Archers thread #140: Changing rooms at Brookfield with Leonard Llewellyn-Bowen, or saving souls with St Smugula in the heathen wastelands of the North? 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 think a stained glass window marking the birth of newborn twins is just what Ambridge needs, 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/4636789-the-archers-spoilers-thread-7-cant-wait-for-702pm-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.)

Title composed in haste, making use of @Octothorpe's lovely coinage of Leonard Llewellyn-Bowen and @TheLassWiADelicateAir's terrific description of St. Smugula's mission to the heathen wasteland of far flung Sunderland, both from the last thread

I've abandoned the use of an emoji in the title, having been alerted by another thread recently to the fact that it makes it difficult for people with visual problems to use assistive software.

I won't say much more about The Archers, as I'm still feeling extremely jaundiced about the programme at the moment. Fingers crossed it takes a turn for the better over the next few days. It was good to hear Helen, Lee and Joy again tonight. Less delighted to hear the loathsome George. What a numpty not to recognise pheasant chicks! His Dad would be far from impressed.

Over to you!

The timeline seems very off at the moment.

In all of that conversation, Pipdidn't once acknowledge that she had a supportive family around her who also provided housing/ childcare/ food etc etc and what a difference that will have made to possible outcomes!

Whether Ben and Beth break up DOESN'T MATTER.

The focus on these two and their relationship, with even Chelsea offering Beth reassurance, is certainly interesting.

I think it's also because despite Pip's assertion that her life would have been so different if she hadn't had Rosie, the fact is her daughter's existence doesn't seem to make one iota of difference to the way she lives her life. If she hadn't had Rosie she'd have been farming Brookfield, the Pope of farming, with time for other spin-off projects like the rewilding and burying pants, with Rosie... she continues to do exactly that. She has two parents who are kind of working from home - not to mention super-gran and her sprightly partner - while she herself is in a flexible role setting her own hours and timetable. Chelsea has one parent who is out all hours trying to scrape together a pittance, a younger brother who is still at school and she is trying to make a start in a career where she will be at other people's beck and call. Chelsea would do better looking closer to home and seeing how becoming a mother at a young age has limited Emma's life choices. She's already taken the morning after pill, she's hoping nature will intervene - I think she knows what she needs to do.

Maybe Auntie Susan will look after Chelsea’s baby along with Marthurrr. The Aldridges’ heads would explode.

I'm surprised she hasn't tried a hot bath and a pint of gin.
Emma doesn't really compare to Chelsea - she was married before George was born.

Whether Ben and Beth break up DOESN'T MATTER.

Oh, come on. If you don’t care about The Brookfield Inheritance you’re listening to the wrong show!

I’d imagine we were all a bit 🫤when Pip claimed her life would have been different without the Fairchild, Lil’G! Surely the SW didn’t write that with a straight face?

But her life would have been different. She couldn't, for example, up sticks and go to work abroad or something, although I suspect that if she wanted to, she'd leave Fat Rosie with Supergran.

The changes to the opportunities available to student Chelsea will be restricted far more that Pip's.

The Pope of farming 😅

We all know really that Pip would never have left Ambridge, however much she might have fantasised about improbable-sounding projects in the big wide world.

She’s the golden child. Couldn’t agree more with all the points about her wrap-around family care ensuring that whatever happened to her, Rosie or no Rosie, she’d be sitting pretty. Chelsea, on the other hand…

You're all being very pessimistic about Chelsea's prospects if she has a baby. Maybe I'm living in cloud cuckoo land, but what I would envisage is that she carries on with her hairdressing training, making use of the creche at college if they have one. She then works as much as she can around having a baby. She has a lot of family around her to help out. That is no more unrealistic than it has been for any other Ambridgeite who hasn't looked for paid for childcare (i.e. almost all of them). She's training for a career that doesn't involve being tied to an office, going away on business trips, climbing a ladder of promotions and secondments and so on. She can work as many hours as she can fit in, she could work as a mobile hairdresser or in a salon, and if she gets a good reputation (as she's already started to do) she will attract extremely loyal customers who will follow her about.

She's far better placed than Emma was. Emma had a minimum wage waitressing job she gave up to be a SAHM. She had no qualifications bar a basic food hygiene certificate. She also had no immediate pressure to think about a career because she was married to Will and he was paying the bills. Chelsea will have to stand on her own two feet. I think that could be quite interesting. (I am now taking it for granted she will have the baby. She's left it too long to do anything else.)

Am I wrong?

Yes. It's a dismal prospect for Chelsea.

Am I wrong?

Nope!

Someone cough may have made similar points on another thread, possibly mentioning Chelsea’s fortunately supportive wider family, and no necessity to prepare for a Fellowship at All Souls. (Though who knows?!)

