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.

[StVincent]

They had coercive control and rape just a couple of years ago. It wouldn’t be dealt with explicitly but they certainly might do it.

I really want it to be something else but I agree the “polluted” or whatever it was keyboard does suggest it.

[LillianGish]

Could it be a boys boarding school type abuse by a slightly older boy who believed what they were doing was in some way consensual? I’m still trying to work out why Harold would turn up uninvited having done this “evil” thing. Also why would Jim then send his own kids to boarding school - I’m sensing he did this to keep them away from Harold.

[ppeatfruit]

Ironic that a poster thinks Jim would send his children to boarding school to escape abuse, that certainly isn't\wasn't the case all the time . Also they'd return in the holidays when it would be more likely.

Maybe Harold tried it on with Jim's wife while giving her piano lessons or something. Al and Fiona would have been aware of Harold's intentions if he's a child abuser.

[Notcopingwellhere]

I hope the big reveal comes soon, getting fed up with them drawing it out.

[LillianGish]

Al and Fiona would have been aware of Harold's intentions if he's a child abuser. Indeed - Al and Fiona didn’t seem to know Harold at all.

[LillianGish]

I hope the big reveal comes soon, getting fed up with them drawing it out. Me too - and I hope it turn out to be more than the fact that Harold put paid to Jim’s early piano playing hopes by winning his piano off him in a bet and then trapping his fingers in the lid thus preventing Jim from taking lessons until much later in life. Seeing Harold with Kiki was too much for Jim and then the final insult was learning that he played the keyboard at the party - and brilliantly, having taken lessons since childhood (something he denied to Jim).

[BertrandRussell]

Roifield says that the actor who plays Alasdair says it’ll be resolved by the end of this week.

[MereDintofPandiculation]

As for Jim, was that supposed to be his 80th birthday? I thought it was his 75th. But that'd mean Alistair was probably no more than 55 which would make him young for Shula.

[R4]

It's funny how we can ascribe different motives, depending on whether we like a person or not. Somebody said upthread that Shula going on about the party was a case of her trying to make it 'all about meeeee'. I thought that she was trying to make Jim understand that the party was her idea and therefore not to lay any blame on Alistair.

[MikeUniformMike]

Alastair is younger than Shula but only by about 3 yrs I think.
Given that Al is 57, it is quite possible that Jim might be a youngish dad. I can't remember if Fiona us younger than Al.

[BuckingFrolics]

I'm learning to love Shula. How many of us would take the stuff she took from Jim, and keep going? She did demonstrate the Christian virtues of patience,forgiveness, charity and love, in the face of a brutal verbal attack.

Jim was brilliantly acted. He was terrible in his hostility and baiting of Shula, tragic in all that grief and hurt and loss seeping through the cracks of his defences.

Loved the three generations of SusanEmmurKirwa in the cafe.

If there is a word - and there probably is - for eargripping, last night's episode was it.

[MikeUniformMike]

I agree with r4 but I like Shula. She is well acted, as is Jim.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Alistair has a date of birth on his Radio 4 page, and it's in September 1962. Jim has no date of birth given. I'm sure he's more than 75 as Alistair would then have been born when he was only 18, which seems extremely unlikely. For an aspiring academic fatherhood at 23 seems a touch early too, which is why I was wondering about 85. Given this is TA though, it's entirely possible they were making a tremendous fuss about Jim's 82nd birthday for no reason at all.

I was hoping Asking would remember, as she seems to have an exhaustive knowledge of TA! Mine is erratic.

Good suggestion, Lillian, as ever!

[C8H10N4O2]

Or is he simply unaware of Jim’s trauma?

The use of the word "evil" from someone like Jim and the severe reaction would suggest something would suggest Harold is aware to me.
Going uninvited to a party where you know someone hates or fears you is the act of someone who has no fear of being uncovered. If it really was something evil eg being the boy a couple of years older who abused Jim as a child and who was lurking when Alastair/Fiona were children. As pp said upthread - travelling anywhere with a wheelchair takes a lot of planning, he hasn't just popped in casually.

I wish they would close it off though. Its been going on long enough.

[Tuktuktaker]

Yes, R4, that was my take on Shula's interaction with Jim, until I came on here! I agree, BuckingFrolics, it was indeed "eargripping" . Both Jim and Shula acted their socks off, or the actors did, anyway, oh, you know what I mean!
On the Jim and Harold front, I wondered if the sight of Kiki chatting to Harold at the party was what caused Jim to storm out? That would be working on the assumption that Harold had possibly had an affair with Jim's wife which had maybe ended badly, and maybe Jim had doubts that Alistair was his own child, so Jim would have hated Harold for that and then to see him talking to the woman for whom Jim has a "faible" (sorry, can't remember if this is a word used in English or just a relic of my French family vocab and I can't recall its equivalent in English!) brought back such strong memories of betrayal that he stormed out and has been upset ever since, so Shula's mention of Kiki and Harold playing the piano together completely destroyed his already unstable equilibrium? Could it have been that Harold was somehow the cause of Jim's wife's death, as a direct result of their affair? Or did Jim discover their affair by finding them playing the piano together in compromising circumstances? (Could "playing the piano together" be a euphemism?)
It's all very odd, but a lot more interesting than Peggy's ridiculous "let me divide and sow distress all round now I'm suddenly interested in the land" storyline.

[Tuktuktaker]

Oh, yes, and LilianGish, I really like that suggestion of the title for the new thread!

[DadDadDad]

I hope when we finally get some revelation on Harold it will live up to our speculation. This isn't just someone Jim dislikes - surely it that were the case, Jim would have simply gone up to him, made a withering remark and asked him to leave. His responses have been more atavistic*: running in horror from the party and smashing a keyboard in revulsion at its contamination.

*(ooh, get me with my long words, professor )

[LillianGish]

Tuktuktaker I absolutely love your theory - particularly the playing the piano together being a euphemism. I'm beginning to fear that the reality will never live up to our speculation .

[LillianGish]

Sorry DDD - I realise you just said that .

[Isatis]

Somebody said upthread that Shula going on about the party was a case of her trying to make it 'all about meeeee'. I thought that she was trying to make Jim understand that the party was her idea and therefore not to lay any blame on Alistair.

Absolutely, and I'm sure that's how the SWs intended it. I'm not normally Team Shula, but I am on this one. Jim was obviously looking for the most offensive things he could possibly say to her to drive her away, just as he did with Alastair, and it's all credit to her that she sucked that up and kept going - because leaving Jim alone obviously hasn't been achieving anything.

[BertrandRussell]

Roifieldm says the Alasdair actor said that he hasn’t seen the real storyline speculated about on social media anywhere.....

[GeorgeTheBleeder]

Bert & Roifield in a treeee

K I . . . . .



Belated BOOP for last night.

Impressive titling Lil’G

[BertrandRussell]

Roifield is my secret love......

[ppeatfruit]

Yes Dadx3 I just LA and his voice changes , lightens a little, after he smashed the music centre. Certainly good acting there from them both. He's like the soldiers from the the 2 World Wars, not giving voice to his terrible experience, hoping it'll just go away. Shula was right to push him.

[LadyRannaldini]

I was pleased to hear Jim pointing out her utter hypocrisy, at complaining about how much he's hurt Al.

I almost cheered when he dragged her off her self-styled pedestal, how dare she force herself into Jim's home, whatever his problems might be! Had he slapped her as an intruder he would have perfectly within his rights.
If Alistair had respected his father's wishes in the first place none of this would have happened.