👑 Archers thread #139: Who’s the Daddy? No ceremonial required to join us – 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 like the sound of Lilian’s Cinnamon Chicken, 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.)

I'm often struck by the time a thread ends how irrelevant the previous title has become to what's currently going on in The Archers. The Queen's death has only been mentioned very briefly in TA, of course, but I suppose that was to be expected in a time of budget constraints. In a few weeks when this thread fills up I wonder if we will still be thinking that, and about Chelsea and her pregnancy. That depends on what she decides to do, which at the time of writing is still up in the air.

As usual, I asked for title ideas and for various reasons then didn't use them. Sorry. Lillian Gish's was very witty - Will Chelsea stay mum about dad? Muddler made a more controversial one - Horrobins thread #139. As a new Great House of Ambridge emerges, come swear your allegiance here.

That's about all I can face saying about TA at the moment. I am expecting to have to travel north soon as my Dad is in hospital and I have to be with my Mum. (They're the same sort of age as Jill Archer, and up to now have been like her and Peggy, very active, managing very well with no help, but this may all be about to change ). So apologies if I'm more absent than present for a while. Will pop in when I can.

...it isn’t her fault if her violent partner goes on to be violent to someone else.
Who'd believe someone who said their ex-partner was violent? People would probably say 'He'd never do anything like that', 'She must have asked for it', 'Brought it on herself' ...
When the violence happens, the victim has probably been in a boiling frog situation, and probably still (thinks she) loves the attacker. That wasn't the case for Shula.

Lewis and Julia were married.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g , thanks for filling in the blanks on the Gerrards marriage fallout, I remember now.

Tracey and Den were in an established relationship, so Chelsea and Brad were probably planned. Tracey was in her 20s. Not quite the same as a ONS with a random acquaintance.

Of course it could apply to Chelsea-although on MN I've only ever seen it applied to snivelling men or the mothers of snivelling men.

If Roooth posted an AIBU about how unfair it is that her lovely son's life will be ruined because of a pregnancy from a ONS and that he'll likely lose his wonderful new girlfriend when he tells her about the unprotected sex, Roooth and her lovely son would get very short shrift.

Thank you all for putting me right re Tracey.

Ben is first year university isn't he (?), and Chelsea is 2nd year at college, so only 1 academic year between them.

Has Chelsea had a medical appointment/scan to confirm her pregnancy? I still think this SL might end in a miscarriage. We already have the co-parenting SL with Pip and Toby plus Alice & Chris now they've reached their understanding.

I do find the ante-natal process in England slightly odd. When I fell pregnant with my first I was surprised my GP just took my word for it when I made an appointment to tell her. I assumed I'd need to do a pregnancy test in the surgery but she just nodded congratulations and started the paperwork, asked me which hospital I wanted to go to for my ante-natal appointments and discussed the community led midwife I'd be assigned to. I was also immediately given a card which entitled me to free prescriptions and dental care for 12 months.

Ben is first year university isn't he (?), and Chelsea is 2nd year at college, so only 1 academic year between them.

My Archers-loving friend who pays far closer attention than me reminded me that Ben started another course and then dropped out before being inspired by Leonard having the vaccine and doing nursing. Was it archaeology where he met the gf who organised the dig on Brookfield? I can’t remember but he must have taken a gap year after dropping out? That would make him a couple of years older than C.

Geography? He had a girlfriend who was an archaeology student, or possibly she became a gf after the dig.

I had exactly the same experience, Eastie, 31 years ago (gulp). I was expecting to lie down on a couch and be examined , but when I said I thought I was pregnant, my GP said 'Have you done a test? OK, when was your last period? Right, where do you want to go, Hospital X or Hospital Y?' I was gobsmacked. It was such an enormous thing for us but absolutely routine for him (and most of the rest of the world, of course).

Ben was born 15 Mar 2002, so 20 and a half. Chelsea is 17.

Didn’t Ben do one year of a geography degree, then swap to nursing?

Also, Ben seems older because the actor is 30-odd!

Sorry, got distracted half way through writing that post, and others had posted by the time I did!

Josh, however, once again, seems like a pretty rounded, decent chap - the Dopeys only success story… Josh was being a decent brother. That doesn’t negate all his other behaviour.

Ben has a history of being apparently forgotten by everyone in his family apart from the scriptwriters.

Chelsea can sort herself out of this. Ben can’t.

I give up I've clearly been playing no attention in recent years.

Chelsea is on the cusp of turning 18- hence Jazzer trying to piggy back Chelsea's 18th onto Alastair's birthday.

