Thread #105: Curtains for Emma, Hilda - Joe? Red carpet for June Spencer on her 100th birthday, we hope! Discuss the rich tapestry of Ambridge life here.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads and @DadDadDad for being our resident statistician and keeping the ball rolling when Pseudo stepped back a bit.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed. We don't all agree on all points and most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you'd like to be Susan's best friend or other unusual views.

Spoilers: not on this thread, please. We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the weeknight episodes, but we do try our best to avoid cross-contamination from www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3439443-keep-it-to-yourself-the-archers-spoilers-thread-4, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

For newer listeners, lurkers or those who just have no idea what we're talking about, DadDadDad has created this useful thread: 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 BOOP point for him! (See thread for explanation.)

Thanks to LillianGish and BuckingFrolics for ideas for this thread title. I went with the less Rabelaisian of LG's ideas!

On 14th June it will be the 100th birthday of June Spencer, who has played Peggy Woolley since 1951. I hope the BBC has a lot of special tributes lined up to celebrate this remarkable achievement.

Aargh! I can't stand Shula! She has no sensitivity - goes in all guns blazing (totally wrong approach - any idiot could work out that something about that party caused Jim extreme emotional distress), fails to pick up that Jim is upset at the mere mention of Harold or Howard or whatever his name was, and then goes on to blab on about how nice he was and how he cozied up to the Piano teacher (who Jim is clearly fond of) on the piano - thus causing a Jim melt down.

She has the emotional attunement of a young bullock. She would be an absolutely dreadful vicar.

Did he say Harold was a neighbour?

I don’t know about degree of neighbourliness - at the party Fiona described him as the son of friends of their grandparents.

Well, the softly softly approach hasn’t been working, has it? I think she was fantastic.

Totally agree - I usually roll my eyes at Shula but I admired her tonight:

The 🔮 sad on the night of the party that it was wheelchair man that tipped Jim over the edge. It also said that it's to do with Al's putative paternity.

It says that Smugula, having got a name, will now track down Harold to dig out the whole sorry story.

(Sorry I’m such an infrequent poster)
So Jim’s secret issue STILL hasn’t been uncovered. What has it been, two weeks now? Getting fed up with this. It’s clearly something awful. I suspect wheelchair man did something horrible. Do we know when Jim moved to Ambridge? The fact that he didn’t want to touch the keyboard after wheelchair man used it, makes me think it’s some sort of abuse or sordid secret. Maybe the man was a pedophile, Jim found out, sent his kids away to boarding school for that reason. Man didn’t realise that Jim knew?
I know that’s quite a far-reaching theory!! 😂

All Jim’s references (the few he has made to Alastair & Smugula) are to shame, betrayal and turmoil. That, combined with the smashing up of the keyboard, makes it plain that wheelchair man represents the most agonising emotional pain Jim has suffered, something so devastating that it’s visceral and his normal ironic detachment utterly deserts him.
He must have been hurt incredibly deeply by this man in the past. Agree that his wife, and probably his wife’s death, is all wound up in it and he’s walled himself away emotionally to avoid thinking about it. Till now.
Poor Jim.

I have a feeling that it's abuse.

Yes, 5000, and he's always suspected that Alistair is not his son

Given the linkage to Shula's faith, hypocrisy, why does a good God allow suffering etc all points towards historical sex abuse by someone connected to the church.

But why did Harold come to the party? Because he wanted to clear the air with Jim. So he will spill the beans to Shula when she tracks him down.

I got the impression that the man was older than Jim.

I really don't think TA will run an historic SA story.

Jim's shame will be because he was cuckolded, or he thinks he was cuckolded. Harold will reveal that he wasn't after all.

Great acting this evening.

Well, whatever the story is, I hope they don't drag it out for much longer.

MontyPants
Maybe the man was a pedophile, Jim found out, sent his kids away to boarding school for that reason. Man didn’t realise that Jim knew?
I know that’s quite a far-reaching theory!!

It makes more sense than any of the others to me, because it's a suggestion that covers the neighbours not knowing that Jim would dislike him, which they would surely have known if he'd run off with Jim's wife.

I think Harold was a Shula-equivalent (churchwarden or whatever) in the Church of Scotland.

Why Scotland? Jim’s time at Stirling yoonii might well be after Alistair and his sister grew up. And that was 4 years ago. Ish.

Is it being overinfested to listen again? A second listening, that is.

What does a church warden do anyway? I think it being like the verger in Dad’s Army as that’s my only awareness of churchiness in England. I imagine that’s not quite right though.

Golly! I looked it up:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchwarden

Strong stuff for any children listening, I would have switched off if mine were.
I'd say it was sexual abuse by Harold who could be Jim's former piano teacher or choir master
Excellent acting from the actor who plays Jim.
He needed someone to keep on trying to help and not be put off by his anger and unpleasant manner which is masking a lot of hurt.

Another lurker here. Tonight’s episode actually made my 12yo DS (who normally rolls his eyes and leaves the room when he hears the music) ask me to tell him the outcome of tomorrow’s episode. I really felt for Jim

Jim's wife died in a fire, or by some other accident. Jim had a phobia of fire or whatever it was, and couldn't force himself to try to save her; therefore wheelchair man tried to save her and in doing so put himself in a wheelchair.

Jim can't face him because it brings back to him how he failed his wife. Wheelchair man doesn't see it like that, and just wants to be reconciled to Jim - maybe he feels he himself failed Jim's wife by not managing to save her and wants Jim's forgiveness.

I loved Jim laying into Smugula for her hypocrisy. No holds barred!

Maybe the writers can get some ideas for future SLs by reading wikipedia’s church warden page.