🎲 Archers thread #134: Ambridge as human board game. We’ve had Pandemic. What now - Game of Life or Trivial Pursuit? Go! 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 warm to Hazel Woolley, 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/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 @LiterallyKnowsBest for the thread title idea. I also liked @LillianGish's suggestion which was Conversions abound and it’s not just Harrison - Lily’s kitchens, Hazel’s flat, Jazzer’s finances, Bert’s bungalow...come and discuss The Archers - are you a convert or could you be converted? and that seems like a good place to kick off this thread.

Who'll get the bungalow? Pip, Josh or A. N. Other?

Will Lily leave the cold calling behind and launch a bid to run LL when Elizabeth hangs up her clipboard?

Will Jazzer become a financial whiz after mastering Tracy's state of the art budgeting techniques, viz, writing it all down in a little notebook with a kitten on the front?

Over to you!

From Ambridge, people who didn't marry Local have gone as far afield as New Zealand, Australia, Canada and South Africa to find their spouses. Also London, Northumberland and Wales. We often think of the Archer family as "a bit inbred", but in fact they are as exogamous as can be; until Alice married Chris, none of them has married another Ambridge resident since Dan and Doris, and I can think of only two who have married anyone from within a ten mile radius of the place: Jill was brought up in a local village and Nigel lived two miles away. Have I missed anyone?

David didn’t go to Northumberland to find Ruth, she came to Ambridge. As did Brian from where ever he was brought up and Pat and Natasha from Wales and Justin from somewhere. So Archers have married “out” simply by staying put. (In Lilian’s case not actually marrying). Was Ralph Bellamy born and bred locally?

The village I am from you didn't stray far from the village. Not unusual to be related on both sides of the family.

Yes, I can think of a couple villages where you can do the family tree of the village... bit like Ambridge, really.

(@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime - i think H Norreys is mostly incomers who commute these days. Though they probably all WFH now.)

asking it’s just really odd. One of those twists of fate - like being white, living in England etc. Suddenly thought I wonder how different I’d be if I hadn’t spent a couple of thousand hours of my life (haven’t done the maths) in Ambridge ! Kind of feel my mother should have warned me as we innocently started to listen when making dinner way back when. Then wonder how two siblings and my dad escaped the pull.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime, not Aldworth. I don't think there was inbreeding where I am from but my family were newcomers, having only been there 3 generations

Emma Carter married Will before her brother married Alice.

Brian and JD married within the village, as did Adam and Ian.

Ruth was a student at Brookfield.

I'm not sure which part of Wales Pat is from - I can't place her accent.

Natasha has a South Wales accent but her family moved to the North, which seems a bit random

Philip and Gavin weren't from the same part of Wales, going by accents but hey, Kursedy and her mother had very different accents, but not welsh although Wirral is near Wales, and she might have a few miles from the border

I can think of a lot of people who married someone from maybe two or three villages away.

Lived rurally for much of my life and I'd say this is unlikely for middle-class people nowadays, which Pip most definitely is.

Although I was interested to see when looking up who lived in my old farmhouse 100 years ago on the recently released census that the older married couple (dairy farmers) both grew up within 15 miles, and their 3 adult children lived with them.

My point was that with the internet and stuff, surely Pip would be looking to cast her husband net wider than Ambridge. It seemed such an unlikely thing to say.

@Tulipomania, it depends on where you met with other young people.

In my day, it was YFC, village pub, local nightclub, school/college, and dances.

Nowadays, more young people go to college and will go further afield to do so.

In Ambridge, not many venture out of Borsetshire, and those who do don't often pair off when they do. Kate and Debbie did, but Alice and Adam didn't. Phoebe didn't. Lily didn't.

Maybe Pip could find someone who lives a long way from Ambridge, and move there permanently

HaveringWavering
David didn’t go to Northumberland to find Ruth, she came to Ambridge. As did Brian from where ever he was brought up and Pat and Natasha from Wales and Justin from somewhere. So Archers have married “out” simply by staying put. (In Lilian’s case not actually marrying). Was Ralph Bellamy born and bred locally?

I think "marrying out" includes ones who come to the place you are in, like someone marrying a tourist in Cornwall. (Natasha didn't come to Ambridge until Tom went to a conference somewhere and fell for her, I think?)

Lilian's first husband was a Canadian airman whom she met in England. Ralph Bellamy was a local; his father Admiral Bellamy owned about half the village, everything which is now the Berrow Estate.

So that makes her the first since Dan-and-Doris, and Alice isn't even a "first". Ah well, poor lamb.

