💥 Archers thread #118: Back in time for The Archers - catch up with the catch up until the scriptwriters catch up! 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 think Philip Moss is in line for Employer of the Year, or other unusual views.

Spoilers: OK, there aren't likely to be many for the foreseeable future, but when we do have some, 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/3853783--The-Archers-spoilers-thread-5-Cant-wait-for-7-02pm-Join-us-here, 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 for the title! This thread starts at a very odd time for The Archers, longest-running soap opera in the world. No new episodes expected till late May , and when we do get them they're not going to sound like normal, as the actors are recording separately at home and the BBC is attempting to cobble it all together. Tough times for the sound effects team!

The BBC is filling the gap by repeating key episodes from the last 20 years. Some of us here will have heard them before, but not all, by any means, so if you want background on what you hear this is the place to ask.

Over to you! I must try to catch up with the repeats at some point today.

[nettie434]

Ian joined the dark side when he insisted that if Adam didn't acquiesce uncomplainingly and immediately in Ian's plans to provide a baby for Madds in the summer of 2006

I had forgotten that AskingQuestionsAllTheTime. Ok, I can’t complain about a sudden personality change if it’s lasted over 14 years!

I liked Kathy - a rare independent woman in Ambridge. It would also have been much more dramatically effective (in my opinion) if Kathy had been Cassandra warning Pat about Rob and not being believed.

Just heard the Kirsty wail. BOOP for that performance which was very believable.

[Roysnewshirt]

I suppose discussing the archive episodes in advance might spoil it for newer listeners who weren't around in ye olde days ... but do we have many of those?

I’m a real newbie as I only started listening soon after Rob and Helen got together. I definitely attended Adam and Ian’s wedding, so I must have come onto the scene in 2015.

Any discussion on the archive material in advance is very welcome from me. Hearing thoughts from the experts ahead of broadcast will only make it all the more enjoyable so don’t hold back on my account - please post away!

[MikeUniformMike]

Tom. Tom. My darling Tommy. Come back!

[Jaichangecentfoisdenom]

It was infuriatingly unbelievable that Pat was not confiding in Kathy when the Helen and Rob saga started. And the way Jamie the forester disappeared off the face of Ambridge was also ridiculous.

[EarringsandLipstick]

Just listened to Tom & Kirsty. I'm a relative newbie, only a few years in, so never heard this before. Kirsty was excellent in it, heartbreaking.

What happened immediately after? Really want to know. What did Helen do?

[nettie434]

Tom went to Canada EarringsandLipstick. He returned a few months later. Kirsty went on their planned honeymoon to Costa Rica. She quarrelled with Helen because Helen did not tell her that Tom was having doubts about the wedding. She then left Ambridge temporarily. Now this is where my memory fails me. I think that while Helen was away Helen met Rob who had come to work in Ambridge. He was a total psychopath and Helen stabbed him after months of abuse and coercive control and gaslighting. Kirsty and Helen were reconciled but Rob did not like Helen seeing Kirsty. Kirsty eventually gave Helen a PAYG mobile and a contact number for Refuge. She also arrived at the cottage where Helen and Rob lived just after Helen stabbed Rob and phoned an ambulance. Helen was sentenced for assault but eventually was released on appeal. Tom and Kirsty had a post trial one off encounter and Kirsty became pregnant. Tom and Kirsty were reconciled but sadly Kirsty miscarried which really put their relationship under pressure. They split up again. Tom met Natasha at a farming scholarship programme and Kirsty met Philip....

There are lots of posters with better memories than me so just look on this as a rough draft which will need refining!

[BeaLola]

I have been listening for more years than I can remember! I'm sure I used to listen to an omnibus on a Sunday evening ?

I was very young - I also remember Wagoners Walk on Radio 2. The 1st major storyline in TA I can recall properly was Pat & Polly in the car crash, then years later Caroline having doubts about her fiancé leading to the accident when Mark Hebden died. I also remember the anxst when Helen was born with her hip /leg problem etc etc etc

Despite all the years of listening I was surprised just how long ago Ian & Adams CP was.

