💥 Archers thread #119: Has the Bull reopened? Will Ambridge pull through? We’ve all dozed off and haven't a clue. Moan about the monologues 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 we should have monologues all the time from now on, 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/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 PPE on the last thread for the title suggestion, which I tweaked a bit.

As for the current state of affairs: here's how it could have been done. www.youtube.com/channel/UCvRSVdfQWAjNhNu1AtABYjw Nigel Pargetter returns, albeit in spectral form. I loved these.

I don't love the current set up. Very, very hit and miss for me - but I am too much of an addict to give it up. Looking for a silver lining, maybe the rather clunky trot through the Aldridge family tree last night was helpful to newer listeners. It is rather convoluted. In 12.5 minutes they managed to explain that Adam and Debbie are Jennifer's children by different fathers, that Debbie's father Roger Travers-Macy adopted Adam, that after he and Jenny divorced she married Brian and that he (secretly) loves Adam and not nearly so secretly adores Debbie. I don't think they explicitly stated that Kate and Alice are Brian's children with Jenny, but they did manage to squeeze in a mention of Siobhan and Ruairi, and explain that Xander is Adam's son by a surrogate and has no genetic connection to either Brian or Xander's other father Ian. Phew!

But Roysnewshirt, (I checked Alice's age because I couldn't remember exactly.) She was born 29 September 1988 - so she's almost 32. IIRC life as a young professional in a big city morphs into 'fixing up a beautiful 17th century house in a village' at around that age - as a mark of professional / social / reproductive success.

She has missed out on city life, certainly. But wouldn't most people prefer a free house on their own land in rural bliss?

Phoebe, on the other hand ... Now, that's a ridiculous waste of a story.

Roysnewshirt she's lying to her husband, hiding bottles and drinking at work. Her life is becoming unmanageable and the wheels are starting to come off (lost her job, fallen out with her in-laws, what next?). Boredom may be part of the cause for sure, but she's a bright young woman and could be doing well at PB and planning for her future.

She was born 29 September 1988 - so she's almost 32. IIRC life as a young professional in a big city morphs into 'fixing up a beautiful 17th century house in a village' at around that age

I agree with this as night follows day. However, as Alice hasn’t lived life in the fast lane yet she is struggling with life on the hard shoulder with Chris.

True dat.

The SWs have been cruel to her - the Canada debacle in particular. Because it's not as if they provided her with any vital or entertaining story in Ambridge to justify keeping her there.

I have been so caught up in the 'for goodness sake, scriptwriters, one of the very few professional women in Ambridge and you have to give her the alcohol storyline' that I've ignored the points cameocat, roysnewshirt and PersephonePromotesEquinamity make about Alice's upbringing and professional and peer pressure. I can imagine a drinking culture at Price Bauman in which the line between acceptable 'hard' drinking and unacceptable dependence is very blurred.

Alice is also used to being the 'successful' one among her peer group in Ambridge. Is that why she is less bothered by peers fixing up beautiful 17th houses? She would have to take over Arkwright Hall from Lynda and Robert or move to another village!

Going back to Alice's upbringing, Jenny made the choice to stick with Brian and has not really worked outside the home. We don't know much about why Alice is so much less keen than Chris on starting a family, although I guess Kate as sibling and mother would put anyone off. Anyway, more complicated than I thought so thanks posters.

Oh yes, one last thing, I think Adrian Chiles said he had cut down dramatically after the programme. He has definitely written about doing lots of breadmaking and balcony gardening during lockdown.

Alice is also used to being the 'successful' one among her peer group in Ambridge. Is that why she is less bothered by peers fixing up beautiful 17th houses? She would have to take over Arkwright Hall from Lynda and Robert or move to another village!

That wasn't quite my point, nettie. Alice obviously already has the beautiful home that her city peers strive for. My (not particularly vital !) observation in response to Roysnewshirt was that at her age many city professionals would be over their work hard/drink hard stage, and keen to get out of the city anyway.

Ah I see that now but I did have a momentary fantasy that Alice and Chris would start a campaign of making Robert and Lynda's life a misery so they decided to move house. Maybe Alice and Chris should have moved to Southampton when Alice finished her degree and Chris set up a forge in the New Forest.

Maybe Alice and Chris should have moved to Southampton when Alice finished her degree and Chris set up a forge in the New Forest

That would have been perfect for the young couple @nettie434. A much more suitable parallel life. It would have cut Chris’ ties to his mother’s apron strings and allowed Alice to actually have a life and the opportunity to spend time with people unrelated to her. After a few years working on her career and hanging out with her new friends at the sailing club she might have been ready to settle down and renovate the proverbial 17th century cottage and start a family. She might even have thought about going back to Ambridge at that point. Chris could have had it all. But he has been too hasty to trap her in a cage (not even that gilded) and now look what’s happened...

