💥 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.

Emma works too she still manages to do the home, school stuff, she should never have gone back to Ed.

@C8H10N4O2

I was a little surprised that a school would suggest that a child of eight should ask someone who had been there what VE day was like; it was 75 years ago, so they'd need someone over 80

Also assumes that they had grandparents in this country (or at least Western Europe). God forbid a village in the midlands acknowledge its wider community.

I moaned about the assumption that everyone had a Dad's Army type experience of the 2nd World War too C8H10N402. I'd expect a village in commuting distance of Birmingham to be more diverse. That was why I thought MikeUniformMike's suggestion that the Gill's could be an Asian family was inspired. I suspect Gasp0de is right (as she invariably is) that they would have made more of VE day commemorations had it not been for coronavirus.

Sheep shearing is an actual job, though, and hard work at this time of year. They weren't doing it just for giggles.

Emma has an actual job too. Several of them usually. She is also doing all the housework, laundry and home schooling not because Ed was at actual work but because when he is at home he is too preoccupied going on about it to do anything around the caravan.

I find it depressing but a familiar story. Emma has given up her dreams of a secure roof for her children, her hopes of bettering her lot in life, any expectations on Ed to pull his weight in his own home and even her beloved coffee table because all that matters is keeping Ed happy so that he doesn't leave her again.

I'd expect a village in commuting distance of Birmingham to be more diverse. That was why I thought MikeUniformMike's suggestion that the Gill's could be an Asian family

I agree. I'm not Midlands based but have had many clients there. Those company's black and South Asian professional staff were as likely to live in a mix of suburbia or the commutable villages as their white peers. I was moderately hopeful for a while that the new owners of Home Farm would reflect this.

My mother is 75 and was still a baby on VE day. I doubt she would remember it.

My mother's in her eighties and experienced WWII far away from the UK. If Ambridge did have any 'more diverse' elderly residents it would have been nice to hear their war recollections too ...

(It didn't only affect or happen in Western Europe!)

company's

Companies' not company's. Must sack the prrofreader.

It's a not unusual surname where I live - an urban area with a high percentage (approx 40 %) of the population Asian. I wondered if they picked a surname that would sound British but would give them the option of introducing diversity.

I've posted before that some of the surnames are a bit weird. Charlie Thomas of Scottish descent (Thomson, surely) , and Jim Lloyd (Gray) and Solomon Pritchard (Richardson) from Northumberland, yet Welsh Pat was Lewis (not unusual as a Welsh surname) , and the Twirling Moustachioed Mosses are welsh but their surname isn't. I can't remember what Natasha's surname was, wasn't she previously married to Trevor?

Sorry, Jim isn't from Northumberland, I think he's from North Yorshire or County Durham

Jim is from Melrose, most recently, and was a professor at Stirling. His having a Welsh surname seems slightly perverse, really.

Natasha was Natasha Thomas before her marriage, and nobody wondered aloud (or here as far as I know) whether she was related to Charlie.

Gill as an English surname isn't that unusual: the typeface Gill Sans, and the front of Broadcasting House, bear witness to at least one Gill having been here before WWII. According to a website I just found while looking for it, "Approximately 286,549 people bear this surname" -- which makes me wonder how the hell they know, and also to think that it seems a remarkably exact figure for an approximation.

I had no idea there were that many Gills. At least there was nothing fishy about the table.

It's a not unusual surname where I live - an urban area with a high percentage (approx 40 %) of the population Asian.
In the last census in 2011, 80% of the population were white British. Can you not see that if your neck of the woods - a typical urban area - has 40% (much higher than average) then the likes of Ambridge - a typical rural area - will be much lower than the average? BAME are not evenly distributed across the UK.

No, can't see it at all, R4.

I thought that I had gone to some really freaky school because out of approx 1200 pupils, I think only 5 were mixed race.

If Home Farm had been bought by a family called Lee, I would have suggested that perhaps they were South-East Asian not British.

No, can't see it at all, R4.
I can't tell if you are being serious or not.

"Approximately 286,549 people bear this surname" -- which makes me wonder how the hell they know, Birth, marriage, death records? Telephone directories? Depends what big databases are accessible.

MikeUniformMike
If Home Farm had been bought by a family called Lee, I would have suggested that perhaps they were South-East Asian not British.

Whereas I would have assumed they were either travellers who had decided to settle after making a packet, or from Sussex. Lots of Lees in Sussex, going back centuries.

BAME are not evenly distributed across the UK

Nor are they entirely absent from nice commuter villages in the Midlands.

@MikeUniformMike

If Home Farm had been bought by a family called Lee, I would have suggested that perhaps they were South-East Asian not British.

This reminds me of a story that my colleague told me- his name is Lee, family is very White British from Kent or Sussex or similar. On arriving at immigration in Vancouver (which has a huge Chinese immigrant population) he was taken aside and questioned as to why he had a Chinese name in his passport .

My Spanish teacher, Mr Jones was stopped entering Spain. Remember the blue passports with your initials and surname on the cover? The initils were C.O.

R4, it was deadpan. Where I live is not representative of the whole of the UK, and neither is where I grew up.

I meant that we probably have an idea of what someone looks like based on name and how we know of them.

That sounds apocryphal Mike but I love it

It's true! The initials were C.A, not C.O, but they asked him if it was a joke.

So glad I took Spanish at GCSE!

I wish we'd actually got Peggy's, as she was a young woman during the war, so that would have been another perspective.

We had a whole storyline around it. Con the GI. I think teenage Kate found a load of letters in the attic and wrote to Con and he came to visit Ambridge as a result. I may be misremembering - it was several years ago.

Sheep shearing is an actual job

Shearing competitions are a thing, too. They see how many sheep they can shear in 5 minutes. I think shearers are paid per sheep shorn, aren't they? So the quicker you can get through them and on to the next job, the more money you can make.