Whilst I understand why they are replaying certain episodes at the moment I think it would have been great to go back to episode 1 and then certain other highlights over the years eg Shula & Mark, her affair with Dr Lock, Brian's reaction to Jenny's pregnancy with Alice , Oollys death etc - maybe they should load all the episodes by year and you could binge listen yourself ?

[EarringsandLipstick]

Ah thank you nettie I started listening around the time the Helen / Rob story was on. (I'm in Ireland but there was so much written/spoken about it at the time that I finally investigated the Archers and listening ever since. Took ages to get into the storyline and figure out all the connections, and I still haven't!)

I feel even more sorry for Kirsty now, with that backstory and now evil Philip 😟

[nettie434]

I know - Kirsty has definitely had a hard time. There was a typo in my explanation. It was Kirsty who went away. Helen has always lived in Ambridge. The BBC Archers website is quite good for background information. It is not always updated that well so it is better for older stuff than recent events. There are lots of people on here who have fantastic knowledge of Ambridge history (mine is a bit patchy and unreliable) so someone is bound to know the answer to any questions you have.

[MollyButton]

Rob was already on the scene before the wedding. He did his best to wreck Tom's stag night. He was foiled in sending Tom on a train to Wales and so did it to Kenton instead.
He encouraged Tom in his doubts, maybe to get rid of Kirsty?
When Tom was away Rob tried to become "essential" to the farm. I think Rob even encouraged Tom to buy non-organic feed for the pigs before Tom went to Canada. Didn't he even give Tom the connection out there?

[DadDadDad]

@nettie434 - Helen was sentenced for assault but eventually was released on appeal.

I don't think that's right. Helen was held in custody before her trial, but at her jury trial she was found not guilty and released.

[Neilsfavouritechilli]

Also I didn't think Tom and Kirsty got back together when she found out she was pregnant. He tried to reconcile (more for the sake of the baby than anything) and she turned him down.

[PerditaProvokesEnmity]

Also ... as I understood it Kirsty and Tom didn't actually get back together after Helen's release. There was a moment of hysterical bonding in the immediate aftermath, and when Kirsty found she was pregnant they agreed to co-parent. Tom and his family were delighted at the prospect of a new Archer (Peggy wrote Kirsty a large cheque for baby prep) - but she was completely horrified when he suggested they should become an actual couple. She told him plainly that she could never, ever trust him again after the wedding fiasco.

[PerditaProvokesEnmity]

Slow typing ...

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Yes, Rob was around for quite a while before the jilting. He encouraged Tom to go to Canada and gave him a contact there. While Tom was away, Rob attempted to take over the running of the pig business and fed the pigs non-organic feed. He was of course also attempting to run Ambridge Organics with Helen, steadily edging her out of her own business, and making a dreadful mess of that too. I completely agree how ludicrous it was that Kathy was never mentioned throughout that entire saga. As Pat's best friend she would have seen what was happening and tried to say something.

Helen was on remand for months. As I recall the stabbing was April and the trial was September. While she was on remand she made friends with another young woman prisoner, whose name I've now forgotten, who also had children. She gave birth to Jack while still on remand and had him with her in a mother and baby unit at the prison. Henry was with Rob at Blossom Hill Cottage, along with Rob's appalling mother, Ursula. At the trial Helen's barrister, Anna Tregorran, finally managed to get Helen to admit what up to that point only the listeners knew - Rob had raped Helen repeatedly and the pregnancy with Jack was the result. What with that and the evidence of the coercive control the jury decided (rather implausibly) that she was Not Guilty of Attempted Murder.

Rob tried to get the right to see Jack regularly and to keep Henry with him, but none of that worked. Not altogether credible legally possibly, but dramatically necessary, in my view.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

It was a gripping storyline in some ways, but I think it was a mistake to let it take over the programme to the extent it did. The week of the trial was odd. Various celebrities did guest appearances as members of the jury and we heard their deliberations. All a bit of an ego trip for Sean O'Connor, the Editor at the time, and having garnered all the plaudits he left for EastEnders (didn't last long there IIRC, and I'm afraid I was rather pleased about that).

