🌱 Archers thread #131: A time to plant, a time to reap. 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 also have a few millions lying around you're not sure how to invest, or other unusual things.

Spoilers: not on this thread, please. We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the week night episodes, but we do try our best to avoid cross-contamination from www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/4197199--The-Archers-spoilers-thread-6-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 @Roysnewshirt and @Edmontine for title suggestions, and apologies to anyone I’ve missed or forgotten. In the end, inspired by Edmontine's idea and a brief discussion at the end of the last thread, I remembered that it's autumn now and the Ambridge farmers are presumably sowing barley, winter wheat, potatoes etc, so I found myself recollecting Ecclesiastes 3 (King James version) - my Church of Scotland upbringing has a lot to answer for. This led me back to one of my favourite numbers by The Byrds (written by Pete Seeger):

Roysnewshirt suggested Prayer cards, rehab, a glass of scotch, a bowl of chilli or even a dish of lasagne…we offer a range of solutions here to help you solve any Ambridge problem - large or small etc etc, which is as good a point as any to start this thread. Do we think Neil and Susan are solid again? Will Alice relapse? Will Shula confess all to the Bishop?

Reflecting on last night's offering, Edmontine said I’m musing on Baby steps … - but we need the culmination of Alice’s story this week. We have a new nurse in training, a possibly resigning midwife settling in Ambridge, Xander, Martha, Alice somewhere trying to find her feet sans grog, Shula trying to find her saintly feet sans Neil …B(ill)eth & Ben. Lots and lots of newness. Stir in Three’s blood and jam …

The blood and jam made me laugh. A lot. Just as well, as the storyline that line inspired is pants.

Over to you!

No

thanks @WhoppingBigBackside - to the point

I have now LAd @Prestissimo, it was ok and you'll probably enjoy it. I think we are meant to expect a dedding

Maybe it's misdirection and a very young person is for the chop. I nominate Pip.

Re the direction of flow of the Am - being under an invisible forcefield may be having an effect. It certainly has on the cognitive capacity of all who reside within it.

Pip dedding herself through her arrogance and incompetence would do nicely

Continuity has just mentioned 'a shock for Ruth' in tonight's ep. Sunday was definitely elegiac.

Dedding on a Monday? Sacrilege.

What great start to the week if it were Pip though

So many great potential storylines with custody battles over Rosie, and Toby not being bothered and Rex realising that he always loved Pip and could happily (if unrealistically) look after his niece. And Josh not wanting to be bothered with the farm because his parents are horrible to him and Ben being a nurse and so there’s no heir apparent at Brookfield.

I’m really warming to this idea. Which inevitably means it won’t happen.

Rex farming Backside because of Pip being dedded. I like it.

The shock will probably be David and Ruth coming back after a hard day's work to find that Jill has left them a peetsah and ooven chips for their tea.

In true Johnny Briggs style, my Mum, who is a life long listener to the Archers says that:

Christine Archer/Johnson/Barford was running riding stables with Grace i/Archer in 1956. These are the stables Shula eventually bought from Christine.
Lilian started riding in1961 when her parents bought her a pony. In 1965 Lilian began to help Valerie Woolley to run the stables at Grey Gables. In 1966 Lilian set up her own stables. She left Ambridge, came back and continued with her own stables. As far as I can ascertain, Lilian never ran the stables that Christine had and sold to Shula.

That is my Mum's thoughts on the Lillian/Christine/Shula Stables question.

Book. Page 47; Trouble at The Bull,1966. Page 67; Moving On, 1975

@siegriedswaistcoat

In true Johnny Briggs style, my Mum, who is a life long listener to the Archers says that:

Christine Archer/Johnson/Barford was running riding stables with Grace i/Archer in 1956. These are the stables Shula eventually bought from Christine.
Lilian started riding in1961 when her parents bought her a pony. In 1965 Lilian began to help Valerie Woolley to run the stables at Grey Gables. In 1966 Lilian set up her own stables. She left Ambridge, came back and continued with her own stables. As far as I can ascertain, Lilian never ran the stables that Christine had and sold to Shula.

That is my Mum's thoughts on the Lillian/Christine/Shula Stables question.

Your mother has been confused by the fact that everyone has always called any riding-stable in Ambridge The Stables, I'm afraid.

There have been at least two different riding stables in Ambridge, and the one which is there now did not exist until 1967. Grace and Christine's 1950s Stables was near the Grey Gables car-park, north of the village, and The (present) Stables is on the far side of the river and south-east of the village.