She's stuck with Tracey and Jazzer who ultimately are quite useless.

Not at all, TheLassWiADelicateAir! With an Archer tot Chelsea’s world expands. Not only will she have Horrobin + Carter aid and assistance, she (or at least the bab) is likely to be embraced by the entire Brookfield clan. (That would be a babysitting rota to gladden Roy’s heart!)

On another note - every time Josh chats with Beth I imagine a snake ready to swallow someone whole … It’s a bit terrifying.

Emma doesn't really compare to Chelsea - she was married before George was born she compares in the sense that her life was given over to being a mother at a very young age which has limited her career options and (unlike Pip) she wasn't gifted a house and a job for life courtesy of her family. This for me is at the root of what TA is all about - those born into the moneyed, landowning families - with literally house and jobs to spare - versus those with no stake in the land who have to graft for everything or (and this is the key point and why the whole dynastic thing is so important) marry into one of those families.

With an Archer tot Chelsea’s world expands - yes, I was thinking about this. But ultimately everything that is given is given to the Archer part of the partnership which is why Pip has the cottage job and Toby is having to move away. It really is extraordinary that two children in the same family have accidentally conceived babies with partners they have no intention of staying with.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g , she's a promising hair stylist. She might have been hoping for a career doing high end hairdressing - like being the new Sam McKnight or Trevor Sorbie or whoever. Your aspirations for her are not aiming very high.

Tracey seems clueless about things like benefits and pregnancy counselling, yet she didn't waste time getting herself on the HA tenancy agreement.

Why can't she still end up in a top salon?

Brad should in due course be well placed to get an extremely well paid job. That might help.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g , because she will be held back by having the responsibilty and costs of childcare. She seemed ambitious but my fellow posters are seeing her as a mobile hairdresser. She's doing mobile hairdressing already.

I know nothing about the beauty business or hairdressing but I assume most stylists who do women's hair are female. Childcare must be an issue that comes up all the time.

I used a mobile hairdresser for a couple of years. Frankly it was a pain. I need my roots doing every 5 weeks. Once the dye is on it needs to sit for 30 minutes. In a salon the hairdresser gets on with other work and I read a book. Having to make small talk with the hairdresser for 30 minutes is just uncomfortable at home.
Washing hair in the bathroom sink is a faff as well.

My mobile hairdresser use to cancel at short notice and that was a pain too so I eventually didn't reorganise and went back to a salon. None of the salons I've used have ever cancelled. I've been asked occasionally if I can do a different time and take a different stylist but if my usual person had to cancel for any reason they always fitted me in on the same day. Sorry but the hairdresser's child care problems are hers - not mine.

Yes, I can see that would be an issue. It would work for others, though. Everybody who has children has to find a way to sort out childcare, at whatever point in their working life the child comes along. I'm just struggling to see why it's a particular problem for Chelsea.

I think having a child before your career has even started had got to be more problematic than establishing a career and then taking a break/going part-time etc.

It would be far better for Chels to go off and become a top stylist and then go freelance when she has a lucrative and loyal client base to build on. Working as a mobile hairdresser with a baby limits her horizons before she has even qualified. She will simply end up doing children’s cuts and general maintenance trims and colours for her entire working life and is unlikely to put to use her extension skills more than once in a blue moon.

Unless, of course, she bides her time and waits for the child to grow up by which time she will only be in her early-30s. Then she could relaunch herself and the sky’s the limit…Harder to do but possible. Unless she has another baby, of course.

My mother actually was a hairdresser. She didn’t work at that while my brother and I were growing up - admittedly, those were different (practically pre-historic) times, and she had a husband who was the wage-earner, but we were very much on a tight budget…no luxuries - we didn’t have a car, didn’t go on holiday every year. When we got a bit older and more self-sufficient she started taking on clients at home and going to do her 'ladies' at local nursing homes etc, to bring in very much needed extra cash. She worked constantly and massively hard.

Yes, Chelsea can have a career and a child but it’d be exhausting, incredibly tough, and frankly it would just be so much nicer for her not to have to, not when she's barely 18 and hasn’t even finished college yet.

But hey, it's looking very much as though she’s going to end up with a baby 🤷‍♀️

I don't know. I had children when I was in my early 30s and turned my back on my old career as a consequence (no penance, no regrets, I didn't like it much, but that had long-lasting consequences I hadn't fully understood when I made the decision). It would be different now, I expect. Meanwhile, a student from my year at university had a baby halfway through our course and gave birth to her second a few days after our Finals ended. She got a First. I lost touch with her thereafter but I believe she became a teacher and did well in her career. My impression was that she had a lot of family support. Her partner worked away some of the time and she said that helped as once the baby was in bed she could spend the evening studying, uninterrupted. I was in awe of her self-discipline! She was probably very unusual, though.