Archers thread #146: They did fall apart. Can they put themselves together again? 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. Most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you'd like to donate your time as a guide at Lower Loxley to save the Pargetters paying someone else a living wage, 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.)

Thanks to @Impostersyndrome for the thread title suggestion Buses and trains are sorely lacking, canals might be nearby, but all roads lead to Ambridge, picking up on transport discussions in the last thread. In the end I didn't use it, having in mind the character limit. @TottersBlankly contributed an early draft title Wreathes, wrath, writhing (Jennifer, Lilian, Ruairi). Both good starting points for the new thread, which I hope will last till Jennifer's funeral, surely not too far off now. So, over to you - whither the Aldridges? Also, does anyone care if Lee goes to the US? Is anyone even slightly interested in the Brookfield B&B venture?

I'm still not sure how this simple confusion in a post and rapid acknowledgement constitutes my repeatedly having a go at you and nadging at you.

@C8H10N4O2, as I read it, @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime did specifically state that it was NOT your post that constituted either of those things.

Seems unlikely given the Brum accent.

The Dickens character is Bill Sikes, but I think the surname is usually Sykes.
Nicknames evolve so Sykes might not be his real surname.
I'm a bit confused by the timeline. Jill wasn't around during the war, but Sykesy might have worked at Brookfield much later than that.

I'm a bit confused by the timeline too. Thanks as ever for the clarification @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

Everyone is on the new thread btw, see you there!

Ahem ... MysticBea (aka me) shipped Brian and Joy on the last thread!

@BeatriceBatchelor
You share the prognosticatory gift! Welcome sister

I'm not sureif I'm brave enough to venture onto the new thread yet @GoldenCupidon .
Maybe the escaped PoW is Adam's father, much older than Jennifer.
My grandparents had PoWs on their farm. I think they left after the war ended.
I looked up nadge but I don't think we'd be using that sort of slang on here.

New thread is peaceful so far.
I don't think they'll be rewriting known history re Adam's parentage.
More likely Jill 'heard' something re the POW (e.g. she knows who reported him or somesuch?)

We know that the character is Mr (William) Padry, known as Sykesy. The surname is in the BBC synopsis for 27th February, the forename was used several times in the programme.

Sykesey was a child during the war; his older brother was friends with ten-year-old evacuees at the time of the POW escapee, so presumably he was under ten himself.

Jill has stated that he worked at Brookfield while she was there, thus after 1957. In fact she wasn't at Brookfield until 1970; before that she and her husband and children lived at Hollowtree. But she might have seen Sykesy if he had been around, which in the programme he was not.

fab info @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

Thanks Asking. Maybe Jill remembers him working at Brookfield before she and Phil moved there. I hadn't realised that Mr Padry and Sykesy were the same person.

The main thing wrong with this storyline is that we always knew who the Brookfield workers were, and there was always quite a palaver when a new one arrived or an old one left; "Sykesy" was not one of them. Maybe a seasonal worker?

I think there could easily be casual workers in the same vein as Eddie, brought in at busy times such as harvest or lambing?

Definitely possible, but in that case it might be a little strange that Jill instantly knew him, and by name. Also he called her "Jill", which suggests more than distant acquaintance with her as his temporary boss's son's wife.

Bert Fry arrived suddenly as a long-standing resident of the village, too, so perhaps it's just what happens at Brookfield: anyone who works there becomes an Oldest Inhabitant overnight.

I think also farmers 'know' each other from markets, NFU meetings, young farmers or whatever.
But you're right I'd have expected it as Mrs Archer or Miss <whatever she was>

He's a fictional character invented for a SL, so I think they're rewriting history.
Maybe Doris was 'Mrs Archer' and the young Mrs Archer 'Jill'.

Did anyone- Jennifer, Adam himself, a village gossip- comment at the time that Adam got together with Ian that it was quite a coincidence that he settled down with a man from NI when his father was from NI?