🐴 Archers thread 124: And they're off! Pip on a high horse, Kirsty champing at the bit to find the lost ‘horses’, Alice on the wagon (or is she riding for a fall?). 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 Shula would make a brilliant vicar, 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 @PoulePouletteEternellement for the equine theme to the new thread title. I wanted to work in Rex being a dark horse and lots of others too, but (you may feel fortunately) there's a character limit for the title.

I wonder if this thread will see us through to the end of February. The last one filled up in under a month, which was like old times. All depends on what delights are in store for us in the coming weeks, I suppose. I'm hoping that Gavin has spilled the beans on Victoria, she's also arrested, and the lads are found. Having said that, I'm not confident that in the real world they would get the support and care they need to turn their lives around and get proper jobs. It was good to hear on the last thread from @Trickyboy, who has professional experience of investigating this vile crime. Any comments on how things turn out in the long run for those rescued?

I can’t shift the thought implanted by a PP that Natasha has bought the slaves...

But Natasha would surely have to be a self-acknowledged gang master to do that? As I understand it the horses would have been 'sold' to someone who knowingly keeps people in enslaved conditions. So unless Natasha was already part of that circuit she wouldn't have been aware of them as horses.

I guess it's possible she might have come into contact with them and employed them in the normal, legal way - but that seems highly unlikely.

Presumably Kirsty knows Gavin has turned himself in, which suggests he accepts his guilt.

I have missed this important detail. I know Philip is in jail but I thought Gavin had just disappeared ... can anyone corroborate please?

My listening has been a bit patchy the last few weeks.

Philip complained to Shula that the police wouldn't let him speak to Gavin and had taken him somewhere else. He wanted her to get Gavin to come and see him, I think, or her to go and see Gavin for him. Something of the sort, anyhow.

It was in the phone call on 19th January: "Gavin has handed himself in and is telling a pack of lies, and he needs to talk to Gavin to convince him how wrong he is. Shula is glad he is being kept from convincing Gavin of his truth. Philip says bitterly that he would be better off dead."

Thank you.

So presumably Gavin will have told the police that the lads have been sold on?

You'd think so, wouldn't you. Also to whom, and if he doesn't happen to know her address he knows the (unusual) car she drives, and possibly even its number.

What's the betting we'll all just have started accepting that we don't need to be near a radio for 7.02pm on a Friday and Sunday, when the Beeb restores normal TA service?
Sigh.

Gavin may have told the police those things, but whether they or he would have told Kirsty is a different matter

So presumably Gavin will have told the police that the lads have been sold on?

I may just not have remembered correctly but were they not quoting figures in the vicinity of £30 price wise? I remember thinking that wouldn't cover the petrol money for the cited hour jourrney to and from the delightful Victoria.

Did I miss a zero off the prices or something else in the logic of trading the boys?

Did I miss a zero off the prices or something else in the logic of trading the boys?
I think that Blake was £30. The other two may have been more.
However, I should imagine that once the boys were no longer under Philip's control then they were more trouble than they were worth. They might run home to family, blab to authorities, drop him in it.
I can quite easily see the opposite scenario - where Victoria could probably charge Philip to take them off his hands!

I can quite easily see the opposite scenario - where Victoria could probably charge Philip to take them off his hands!

Yes makes sense. I was just thinking of costs of selling and not thinking of the risk factor in keeping them.

I can't help but feel that the way they stressed how awful Victoria was will return as something awful happening to one of the boys.

Yes, it was Blake who was £20, because he was damaged goods.

If Kirsty's that desperate to find them, you'd think she might have tried writing to Gavin to ask what he knew.

I assume Kirsty had no idea where Gavin was (no one did, till he turned himself in.) She presumably had his phone number, but not an address. I imagine she had tried calling/texting, and he hadn't responded.

Also, she might not be aware of how much he knows. Wasn't she told he spent lockdown at his mother's, rather than with the boys? I don't know if she knows he was with Philip when they drove the boys to Victoria. And while Philip has probably been blaming Gav left, right and centre, if she's heard any of that (and I don't think they've spoken since the arrest, have they?) then she'll have no idea if any of it can be believed or not.

If Victoria has got word of Philip and Gavin being busted by the cops then I don't think it's looking good for the lads ...

Perhaps Victoria has put them back on the streets, in which case Kirsty's searching might pay off.

Unlikely, since they were taken at least an hour's drive away and she is looking for them in Borchester, a place in which they never were on the streets.

I realised that flaw the moment I posted!

Natasha was sounding like a really good friend to Kirsty, offering practical help rather than unwanted advice.
I enjoyed the rain while they were both sat in Natasha's car.

Natasha was sounding like a really good friend to Kirsty, offering practical help rather than unwanted advice

I agree. I've always quite liked Natasha - warts and all. Possibly because of the warts.

I'd like to hear more of her and let her develop into a rounded character instead of adjunct to whiny Tom.

@EBearhug

I assume Kirsty had no idea where Gavin was (no one did, till he turned himself in.) She presumably had his phone number, but not an address. I imagine she had tried calling/texting, and he hadn't responded.

But she can write to him now he's in custody. I believe there are mechanisms for tracing where people on remand are held.

Should we assume Shula has got round to sharing this information with her?

That he is on remand, I mean.

Should we assume Shula has got round to sharing this information with her?

I can't imagine she hasn't - she spilled her guts about it to anyone who would listen.

Someone upthread asked about confidentiality - since in her conversation with Elizabeth she made it clear she went in her capacity a A Christian Minister rather than a social call surely she shouldn't be discussing it with anyone other than Alan/church mentor?

Did the local papers report Phil's arrest? If so, they're quite likely to report Gavin's also.