💰 Archers thread #121: Brookfield digs for treasure, Alice & Philip try to bury the truth. Dish the dirt here if you dig The Archers. PS Send nudes.

[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 long to hear Pip again, 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 @LillianGish and @PersephonePromotesEquanimity for the title suggestions.

Current events: as @Bailey0703 has astutely spotted, it's Anti-Slavery Day tomorrow - could this herald the beginning of the end of the horses storyline? I do hope so. Horrible stuff, but what a blow for Kirsty. They're laying on the dramatic irony with trowel at the moment.

What do we think will happen to Alice and Chris? I can't see this pregnancy going to term and ending well. I don't think the marriage will survive either, giving Brian a chance to revisit his classic line about having to treat this as Alice's starter marriage.

Will Elizabeth end up on a date with Vince Casey? That would put the cat among the pigeons at Lower Loxley.

Over to you ...

Let's get it in order.

When she discovered she had cancer, Siobhán left Germany for Ambridge, via Ireland to leave Ruairi with her mother. She told Brian she wanted him to look after Ruairi when she died.

She also tried to guilt Jennifer into agreeing to take him; Jennifer said "no". (I wonder how many people in AIBU would agree to take in and look after their husband's child conceived with another woman whilst he was living with them? Woman's Hour quite failed at the time to find anyone in the country who was happy to say they had done that.)

When it became clear that Siobhán was indeed quite likely to die, Brian told Jennifer that he intended to take charge of Ruairi. She understandably said it was nothing to do with her.

The pressure continued to be put on Jennifer, until five days before Siobhán's actual death she was so worn down by the whole thing that she said "oh, all right then" to Brian. She has looked after Ruairi ever since, with minimal help from Brian.

You really should write a "Compleat History of The Archers Of Ambridge" Asking.

I for one would pay good money for such a work.

It would be biased by acute distaste for many of the characters and a lot of the melodramatic storylines!

I know!

(disagree with you re Shove's CD though)

I don't feel that voices from the grave are ever a particularly good thing; Ruairi was no more hurt by his mother having died at eighteen than he had been at eight, until Siobhán elected to stir up all his grief all over again. Not, to my mind, the action of a loving person who cared an actual damn about the object of her desire to be important even in death: people grieve and then go on with their lives, and should be allowed to do so without others feeling entitled to mess with their heads.

I thought Siobhan was going to quote from the the book that Jenny bought him!

Askingquestions you appear to have the empathy of a small pebble. No wonder you don’t like any of the characters in TA.

she said "oh, all right then" to Brian. She has looked after Ruairi ever since, with minimal help from Brian

She's had a fair amount of help from boarding schools, though And don't forget that she then pretty much blackmailed him into making financial arrangements that favoured the two of her children that are not Brian's.

Hello, delurking to say that I have a memory of Siobhan asking Jenny in person to look after her son.
Have I imagined that? It is quite possible

I remember that too, Humphrey. Didn't she arrive at Jenny's door, and plead?

That whole episode (I mean over months) was just so utterly splendid.

Good grief, I never cry over drama, radio or telly.

That was, uh, quite affecting.

SOBBING

Mmm ... Listening for a second time, Siobhan's message was very well written. (The cake was a nice touch.)

And the actor is, depressingly, about a billion times better than several loitering in Ambridge.

Another BOOP for the SWs. () ()

should be allowed to do so without others feeling entitled to mess with their heads I don't think the message did mess with his head though. True he had a wobble when it arrived (as did the whole family), what what Siobhan actually said has made Ruairi feel more at ease with himself, more able to reconcile himself to what happened, knowing beyond doubt that his mum loved him and it has strengthened his relationship with Jenny by helping them both to come to terms with their relationship without having to second guess through fear of causing offence. Jenny and Ruari's relationship is now very much theirs and theirs alone - Brian's actions 19 years ago no longer really come into it. With the passage of time and in the knowledge that things have turned out OK all round Siobhan is now nothing to Jenny - she can find it in herself to feel sorry for her as a mother knowing she had to leave her four-year-old child and to love Ruairi all the more for knowing he has been deprived of his mother's love. Easier in some ways than having had to live with her husband's love child growing up with his still living mistress. Very much water under the bridge now - Jenny is free to love Ruairi as much as Brian loves Debbie and Adam.

