he tells them e.g. the Lake District camping holiday. It's all about him.

Yes, Will showed a nasty controlling side to his nature way before the Rob & Helen story.
He didn't want Nic to work in the Bull, and when she did he would go in there & glare at any man who spoke to her, telling him they were a "faaaaamly"

Yes he works hard, yes he provides for his family, and of course what happened to Nic was a tragedy that has devastated him, but he was a nasty piece of work before all that and he still is in my view.

He is a great character, I agree, but not a likeable one.

Just caught up with tonight’s episode - I feel as if I contoured up Bev with my last post. About time we heard from her - she is just the person to sort Will out and without the pussyfooting around we’ve had from Clarrie. Clarrie is forced to pussyfoot of course - it’s not quite so easy for Will to shout Bev down. I did wonder, in the discussion of possible art works for the church, if we might end up with Lynda’s manicured hands and gnarled feet sculpture, with Joe modelling for the foot bit as a lasting memorial to him. Didn’t someone cut Joe’s toe nails for the Lent appeal?

That should say conjured of course.

he expects the women to enjoy being housewives, mothers and helpmeets to their men, and thinks they would prefer that to going out to work.

I don't think he cares if thru enjoy it, as long as they don't complain. But I think he expects them to enjoy and thinks women genuinely do enjoy doing all the housework and cooking and laundry and childcare, rather than they do it because someone has to.

I am glad Bev will be looking out for Poppy, because I don’t think living with only Will is an environment she can thrive in.

Didn’t someone cut Joe’s toe nails for the Lent appeal?

Jim. But he doesn't want anyone to know about it, so please don't mention it again.

I don't think the Lent appeal will have raised enough to cover the extensive costs of the therapy now required.

We're going to need a new thread in the next few days. Anyone got some title suggestions? (I know a couple have been floating around). I'm hoping someone will volunteer to start - Gabrielle, if no-one else will?

Will is a product of his upbringing - he has watched his mum wait on his dad and grandad (and on he and his brother when they were at home) hand and foot and he has never had a sister to question this order of affairs. He thought he was doing his wife a favour by earning enough for her not to have to work - a luxury never afforded to his mum. He is probably the person in the village least suited to being a single dad - he doesn’t have a clue how to approach it. Nic was the perfect wife for him because she seemed genuinely happy to conform to his world view.

I don't think working hard is a virtue in wills case, he works in that way to escape any of the other responsibilities of family life, its not uncommon behaviour.

Yes Will sacking Pete was a clear signal that Will chooses to be ‘too busy at work’. It gives him a get out clause for everything he doesn’t want to do.

And Beverley's warning about him pushing people away was - entirely predictably - met with a mantra of WE'REFINEDONTYOUWORRYABOUTUSWECANCOPEWE'REJUSTFINE
LEAVEUSALONE

Thus proving her point.

Poppy will be struggling within a very short time as Will tries to put in impossible hours at work without Mia as his housekeeper and general maid-of-all-work. Someone will notice - possibly the school. Bev will be back. (Not borrowing the 🔮 for this as I think it's fairly much a foregone conclusion)