[PerditaProvokesEnmity]

Is anyone here also a Coronation St follower? I don't even own a TV but I'm aware they're doing a coercive control & retaliation story atm. I've seen the critical moment in online reviews and I gather the build up was similarly gripping.

[R4]

hysterical bonding
arf. I've never heard it called that before!

I think that it was Tom who fed the pigs non-organic feed. At the behest of Rob, admittedly, but it was Tom wot done it i.e. went against his own principles. The organicness of the pigs-for-sausages was ditched a few years ago IIRC. Tom is not very principled (he has cheated on his womenfolk before now).
Rob arranged for to Tom to go to Canada. Tom disappeared and nobody knew where he was apart from Rob, who didn't tell the family.

[EBearhug]

Helen has always lived in Ambridge.

Didn't she have a year or so away, during which she learnt to make cheese? Part of her dairying qualification.

[AskingQuestionsAllTheTime]

There was never any actual evidence that Rob had encouraged Tom to use feed for his pigs that the Soil Association had not approved; we just assumed it because he'd done so much shady and dubious stuff by then, and because he took full advantage of Tom's absence.

The strange thing about the occasion was that the Soil Association made no attempt to find out for how long Tom's pigs had been polluting the land at Bridge Farm with unapproved shit from unapproved feed, and did not test the soil in any way to see whether it needed to be kept aside for three years before it was able to receive their certification again: they just said "Get rid of the evil non-organic pigs and carry on", as far as we could tell. Certainly that was all that Pat and Tony had to do.

[AskingQuestionsAllTheTime]

Helen was away at Reaseheath College for three years, and in Ireland for the summer after John's death -- the whole story she told Ian about having been a prop and support to her parents when John died was cobblers, because she wasn't there apart from the week of his funeral. The person who did support them was Hayley, which was why Hayley had to be got rid of by Helen as soon as Helen deigned to come back.

[AlexCabot]

Just listened to last nights. Kirsty's howl of despair woke the dog up. He was not amused.

[nettie434]

I knew there were bits in my summary that would need amending! I do like this collective reenactment.

I don't think that's right. Helen was held in custody before her trial, but at her jury trial she was found not guilty and released.

Oh yes, that’s right DadDadDad. At the time I remember Anna Soubry tweeting that as a barrister, she had never known of an instance when a woman with two very young children would have held on remand and not bailed for a non fatal stabbing.

Ebearhug I am always dismissing Helen as an artisanal cheesemaker. This is yet another example of my unfairness to Helen.

Gasp0de, MollyButton, R4 and PPE - I had forgotten the gradual Rob takeover at Bridge Farm and the non organic pig feed. At the time, I kept on hoping it would all lead to the Unmasking of Rob. I am clearly very fickle!

Re coercive control in Corrie, I do hope it doesn’t involve Helen as I think she has appeared on the programme! However, apparently her character in Corrie is much more humorous than Helen so let’s hope she does not have to go through this twice.

[PerditaProvokesEnmity]

I am always dismissing Helen as an artisanal cheesemaker.

Isn't she the very definition of an artisan? She's received instruction and has practised her craft for a considerable amount of time. Definitely not to be dismissed (whatever the failings in her character)!

Not sure how people are positioned in any hierarchy of artisanal achievement - talent or length of experience or relative prestige of mentors? Presumably she's operating at a much higher level (in terms of recognition) than Toby with Scruff Gin, but it's hard to tell how their incomes/profit compare.

Who else comes under this definition in Ambridge? Upcycling is presumably a craft - but Fallon is entirely self-taught isn't she? There ought to be hundreds of them ...

[R4]

Who else comes under this definition in Ambridge?
Are you restricting it to those who do it for a living? There are plenty of skilled amateur cooks and gardeners of all descriptions - see the F&P Show.
But there should be more artisans in Borsetshire, the sort who set up kitchen-table companies making items to sell at craft fairs and employing their SAHM friends.