WhoppingBigBackside
Emma Carter married Will before her brother married Alice.
Brian and JD married within the village, as did Adam and Ian.
Ruth was a student at Brookfield.
I'm not sure which part of Wales Pat is from - I can't place her accent.
Natasha has a South Wales accent but her family moved to the North, which seems a bit random

But Emma and Will are not members of the Archer family; that's why I didn't include them, I was talking only about Archers and Archer-descendents.

I don't think Adam and Ian really count for inbreeding; by definition of their sex, they cannot breed together. And Ian is not from the village; he is from Northern Ireland.

Likewise Brian is not from Ambridge but from somewhere in the south-east. Ruth comes from Prudoe. Pat is from Indeterminate Wales, like Natasha.

Exogamy, I tell'ee.

Natasha is back doing the bilingual COVID safety announcements in Aldi. Her South Walian voice is so jarring here in Snowdonia. That and the whole what is she doing here in my head when it’s not 7.02-7.15pm momentary confusion!

I think "marrying out" includes ones who come to the place you are in, like someone marrying a tourist in Cornwall.

That definitely counts as marrying out! Bit more difficult to define if the person has moved there permanently. I know they aren’t married but Pip sadly bred with Toby who is an incomer but with village history and seems set to stay.

There was a woman on a radio drama this week I could have sworn was Pip. Very sad to find she wasn’t as it means there are two of them with the same very strange intonation.

there is an actor in merlin who sounds a lot like alice.

I suppose they went to the same acting school.

I think "marrying out" includes ones who come to the place you are in, like someone marrying a tourist in Cornwall. (Natasha didn't come to Ambridge until Tom went to a conference somewhere and fell for her, I think?)

Yes, that was what I meant- even the ones who did marry out did so because the outsider landed in their lap, rather than them actually making an effort to go anywhere! Though you’re right of course about Natasha, I’d forgotten that Tom had picked her up at the Nuffield conference.

Another Archer who married “out” but without leaving the village was Helen, of course. You can see why the others tend not to be keen to do so!

Lee is from Felpersham or somewhere I think? Though he always sounds a bit generic South East to me.

Lee doesn’t have a Felpersham accent. So he’s an incomer. Mind, he’d still be an incomer from Felpersham

@MereDintofPandiculation

I felt that episode had a valedictory tone to it. If TA were just about Brookfield, and if that were the last episode ever, that is what it would sound like. “And they all lived happily ever after. The End”

I knew I'd find you all still here, even though I haven't posted on an Archers thread since the 'Free Helen' thing!

Just came on to ask, who do you think they're going to kill off - David or Ruth?

Think about it - David's fun evening with all his siblings... Ruth talking about how her children are stepping up, etc.... David saying about how tired Ruth is... the kids commenting on David's knee...

And then the shock will finish Jill off! I'd forgotten how old she is until Leonard said!!!

It could be any of 'em MrsW, or maybe even Jill herself, unless, like June Spencer, Pat Greene has said they'll have to carry her off the Ambridge set feet first. It would be a thing of wonder if June were alive to see her character's 100th birthday. That would be exceptional and would make a lot of fans very happy.

"Lemon drizzle all round"

Classic Brine Keri must be writing the scripts this week!

He is.

So Brian, who never kept pigs in his entire farming career until he ws landed with being in charge of Berrow, talks knowingly about pigs to Justin, who knows nothing about them except that Brookfield was wise to get out of pigs.

Brookfield got out of pigs well before Justin had been invented, some time around the end of last century, so how would Justin know about that?

I really hope Phoebe has got herself a terribly exciting job somewhere far away, not because I dislike her, but because that’s what she ought to be finally doing with all her education!

God, Kate was odious. Her claiming of wanting closeness while getting Roy's age wrong, her harping on her children in South Africa, who get sod all mention.

I liked the way Phoebe had unfussily got Roy's birthday covered and to spare.

Sunil got a lot of mention last week as well. Has he actually featured before?

I wish it were a job interview but what kind of freak company would do it on a Sunday - maybe one of the startups she mentioned last week that her old uni friends* are working for?

*obviously not as she doesn’t have any. Acquaintances I guess.

God, Kate was odious. Her claiming of wanting closeness while getting Roy's age wrong, her harping on her children in South Africa, who get sod all mention. It was brilliantly done - I hope last week's SW was taking notes. Also a hint of peril for those employed at Berrow - and a reminder that it's not really so long ago that it was a mega-dairy.