Jenny Darling for PM

The point is that whether or not the message was actually a complete destruction of Ruairi, Siobhán had no idea how badly it might hurt him. In effect, she didn't care what harm she might be doing to someone she did not know.

Yes, Jennifer did go (at Adam's behest) and see Siobhán while Siobhan was staying at Lower Loxley Hall in April 2007. She wanted to sort out the fact that she would not be taking on the care for Ruairi, and that Brian had been lying to Siobhán about that.

Jennifer has never felt any need of Siobhán leaving aural post-it notes giving her permission to feel love for Ruairi. She has loved him of her own accord without reference to his dead mother, as any woman who adopts an orphaned child manages to do. Certainly it has been easier for her since said mother was dead and no longer around to screw up Jennifer's life.

Ruari has always known he had a biological, dead mother, as well as the circumstances of his conception and how he came to be raised by Jenny (though I don’t think they ever told us on air how that was explained to him). I think it’s a fairly reasonable assumption that an 18 year-old might react positively to a sweet message from his mother telling him how much she loved him and was proud of him. Niamh was there to act as gatekeeper if the family had noticed any serious psychological fragility on Ruari’s part (and I mean from her own observations garnered through years of interaction, not through calling Brian or Jenny and saying “do you think he’ll be OK to hear this”, which I can understand why she didn’t do).

Yes, it was going to be emotional, but that is not the same as “hurting” him. She said nothing controversial or judgmental in the recording and did not speculate how he might have been raised. I think most of us with dead parents would give anything to hear their voices again. Ruari was a bit different in that he had barely any memories, but enough others had painted a picture of Siobhan to mean that she was not blocked out of his mind altogether and he never said he wanted to deal with it that way.

@Chemenger

Askingquestions you appear to have the empathy of a small pebble. No wonder you don’t like any of the characters in TA.

Beautifully put

Can anybody remember why Siobhan DID ask Brian (who'd had no real involvement with Ruari since birth) over her sister/mother Ruari's godparents or even Dieter ( her partner in Germany)?

She had split up with Dieter by the time she was diagnosed with cancer. I remember her saying it started on her back and because she was by then single Dieter hadn't been around to notice/check it.

It made for a good SL potential. Myson v the DC and SDC.

@Darker

She had split up with Dieter by the time she was diagnosed with cancer. I remember her saying it started on her back and because she was by then single Dieter hadn't been around to notice/check it.

Gosh that rings a bell- I remember my doctor saying to me when I was single I had to ask a friend to take a regular pic of my back every few months. So depressing. It was hard enough to be single without it having the potential to kill me...

Since she only died in 2007 I'd have thought there would be plenty of videos / photos of Siobhan and Ruari around, not to mention voice recordings.
Phones were sophisticated enough then to manage most of that and many people had video cameras. I find it hard to believe he didn't know what his mother sounded like.

Less room for dramatic effect though,I suppose.

I find Ruari more and more likeable and Ben, conversely, less and less so.

Aww poor Ruairi (sp?)
That was nice...but if I were ruairi I'd be a bit cross that this CD existed for all those years and I didn't know about it.

Since she only died in 2007 I'd have thought there would be plenty of videos / photos of Siobhan and Ruari around, not to mention voice recordings.

I wondered about this, too. Probably we all did. It's slightly inconceivable that her mother and sister didn't already have some cine film/video of her, even before she became seriously ill. And once it was known that she was dying they'd surely have made it their business to preserve her voice for her son.

Unless there's something I've failed to comprehend?