After Grace's death in 1955 Christine carried on running the place, though rather unhappily, and after her marriage in 1956 she had her husband Paul's younger sister Sally as a partner.

It's possible that Valerie took over those stables from Christine and Sally, but if she did, they certainly were not the stables Lilian started elsewhere because she didn't want to work with or for Valerie (who was getting drunk rather a lot by the time Lilian set up on her own).

Valerie Trentham/Woolley did run the stables at which Lilian spent a year working as a stable-hand in 1965-6 before leaving to get qualifications at a nearby riding academy with a view to starting a riding stables of her own.

Lilian started her stables in 1967, with some help getting horses (three to start with) from Valerie Trentham and on land belonging to Aunt Laura; Valerie left Ambridge, or at least the cast of The Archers, by December 1968 and didn't return until late 1972, when she came back to ask Jack Woolley for a divorce.

After Paul Johnson left Christine and their child Peter to fend for themselves, homeless because their house had been sold to pay off one of his bankruptcies, Christine did help Lilian at Lilian's Stables (which were on land attached to the house called Onemonoma previously Barratt's Farm which belonged to Aunt Laura). Lilian bought the farmhouse and the land after her marriage to Ralph Bellamy in1971, and when Paul had left them stranded she allowed Christine and Peter to live in the house. She sold what are the current stables to Christine in 1978 after Paul Johnson's death that year, and Christine sold them to Shula in 2000 or 2001, I can't off-hand remember which.

😮

Now, why did the CA say that? …

@MereDintofPandiculation

“How long has he lived in the village now?” That’s the death knell for Bert. Heart attack as Rex shows him round the rewilding.

But that speech was Jill’s swansong. They can’t have two heart attacks on the same day, not when ambulances are so hard to come by, so she’ll pass away peacefully in her sleep.

Something else that’s missing from TA - defibrillators. We have two within 100yds of our house, and there’s 5 that I know of within half a mile. Someone (probably Joy) would have been fundraising for one, maybe on the birdhide, and Blake would come to the rescue.

Well, I didnt get the place right, but said Bert would go.

I know, so did lots of other people, but I don’t get much right

…Bert Fry

Poor old Bert. Someone on Twitter has just said 'He died of cribbage'. Not a bad way to go, though. Instant, in a place he loved, full of Shires, having just had a good long reminisce about the old days, and still basking in the triumph of his gig at the Harvest Supper last night.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

Poor old Bert. Someone on Twitter has just said 'He died of cribbage'. Not a bad way to go, though. Instant, in a place he loved, full of Shires, having just had a good long reminisce about the old days, and still basking in the triumph of his gig at the Harvest Supper last night.

Something in my eye, I think.

In homage to the Bard of Borsetshire, I have wrote a pome

Bert and his Freda
Walking hand in hand once more
Golden youth returned

Aw, that's lovely, Bore.

Don't think Bert would approve. No rhymes.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

Poor old Bert. Someone on Twitter has just said 'He died of cribbage'. Not a bad way to go, though. Instant, in a place he loved, full of Shires, having just had a good long reminisce about the old days, and still basking in the triumph of his gig at the Harvest Supper last night.

And, most importantly, not having yet been told that his presence at LL was not wanted.

Oh bore you’ve made me cry!!

How long is it since Joe went, a bit less than a year?

The vengeful ghost of AE Housman popped up and throttled him, the audience last night having unaccountably failed to do so.

@JanglyBeads

Oh bore you’ve made me cry!!

How long is it since Joe went, a bit less than a year?

Joe Grundy died a bit over two years ago, on 10th October, 2019.

My name was Bert, my surname Fry
Today it was my time to die
It wasn't bad, could have been worse
I died while chatting to a nurse
In training, and his mum
Replete with Shires, full was my tum,
We’d chatted long about the farm
That time we kept it safe from harm
When foot and mouth raged through the land
And barricades the Archers manned
To keep the plague out – at a cost
Without my Freda I was lost
But only for a little while
Soon I could see her beaming smile
From close at hand, not o’er the gate
My dearest wife, my chosen mate
So many years we were together
Till parted by a freak of weather
The Ambridge Flood cut short her life
Beloved Freda, world’s best wife
But now we’ll meet again, I know
As through the Pearly Gates I go
It was my time, so don’t be sad
My life had far more good than bad
So goodbye Brookfield, goodbye Ambridge,
Goodbye Bull, heart of the village,
Goodbye St Stephen’s and the Green
A lucky man I’ve mostly been
To have this fine place to spend time
And try to celebrate in rhyme.