🌟 ⭐ Archers thread #138: Two new stars on the Ambridge firmament, but will Peggy’s retirement leave a black hole? 🕳️ Join us here for a window on The Archers.

[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 commissioning a stained glass window for two of your great-grandchildren and nothing for all the others is a sensible thing to do, 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 @LillianGish and @MuddlerInLaw for title ideas, which I have played around with a bit. I'm sad to have heard the last of Peggy. An era starts to draw to a close.

What a relief to be out of the Steph Casey phase, which I hope was an unfortunate blip, not to be repeated. [Triumph of hope over experience there ... ]

@BoreofWhabylon has asked the 🔮 about Adil and it predicts that he is actually the Mysterious New Owner of Grey Gables but won't be revealed as such until he has won Kirsty's heart (or some similar Mills & Boon level tosh - apols to the 🔮 but it does seem to have a mushy side). I still cling to the idea that the mysterious silent and invisible Gills who now own Home Farm may have some role at GG, but why not name them?

No mention of the heatwave in Ambridge, but budget constraints probably severely limit their scope for topical inserts these days. IRL I believe this has been a tricky time for farmers. Perhaps the SWs will catch up with this over the winter and start putting in some farming chat about diversification away from oats to olives, or similar. We already have at least one vineyard in the Ambridge area, at LL. (I understand there was another, in the heart of the village, decades ago, but the SWs have now forgotten all about it, sadly.)

Over to you!

I don’t like the thought of Will having to rush to hospital with another family member. The SWs are so cruel sometimes.

I assume his son has managed to poison himself?

What a nasty and unrealistic storyline. I agree - putting Will through another emergency trip to hospital is cruel. Presumably Brad is going to get in trouble over whatever was in the chemicals

The dozy kids: have they never watched The Wire or Goodfellas?

Never get high on your own supply and never show flash.

I know, poor, poor Will. And Emmur will go crazy.

So the boys went from breaking bad to George poisoning himself in one episode? Seems a bit throwaway, unless there are long-term health consequences. I'm also surprised that upright Brad was so quickly on board with a clearly illegal enterprise.

I found the vaping story boring but credible. Teenage boys do stupid things, don’t they?

It was boring and incredible. Brad had a change of heart and they accumulated ingredients and paraphernalia in about 5 minutes.

I can put up with boring and incredible but it's the nasty piling on of needless troubles on Will and Tracey which is the turn off.

Tracey (and Will and Ed I guess but can't quite remember far enough back) seem to be the only working class characters who aren't just rude mechanicals there for comic shenanigans. Maybe there are others I've missed?

There was no comedy at all connected to HWMNBN.

The Horses? Though they were more ‘vulnerable & oppressed underclass’ than working class.

Maurice? Never really seemed working class to me. Unplaceable surreal character who wandered in from some post-dramatic play …

Bert stopped being comedy after Freda died - at least AFAIR.

And of course, Joe. Forced to wander around GG dressed in nonsense outfits after The Flood. And yet in Meadow Rise he was given perhaps the greatest tragic scene in all TA history.

Emma's never been a comic character, has she? Susan and Neil have both serious and comic storylines. Same was true for Mike, Betty, Vicky, Roy, Brenda. Even poor Bert was not a wholly comic character.

Tracey (and Will and Ed I guess but can't quite remember far enough back) seem to be the only working class characters who aren't just rude mechanicals there for comic shenanigans.

Yes. One of the worst examples of this was that dreadful scene when the contents of the Cider Club portaloo ended up all
over Emma. I actually cannot imagine a less funny thing happening to someone but it was just dressed up as an hilarious outcome of one of Eddie’s crazy schemes. The SWs just get it wrong again and again.

I'm guessing George will put the blame wholly on Brad, 'He forced me to do it, honest, gov'.

Forgot Emma! Possibly because she’s an outlier in her (birth) family.

Was Vicky working class? That wasn’t quite how she struck me as being portrayed.

And Roy and Brenda? I’d have said the fruit of all their parents labour was the broader horizons their children (and grandchildren) had access to. It’s only the stupid SWs who kept Roy tied to Ambridge …

And yet in Meadow Rise he was given perhaps the greatest tragic scene in all TA history

Yup

I don't really know what the various class labels mean these days. Vicky worked as a dental nurse. I know nothing about her family background. I doubt she was a graduate or very well off. You could say she was working class, but if her Dad maybe had his own business, maybe she thought she was middle class growing up.

Was Mike working class? He went from being a farm labourer and trade unionist to being a farmer/smallholder. I think he owned his land, so not a tenant farmer.

Roy and Brenda, as graduates in graduate level jobs (ish, in Roy's case), probably think of themselves as middle class, but I've seen people on MN with similar backgrounds/education/jobs say they are working class because of their family roots.

Vicky was a dental assistant or receptionist at a dental surgery. She was a townie. MN is obsessed with class.

Dunno!

But. Didn’t Vicky bring money to her new relationship? She was able to invest in … cows (???) or something to do with Mike’s business (to Ed’s consternation IIRC) when they got together. Not suggesting being working class means penniless, or without savings, at all! But she wasn’t entirely dependent on the whims of a landowning family - which is what generally defines working class in Ambridge.

(Roy still is, but he does own a house so could sell up and leave if he wanted to.)

@WhoppingBigBackside eshjeray??

MN can’t decide what class is, so not surprising no-one can work out who belongs to which class.

I’ve always thought it was to do with approach to life, learned from your upbringing, so you don’t suddenly move up or down a class depending on education and career.

I had to say it out loud to get what they meant - estuary!

Thanks! I tried saying it out loud but still didn’t get there. Haven’t been to London in the last 20 years. Not really sure I’d recognise estuary if I heard it

Yeah, I like literally meant estuary. Ya know, shjoodents and yoof an' stuff like innit. An' LGBT+ to be mentioned even if irrelevant, and brexit is to blame for everyfing.
I'm all for a bit of balance, but I feel that some things are rammed down my throat.

I agree with you about class @MereDintofPandiculation . I know what I am, but a lot of people claim to be WC when they aren't.

It can only have been Womens Hour or You & Yours or that 15 min slot before lunchtime Archers, but there was a big "thing" about how so many schoolkids are addicted to vaping.

To the extent that they needed to go to the loos to have a quick vape.

George ought to have had a slower-burning "ne'er do well" storyline.

Meanwhile, I wonder how Rex doing with his boat on the "probably short of water, but it never was navigable" Am? It is presumably full of poo.

Tracey (and Will and Ed I guess but can't quite remember far enough back) seem to be the only working class characters who aren't just rude mechanicals there for comic shenanigans.

Re Tracey there was the ridiculous story line where, despite presumably having known Roy all her life without previously having shown any interest in him, she inexplicably decided to throw her cap at him.

Roy enlisted Kirsty's help in putting her off by using the device of making him extremely dull and badly dressed.

The script writers are all over the place with Roy. On the one hand he is attractive enough to catch the attention of Kate, Hayley, Elizabeth (with Carol Tregorran acknowleding to Elizabeth that he was attractive) and Lexi and on the other hand they make him bumbling , dull and old before his time.

Toyah did sound like Shula.

Was that an advert for Toyah’s podcast delivered improbably by Will?