Archers thread #112: Quelle beau de lollox! And yet we stick with it. Discuss The Archers here.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

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 Alf to stay around, 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 @DoctorTwo for the thread title! I was strongly tempted by R4's suggestion of Wildlife on Four: Jonneh is wild at Lily, Phoebe rewilds by Occam, Joy is in the wilderness and David is bewildered by a marriage proposal.

So we did make it past Joe's funeral at last. Are we heading for a Christmas octogenarian wedding now?

[Fink]

[My expert knowledge of the contents of an Oxford PPE course, thank you LillianGish for the compliment, is evidently not matched by any such expertise as to which careers pay well nowadays. Turns out the being a semi-permanent student and working for the church are not the best ways into the world of corporate advancement ]

[C8H10N4O2]

Blimey. You expect a lot of 18 year olds, don't you?

18 year old girls at least.

Lily didn't set herself up as a saint any more than Freddie. The fact that she could be groomed by a teacher in her own school and nobody noticed was odd. Elizabeth has never had to worry about Lily - she worked hard at school, got her exam results, worked her socks off to help Elizabeth build Freddie's inheritance since she was able to update a calendar.

Freddie always had more of Elizabeth's focus because he was the problem child and the heir. Its a common enough problem - the good child or the child who doesn't need anything specific often does miss out. I don't think it was deliberate on Elizabeth's part, its a common situation. However it did set her up for the approaches of someone like Russ and the lying to hide the situation is the common response amongst young girls being groomed. To suggest a young victim of grooming has agency and is responsible entirely for their situation and behaviour is bordering on victim blaming.

[C8H10N4O2]

One poster has used one of those terms

Lucky I didn't say anything otherwise then.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

That's very sad about Colin Skipp, Jaichangecentfoisdenom (have you counted them, by the way?). I always liked the way he played Tony too, and that scene was a landmark.

[MissBarbary]

Lily didn't set herself up as a saint any more than Freddie

She so did. Lily loved the compare and contrast with useless Freddy.

[MissBarbary]

To suggest a young victim of grooming has agency and is responsible entirely for their situation and behaviour is bordering on victim blaming

Oh fgs - are women never responsible for their own stupid mistakes?

[BertrandRussell]

“ Oh fgs - are women never responsible for their own stupid mistakes?”

Yes. However, not when they are 17 and targeted by a predatory middle aged authority figure.

[Jaichangecentfoisdenom]

There's no report that I can find from the Beeb about his death, Gasp0de, but this was posted yesterday by one David Graham (Tom Graham's father, I understand) to the Archers Addicts FB page: "I had a message this morning from the original Tom Archer to tell me that Colin Skipp ( the original Tony Archer ) had passed away. RIP Colin." He did retire because of ill-health, though.
(Apart from quite a number of name changes for various reasons in my own life, though they may not yet amount to a hundred, I am particularly fond of Leonard Cohen's version of "The Partisan". My father fought in the French Resistance and was captured and interned in Spain, but one roll call, forgot the Canadian name he had changed to for camouflage and was promptly sent back to Vichy France. He eventually got some sort of medal for his efforts but being a pacifist at heart, wasn't all that proud of it.)

[ppeatfruit]

Lily approached Russ about having her Gwen John painting valued. He wasn't her teacher. (ok I know he was the deputy Head and shouldn't have done it , but that's sex innit?) I get the feeling that he was a bit of a trophy where she was concerned. Now the shine has worn off more than a bit.

But then it probably was an exciting secret from nearly all her friends.

[AskingQuestionsAllTheTime]

RIP Colin Skipp, who played Tony from 1967 until he had to stop in 2013 because of his health. He was a good actor.

