Archers thread #145: The glue that held the Aldridges together is gone. Will they fall apart? 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, and of course we are always delighted to welcome back former or occasional listeners/posters. We don't all agree on all points, although we do mostly try to be civil about it.

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.)

Lillian and I both made the glue observation, so I thought that would be as good a way as any to kick off this new thread. We raced through the last one, for obvious reasons. This one may last until the funeral. Will Tamsin Greig find time to attend? I do hope so.

The poem Jennifer quoted in her journal is here: www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43775/rabbi-ben-ezra It's doubtful whether the last of Jennifer's life was the best, but she had plenty to contend with all the way through.

Over to you!

@BerylBillings Oh dear, Natasha and Tom are heading for a beware dubious child modelling agency scamming flattered parents storyline!

Indeed! It would be great if this vanity project was their financial undoing. Has Natasha ever repaid her credit card debts? What with that, plus Tom going along with Adam's vaguely explained plan (and planting everything in the wrong place), they are really asking some sort of come-uppance.

I thought that was just lovely! (Not the Tom and Gnasher nonsense)

Absolute BOOP for Brian last night. Though the creative team must be more than embarrassed about their handling of the Home Farm house.

On another note, why have I never heard of the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution on TA? Just featured on Farming Today. The website says it was established in 1860, so …???

good in parts, that ep. I thought when Brian said ok to leaving, when Harrison came over, Adam might have been at the point of needing time to grieve in that spot too.

Tom and Nats - heading for 2 falls now, or Tony and Pat are in for an eventful evening on 14th. Because IIRC Pat has promised Lee to babysit while he romances Helen.

Will they pick favoured child and sack Lee off? Or will there be stress and "never agains"?

Brian sitting in the garden and the silent Mrs Gill actually phoning the police seemed a completely bizarre turn of script to me.

I know nobody’s ever seen the Gills or heard them speak (apart from possibly a couple of reported sightings early on?), but are they really so isolated and cut off from all village life that they haven’t heard of Jenny’s death - and might grasp that the correct initial response to a grief-stricken widower turning up in the garden of the house where he and his family lived for decades until quite recently would be a kind word and perhaps the offer of a cup of tea, not setting PC Burns on him?

Obviously it’s worse than I thought and the Gills really do exist inside a giant bubble that keeps them hermetically sealed from contact with everyone and everything in Ambridge, ie the place they actually chose to come and live.

Hermetically sealed from the largest landowner in the village, from whom they bought their house, and whose land surrounds the property? How would they ever have a conversation with anyone in Ambridge without that person mentioning the Aldridges?

Extraordinary, wasn’t it? As if Jenny wouldn’t have persisted in making sure to engage with them, even if the Gills were stand-off-ish at first. As if Mrs Gill wouldn’t have wanted to know her. As if she would have called the police on Brian. It was utterly absurd. And painful hearing the word ‘trespass’ attached to Brian and Home Farm.

Tom really is a bit thick.

No reputable modelling agency would ask the potential models ( or their families) to pay for photos. A quick google search would bring this up.

But as I hate Tom and Natasha it would be good to see them scammed for a bit of money. The embarrassment.....

Jennifer (with Peggy) saying her final farewells to Home Farm, and a really touching little speech in the kitchen (where else?) about her true feelings towards bringing up Ruairi.

(play from 8:23)

Drat. Won't link.

Search for:
Archers Omnibus 190106 (6 January 2019) [ArchersOmni_ 2019-01-06]

on 'Tom Archer' YouTube channel.

Thank you! That's lovely. 'All of us cuddled up on that sofa watching a film...Brian pretending to read his paper... ended up singing a song along with the rest of us.

Perhaps Mrs Gill has a disability or dementia or doesn’t speak English or something. Because surely that is the only reason that Harrison was unable to “explain the circumstances” until MR Gill Came home?

(I’m being sarcastic. It was very stupid and implausible.)