All very Sliding Doors...

"Alice obviously already has the beautiful home that her city peers strive for."

Well, she lives in a nineteenth century/early twentieth century labourer's cottage, one up one down. Not particularly gracious living.

The cottage doesn't belong to her and her husband; it is part of the Home Farm Estate, as was made clear on 7th May, 2017: the cottages would become part of the estate, of which Alice and Kate would own one share each of the thirteen it was to be divided into. (In April 2017 Brian explained the divi to Jennifer: "Brian and Jennifer would have 3 shares each, one share each for the children and one extra share each for Debbie and Adam as long as they are still working on the farm." Debbie was not then working on Home Farm, and had not been for some years, so she ought not to have got that extra share -- but hey, details.)

Lowfield 7th May 2017 shows Kate's reaction to no longer owning her cottage in paragraph 4. www.lowfield.co.uk/archers/daily.phtml?20170507

The Snells live in Ambridge Hall not Arkwright Hall.

And Ambridge Hall IIRC is a fairly new house, built in the 20th century.

@MikeUniformMike

The Snells live in Ambridge Hall not Arkwright Hall.

Sorry, I muddled them up. Too many As. The website describes Arkwright Hall as having a 17th c 'core'. Anyway, Asking has explained that Chris and Alice wouldn't be able to afford either anyway which is interesting in terms of the economics Of their relationship. Doesn't Chris own the smithy, Asking?

I've missed loads of monologues, but I've caught the last couple of Sunday minibuses. It feels to me as if the writers have finally found time to develop/reintroduce storylines. I think I might even be forced to admit that I am looking forward to listening to this coming week.

I can't be long before Susan, Clarrie and Jenny notice the froideur between Chris & Alice and EmundEd.

Bridge Farm and Grange Farm, and BF and Brookfield get mixed up on here. The names aren't that dissimilar.

Ambridge Hall isn't as grand as it sounds.

What is the Dower 'House the dower house to?

Who lives in Arkwright hall?

Does it still exist?

"Arkwright Hall - large Victorian house with a 17th century core
Leased to the Landmark Trust & now available to holidaymakers seeking something different."

MikeUniformMike
And Ambridge Hall IIRC is a fairly new house, built in the 20th century.

According to The Book of The Archers, "Ambridge Hall was built in the 1860s by the Lawson-Hope family as a home for the village doctor." It is made out of yellow brick and was named "Ambridge Hall" in 1973 by Laura Archer, who for no particular reason renamed any house she lived in. It was sold to the Snells in 1986 for £160,000.

Chris and Alice saved up for and bought the smithy, for no particular reason since horses don't come to Chris there; he goes to them. He is always working in some horse-owner's yard, never at the smithy except when he is making garden ornaments. (And him a farrier; it ought to be beneath him, he ought to be rushed off his feet with the shoeing jobs.) The theory was that he also bought the customer-list from the bloke who trained him, but he wouldn't have needed to do that if he was good at his job, because when the old bloke retired his customers would have gone to Chris anyway because by then they would have known him and known he was good.

As far as I know nobody knows were the smithy is, because it is not on any of the maps of Ambridge.

Thanks Asking. Why is he making garden ornaments?
They should have moved to somewhere like Newmarket.

Surely Chris would need to make the basic horseshoes at the Smithy and just do the final adjustments in the yard?

I think the idea is the Chris is quite the artist. I'm hoping he's 'discovered', as long as it doesn't involve Russ in any way.

I think that was suggested at one point in passing but they simply never said anything about it again. I remember thinking "why Newmarket? Berkshire (like Compton, Hungerford and so on) is a lot closer to Inkberrow if what you want is racehorses to shoe."

I think you buy blanks for shoes rather than making them out of a bar of iron, these days. And I also think the editorial team think Chris is a blacksmith not a farrier -- though it's a waste of a longish training for a professional qualification if that is what he is going to be.

Under the Farriers (Registration) Act 1975) nobody without the required qualifications (which Chris has) is allowed legally to shoe a horse in the UK, whereas anyone who wants to can set up making hanging baskets -- for which iron would be a poor material, I would have thought, being having and prone to rust, but hey ho.

being heavy, not being having.

Because the vet that Rex was going out with moved there and they discussed it.
Berkshire would be ideal - Newbury, Ascot and Windsor, and plenty of polo ponies to shoe.

I think the truthful answer to why Chris is a farrier is that when he was 16 the SWs thought it would be nice to have a working class cast member being properly trained for a trade, and fixed on farrier, probably because of The Stables, and maybe they did a bit of googling to see what would be involved and picked up that there was a chance Susan would get to go to a posh do when he finished his apprenticeship.

Sorry, broken the fourth wall there.