Until Freddie finally got his mother's attention and adoration by breaking the law and being sent to prison, he had always played second fiddle with her to his sister, with whom Elizabeth had a cosy "Oh, can't you talk to Freddie and get him to do what I tell him? I can't get through to him" relationship. As witness Elizabeth's complete inability to listen to anything Freddie ever said about what he wanted in the way of schooling and her insistence that he had to take A-levels, for which he was completely unsuited -- and as a result of which he fell into the clutches of the local drug-dealer, after being urged into dealing by his cousin: neither would have happened if instead of being at the local sixth form college he had been doing something more suited to his intellect and prospective life, such as a course in estate management or an apprenticeship at another house open to the public.

Freddie was the one who went out and got a menial job fruit-picking during the summer two years running while Lily lived happily on the allowance that her mother gave her.

Lily and Freddie are not eighteen; they will be twenty on election day. I do hope they are planning to vote for the first time! And Lily was not seventeen when she took up with Russ, either: she was very clear that she had been an adult at the time, and although she was a habitual liar when she saidit I believe her about that, because she didn't get the Gwen John picture that they bonded over until her eighteenth birthday.

[birdsdestiny]

I think it might be those of us who work with young people just find it so unbelievably creepy. He was in a position of power over lily. As presumably did the college who investigated him.

[MissBarbary]

Blimey. You expect a lot of 18 year olds, don't you?

I expect them to make mistakes. I expect them not to lie whether deliberately or by omission.

[birdsdestiny]

. Crikey I lied to my parents by omission every day at that age. As did every teenager I knew.

[BertrandRussell]

I think there might be a bit of projection going on - I think I’ll come back later when things have calmed down a bit.

[WheresThatCatGoneNow]

So that's Roman Trench then!

I've been wondering when he would turn up

[LizziesTwin]

Signing in late. Hope to catch up soon

[LillianGish]

Roman Trench - should be an archaeologist.

[MadameButterface]

Great posts on this thread @C8H10N4O2 👏🏻

[StrictlyNameChangin]

What @birdsdestiny said. He was in a position of power over a very young woman, and she had been a child during the time he had been her teacher. Teachers get into serious trouble for dating students even if they wait until they're over 18 and out of their charge for a good reason.

[StrictlyNameChangin]

• not her teacher I know but same difference.
  
  She was young and foolish - he should have stayed the fuck away from a student.

[Pierrettelasanguinaire]

Well, he didn't. And it was legal, carefully set up to be so with her 18th birthday Gwen John being the reason she approached him in the first place. He'll never work in teaching again, but there has been no offence committed.
As to Lily, I am sticking with 'rancid'. She has always been unpleasant. Remember her - oh poor dear thing, she was only a chiyuld - easy lies about the pregnancy test in the bin and that it was all right because Lexi was 'only a picker' (can't remember the exact words, but 'only a summer migrant worker so who gives a toss' was the gist of it)?

Mind you, she needs to get shot of Russ. Cranberries in a sausage and lentil stew? bastard

[ppeatfruit]

Miss Barbary IMO and E being an adult is having learnt the valuable lesson of lying convincingly in all shades.

[MikeUniformMike]

Fruit has no place in a stew.

[ppeatfruit]

No I quite agree about fruit in a stew Mike That's reflux on a plate

[LillianGish]

The fact that she could be groomed by a teacher in her own school and nobody noticed was odd This is what I can’t get away from - we are supposed to just accept this, but it still seems unbelievable to me that there wouldn’t have been more fuss. Whatever Lily’s age, the fact remains he was deputy head of a college in a small town. Everything about Borsetshire is small town, so it seems astonishing that he can now be working in a public facing role in one of the principle local attractions or that he even suggested accompanying Lily to a party where he knew there would be loads of his ex students. Not only that, he moved seamlessly into LL where he was pretending to support Lizzy after Freddy went to prison with no hint that he was part of the reason Freddy ended up there in the first place and no sign that Lizzy will ever find out. It doesn’t matter how old Lily is or how grown up she seems - CMR is a creep and judging by the age of his wife, it’s not the first time he’s done it. If they had relocated to Manchester as planned I could just about swallow it, but they are living in Ambridge where the pool is so small you can spot infidelity in the background of a photo taken in your local pub.