Talk about life goes on…Tom not remotely registering that his father might be a bit upset by the loss of his sister and not up for babysitting while he and his wife have a night on the tiles. And Jennifer not even buried…

Harrison really doesn’t have much to do, does he? He was literally watching a bereaved 80-year-old quietly sit on a bench and mourn his wife. No wonder the police are overstretched…

Definitely some echoes of The Cherry Orchard last night with Brian: "I just want to see if it's how I remember it" - and of course he's not just talking about the house. Most interesting for me was that it reminded me of the age gaps between the various Aldridge children - three years between Adam and Debbie, seven years between Debbie and Kate, 11 years between Kate and Alice and then Ruairi 14 years later. I find it's harder to keep these gaps in mind when you can't actually see the characters. I agree that the Gill's total isolation from the rest of Ambridge beggars belief. I still don't really understand why the SWs have let this happen.

Also, wasn’t the Home Farm house directly adjacent to the actual farm, which the Aldridges still farm?

Yes, @Catnary - that’s how I understood it anyway. Surely Brian has been around enough for them to know who he is. I can’t comprehend the logic behind calling the police about him being there. I don’t believe they wouldn’t have heard from village gossip about Jennifer’s death.

Hermetically sealed from the largest landowner in the village, from whom they bought their house, and whose land surrounds the property? How would they ever have a conversation with anyone in Ambridge without that person mentioning the Aldridges?

Exactly my point, Totters.

Also - Tom really is a bit thick

A bit? 😂😂

It was probably a plot device so we could hear someone explaining to Adam what Brian was doing. Waste of airtime though. And they should have saved Harrison actor’s fee to pay for Debbie! All they needed was for Adam to get a call from an off air Mrs Gill and tell Tony what she had said “can you come round, Brian is in the garden and acting strangely”.

It was probably a plot device so we could hear someone explaining to Adam what Brian was doing.

They could actually have done that quite convincingly if it had been the Gills’ new housekeeper or cleaner - someone who wouldn’t know Brian - alone in the house. Far better to allow us to assume the Gills are habitually absent from the house than to pretend they’d call the police because Brian was sitting on a bench.

Yes, that would have worked really well. I did indeed presume they were habitually absent., and it would have rubbed in the pathos that the new owners don’t even see it as a family home.

and it would have rubbed in the pathos that the new owners don’t even see it as a family home Exactly this. And I wouldn't have found that in the least bit unbelievable. There's a large house at the end of my mum's garden - empty, but extremely well maintained, for years. No-one knows the owners - they are occasionally there for Ascot - other than that there's a gardener who keeps everything shipshape. Very mysterious. But the neighbours talk about it and speculate - which is why it's so weird that no-one does this in Ambridge. If the Gills are never there, this would have been mentioned; if they are there then someone would know them. Infuriating. The scene with Brian was wonderful, but undermined by this glaring omission.

I think I meant Borchester not Felpersham.

@TeenDivided , yes but that was many years ago, far away from Ambridge.

@HiccupHorrendousHaddock , not the same festival.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g , I never got the love for Mr Keri, but I was a bit fan, and still am, of 1eggor2

That's a coincidence! There's a substantial house on my parents' street which has been standing empty for many year - more than ten, I think - after the owners moved abroad. They own another house on the island as well, and for some reason decided to keep both on when they moved thousands of miles away. I think their main home had been somewhere on the mainland, can't remember now if it was Scotland or England, and obviously I have no idea if they kept that on too. Every month a gardener goes in to tidy the garden up. A cleaner/housekeeper visits regularly to keep the house dust-free and aired. Through island gossip I believe the same applies to the other house.The owners haven't actually been to either house, even for a flying visit, since they left. Very, very odd.

I've always assumed the Gills were similar. They may even have bought Home Farm without visiting it, let alone having contact with Brian and Jennifer, and hardly ever been there since. I find it very hard to understand owning properties all over the place that you don't use, but then I'm not a multi-millionaire!

@UrsulaTitchener
I never got the love for Mr Keri, but I was a bit fan, and still am, of 1eggor2

Oh, Eggy was and remains absolutely lovely. I wonder if he lurks here?

@BoreOfWhabylon , don't know, but he's not AFAIK, a mum. It was OneEggOrTwo, I think, and based on what Jill would ask Phil. He would often post something amusing after the closing comment.

I like Mr Keri, but I prefered Adrian Flynn's SW. I didn't think much of the Agricultural Story Advisor back in Mustardland days, but he is missed.

That is a coincidence @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g. It goes to show it's not that rare and therefore a perfectly possible option for Home Farm, but in that case there would be gossip to that effect rather than no mention whatsoever.