So Ben is 2 1/2 years older than Chelsea.

Having the pregnancy drift on into the second trimester when Chelsea was switched on enough to
a) take a morning after pill and
b) take a pregnancy test and
c) has said that she's hoping to miscarry because she doesn't want to be pregnant and
d) has said that she doesn't even like the father that much
is unrealistic.

Having the pregnancy drift on into the second trimester … is unrealistic.

It really is!

It occurs to me that the SW might be writing the Horrobins as people who - given past troubles - view all ‘authorities’ as best avoided. So not just police (Harrison doesn’t count) but doctors and health institutions as well. Because it seems incredibly unnatural that none of them have suggested she speaks to someone …

Going back about 35 years, people would be saying that Chelsea had 'trapped' Ben, with a view to a shotgun marriage (and half his assets).

Am I the only listener who isn't really into the 'dynastic' implications of everything ?

No.

I don’t think one has to be, Tulipomania.

For myself, I’ve been listening all my life and often it’s rubbish - dignifying it with a dynastic framework gives it a story arc that gets me through the worst. What I see in Ambridge is a constant struggle for proximity to Archers amongst non-Archers. And a constant struggle to maintain and thrive amongst Archers. And the more connected Archers become, the firmer their grip on power and influence in their world. Four great Houses with a stranglehold on almost everything Ambridge. Plus the Grundys as counterweight. (Horrobins coming up on the outside …)

The fun of it is seeing how at risk people become if their connection to Archers becomes too tenuous or disappears altogether. Grey Gables, f’rinstance. Caroline was a direct link to Jack Woolley and Peggy-formerly-Archer. Oliver is no one on his own. Which is why he’s had to return to Grange Farm - keeping him connected to the Grundys.

Sometimes I feel the creative team understand it in the same way I do. Other times it seems a writer has arrived with no comprehension or guidance at all on what it’s all about - then it gets frustrating and turns into just another soap.

Haha no - I don't care either. I don't really think an everyday tale of country folk needs "dynasties" or has them. It has families who are mostly somewhere either side of average in terms of income and property. I think that way of thinking is quite old fashioned although I do find it interesting to see things from that perspective when people post about it.

I'm also SO glad we're past the point where people think Chelsea would give a tiny shit about her possible future child possibly one day inheriting a fraction of Brookfield, let alone being motivated by that. It's a farm not Monaco, and she's a teenager wondering how she'll afford to get nappies, not planning 30 years ahead.

You don’t see an everyday tale of country folk as being all about feudal ownership of land? But what else is there? What else separates TA from Eastenders? And why else did Joe Grundy almost expire from despair when he was forcibly separated from the land?

Monaco is an apt comparison, though! Smaller than a travel sized Kleenex - but so much significance.

And of course Chelsea isn’t thinking about Brookfield in 30 years! Why would she be? But her current position, as a landless Horrobin, relative to Brookfield, is thrilling to some listeners.

This was all done and dusted several pages ago, but I've just remembered another abortion storyline from about 15 years ago.
Bear with me, I was only a part-time listener...Helen had a smarmy boyfriend (Australian?) who got a younger woman pregnant (it might have even been rape??). Helen supported her through the abortion without ever finding out who the father was. Then he disappeared and never got his comeuppance. It was that experience that made Helen realise she wanted to be a mum badly enough to go it alone, hence having Henry. Have I got that right?

Yes, you have, @Breezycheesetrees . The girl was A Net, Greg's daughter. Greg was a former partner of Helen's. Helen's Aussie boyfriend was Leon, and he slept with/raped Annette. A Net was pregnant but had an abortion.

I can't remember the exact details, but at some point before this, Hellin had decided that Sonia and Annette were practically her step-daughters, and was a bit smothering towards Annette.

I can't remember what happened to Annette. I think she may have gone back to France, where her mother lived.

😁

Maybe it's because it doesn't parallel the sort of land ownership I see in practice. Big estates (the old kind, with a family running them and a big house) being the landlords of half the village, or even the Crown estate. Everyone in the Archers now seems to own their land outright (or near as damnit).

Thank you Shula! It's coming back to me now...I think that was the first Archers storyline that I properly paid attention to, and I thought for months afterwards how weird it was that they never resolved it. I know better now.

If Chealsea does keep the archers off spring .. My only hope is they'll let the child inherit some of Brad's genius and she's some kind of wonder child in contrast to fat Rosie (and therefore put pip noes out of joint)