🌱 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!

RIP Bert Fry.

Loved the poem @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

It will be a blow for Jill particularly.

Ah that tribute is lovely. I’d forgotten about the ploughing competitions.

Not sure that elderly care is a good career choice for Ben if, when trying out his skills, he literally talked his first patient to death.

One thing I never understood - Bert’s accommodation came with his job and continued after his retirement, but why didn’t anyone comment negatively about him subletting to sublet to Rex and Toby?

Who do you think will move into the bungalow or do you think it will be quietly forgotten about?

@EdmontinaTiresofNameFlipping

Oohhh …

Surely we need cast clutter in the next thread title, Gasp0de?

Excellent wordery, Roysnewshirt (Though mean to poor Bert.

It’s true he has been very much sidelined lately, particularly since Freda died. And since there’s been no Joe for him to compete with in everything Ambridge-related. (Though I find that more true to life than having one’s 900 year old mother move back in to do all your cooking and housework …) He was quite fun years ago as a regular-ish fixture at Lower Loxley, during, or slightly after, the golden era when several ‘ordinary people’ from the village were employed there. I must admit my memories of him working at Brookfield during Phil and Jill’s reign have faded somewhat. But his death should be a huge thing for the Brookfield Archers, he’s been part of their lives forever.

EdmontinaTiresofNameFlipping But his death should be a huge thing for the Brookfield Archers, he’s been part of their lives forever.

Or at least since 1988 when he first appeared in the programme, never having been heard of before, after being made redundant as the foreman of a farm which had never been mentioned before.

I hope Ben isn’t going to become one of those killer nurses

I don't normally contribute to thread title suggestions - so many talented wordsmiths on here - but it strikes me that we could do something with cast off as well as cast clutter?

Thanks for title suggestions! We may need a new thread sooner than I thought, given last night's events.

1988 seems like a blink of an eye ago to me in some ways, but it is 33 years ago, a whole generation. Pip, Josh and Ben have known Bert all their lives. Ruth was 20 back then, and had only recently come to Brookfield for her pre-college placement. She and David got married at the end of that year. He was 29, so Bert was a huge part of his working life as he gradually took over the running of the farm.

On top of that, Bert and Freda lived very close to the farmhouse. They were the nearest neighbours to Brookfield for years.

IRL, this would be a huge upheaval for the Brookfield Archers.

As for the bungalow, as far as I understood, Bert was guaranteed a home there for the rest of his life. I don't know if he paid rent or got it rent-free in lieu of all or part of an occupational pension, but sub-letting to the Fairbrethren would be fair enough. He wasn't rolling in money, and was giving up part of his space to them.

I hope we don't have a sudden flurry of older cast members deciding to retire/step back. 18 months of lockdowns/Covid has prompted many to have a rethink about what is important to them.

Meanwhile, I looked up Bert's bio. He has a son, Trevor, and a grandchild called Amy. On the basis that Bert was in his mid 80s. Amy is likely to be in her 20's (should she ever put in an appearance).

Yes, the accommodation of Fairbrethren at the bungalow made sense on several levels.

I hadn’t considered it before today, but their rent must have supplemented his income. And I can’t imagine his First Family landlords would have objected to that.

Also, of course, it fitted the creative team’s drive to leave no character living in solitary - and thus silent - splendour. Though we didn’t actually get an enormous amount of their shared domestic life, it did mean they could each comment, in passing, on what the others were doing.

Anyway … Caste, class, cast-offs, cast clutter … Could make something, with a little work?

Bert took over from Ruth when she went away to college after her year's placement at Brookfield.

He and Freda moved to The Bungalow in 2003, having lived in Woodbine Cottage (next to The Bull) until then, apart from the months months during which they were housed in The Bungalow after a lorry ran into Woodbine Cottage in September 1999 and it had to be extensively repaired: they moved back in March 2000.

Bert retired at the end of 2006, when he was seventy.

Just relistened to the LL section from last night, and I honk we’ve missed an additional significance to last night’s episode.

Russ clearly marked as a bad ‘un - which is where he started, obviously.

Some of the last words uttered by anyone at LL were to diss the wonder that was Bert Fry. By Wuss.

AND Freddie’s questioning Swiss’s possible motivations for tutoring young Chelsea.

Aargh sorry

• The last words uttered at LL about Bert Fry were to diss him. That was Wuss

• Wuss not Swiss!

The next title has to be a Tribute. In rhyme.

The grim reaper joined the cast,
The bard of Borsetshire breathed his last

@FoxgloveSummers

I hope Ben isn’t going to become one of those killer nurses

If he can't tell the difference between Bert being asleep and Bert being dead then I'm not super confident in his nursing abilities full stop.

@JanglyBeads agreed. It was like we needed a reminder! Although I thought Freddie was being pretty shitty. He can say that but it was a bit vile of him to put it quite like that to his sister. Tho siblings...

And @BorsetshireBanality gets my vote

@BorsetshireBanality

The grim reaper joined the cast, The bard of Borsetshire breathed his last

Excellent. Next stanza

Pitched forward o'er the cribbage board
And talked to death by Ben
He's gone to join the celestial horde
We won't see his like again

👍🏽

A man in his 80s passes away peacefully in the pub - I'm not sure subjecting him to CPR is the best idea.

If they called 999 they would have been instructed to do it until the ambulance arrived, unless it was an expected death, e.g. already diagnosed as terminally ill.

Will there now be a post-mortem, since he was not being seen by a doctor for any specific disease or condition?

@BoreOfWhabylon

If they called 999 they would have been instructed to do it until the ambulance arrived, unless it was an expected death, e.g. already diagnosed as terminally ill.

It just seems undignified.