Archers thread #154: Cider with Fat Rosie, Meadow Rise to Candleford or The Darling Horrobins of September? Get your rural saga fix – 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 be euphoric about getting a job in an abattoir, 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 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/radio_addicts/4888492-the-archers-spoilers-thread-8-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 for the thread title suggestions. @HumanWetWipe came up with Cider with Fat Rosie and @BeardieWeirdie thought up Meadow Rise to Candleford. I wish I could have put in the Line of Duty mashups from the end of the last thread. Another time.

Heading for a ferry shortly, so nothing more from me for now. Over to you!

Oh was it? well that's good too and makes sense - he knows Jim better after all

Agreed. It's a very long time since I went to university, and my parents were a bit more clued up than Tracy and Jazzer, but they very largely left it all to the school. Fortunately, they were right in thinking that staff at the kind of school I was attending would be very clued up about where to apply and how to do it, but if I'd been studying elsewhere I'd have had to work out a lot for myself. Even now one sometimes hears of school staff who seem to have some sort of anti-elitist world view and try to discourage bright teenagers from applying somewhere like Durham.

It's not just as simple as 'Tracy could have looked it all up'. It's not her world. She doesn't know what she doesn't know, and it probably all feels very intimidating. Nobody in the Horrobin family has ever gone to university before as far as we know, with the exception of Kylie Richards/Horrobin, who is not close to the rest, as she grew up in Leeds. Roy and Brenda Tucker went to Felpersham to do vocational degree courses. Some of the middle class kids have also gone off to university, but even their success rate has been surprisingly low (lots of dropouts for plot reasons). There's been nobody in Ambridge before from a lower income family who went to a top university to do a non-vocational course. Phoebe Tucker doesn't count because she's had so much to do with the Aldridges and the Tuckers are anyway not poor in the way that Tracy is - and of course she is the second generation in the Tucker family to go to university.

I wouldn’t have expected her to do research but at a minimum asked at parents evening/asked Brad about what he wants to do/spoken to jim or oliver.

if your kid wants to do something you know nothing about don’t you try and find out?

Have to agree that when my DC were at local school they didn't tell us about open days until september in year 13. By which time most open days have gone.
The lady sitting next to me turned around and asked me 'what are open days? how do you find out about them?'.
I fed it back to the school that whilst they may be telling the kids about the open days, their parents weren't getting the message.
I do hope Brad goes somewhere prestigious (with a massive scholarship!) - he deserves it, and Tracey deserves to show she is a good mum.

She knows what Brad wants to do. He's applying for Maths degree courses. She's amazed but delighted, and supports him with his ambitions. It's come as a surprise to her, though, that people visit prospective universities.

As for why she hasn't gone to meetings at the FE College, it could be that she was working that night and thought Brad could manage on his own.

I quite wanted Alan to say "Since you ask, yes, you've done it before, after all."

I thought it was the other way round, i.e. the proposed window for the twins was a second Peggy window and predated Alan falling off the ladder. Around that time everyone's enthusiasm for the twins' window kind of disappeared

Hmm I think you're being quite charitable there I'm afraid: as others have said upthread, it's all about getting back at Helen and getting Myson back, while he still can.
Gosh I'd for gottenJack's name here. emphasis on the first syllable.

But if you couldn’t go to the meeting wouldn’t you ask for the materials? Yes she knows he wants to do maths but wouldn’t the conversation go a bit deeper?

from my limited experience of sixth form colleges they almost treat the kids like adults and expect not to deal with parents. Which isn’t great. And for social mobility reasons they should be better

Yes this sounds really familiar!

I have to say hats off to the Sutton Trust https://www.suttontrust.com/ who do free trips and stuff for kids with no history of university. Love them. Would be great if a similar (but presumably not same) organisation swept up Brad. The Button Trust? :)

Today I overheard a Mum & Daughter discussing the sausages in Sainsbury's. Neither knew what sage was - one said, it's stuffing I think, so they agreed the sausages would be OK to buy. So I can well believe that Tracy hasn't got a clue about Uni.

In my day we didn't have Open Days and when the DC went through the process a few years ago there was a lot of new info to be gleaned.

I assumed his Maths course was organised by a similar institution?

Oh maybe, I'd assumed it was a maths/STEM organisation of some kind

I think the portrayal or Traceys involvement in university for Brad is perfect. My parents didn't go to university and left it to me. They took me to one open day, signed some forms and that was about it. They were very proud but didn't know where or what to look for.

If they are going to do a bit of public service broadcasting then the Sutton trust looks good!

I agree - open days just weren't around 30 years ago in the same way they are now.

I hope Tracey comes home with loads of info about scholarships and support and how to get student finance. If anyone is suitable for outreach/widening participation it is the Horrobins!

And I think Rob is a dying man who is desperate to find some meaning to his final days. It is unfortunate that he has been so horrendous to the people who might have loved and cared for him had he been better. And I can see him kidnapping Myson for a t least a few hours.....

Mmm … As I said, the last time we discussed parental input or lack of on this thread it was - contentious.

I’m the child of immigrants who each arrived here for the purpose of study. So ‘university’ must have been one of my earliest words (and apparently I knew where I wanted to go when I was about five. ) I haven’t had the experience of being brought up by parents who were native to the country in which we lived. As it happened they were far away at the time I had to apply so I muddled along alone. I do recall some posters were appalled at the amount of involvement I and the other adults in the family had when the current undergrad was preparing for university applications.

My parents were pretty clueless about university, partly I suppose because my mother hadn't been to university and my father was just generally quite hands-off. It was left to me to make the choices with advice from school and to get myself to interviews. However, I do remember my mother getting VERY sniffy when I floated the possibility of doing history rather than the vocational course I ended up doing, and it was made somewhat clear that they weren't going to be too keen on financial help if that was what I went for.

I made very sure to be involved with taking my DC to open days and interviews and ready to listen whilst they talked through choices etc.

I have a horrible feeling Brad is going to decide he can't bear to be apart from Mia and go for Felpersham. If so, I hope she slaps him around (metaphorically) and tells him not to be so stupid.

Totally agree Totters that the info is out there and a lot of parents are highly involved, but my story was to illustrate that not everyone has parents like that.
I live in a nice middle class area, so I was surprised myself, but that mum really made me think. Neither her nor her husband went to uni, so I guess they expected the school to sort everything out (and their kid didn't pass on the info).

That's why I fed back to the school they need to get parents involved much earlier, to help the ones who don't know.

Brilliant post!

Oh, I don’t at all dispute that lots of parents don’t know what’s involved.

But the SWs have narrative choices (within the parameters of the long term plan) so it would have been nice to show a ‘working class’ mother who was on top of all the info, rather than falling back on a stereotype.

And what was the use of having people like Alice and then Phoebe becoming tangentially connected to Carters (and thus Horrobins) if knowledge and experience isn’t being shared amongst them? Even Lily might have been of use - Horrobins and Pargetters certainly aren’t strangers. It’s an apparently small village - I think they could do better, if only the SWs would allow them to …

That's asking a lot of what is (gulp) actually just a soap opera filling up 12.5 minutes of airtime six days a week, though ...

Don't blame the current SWs for things Tracy hasn't done in the last 10 years.

Here in the NE, one DC was identified as G&T (and they are). They went on a trip to Oxford with other G&T children from the area. They decided not to go to (what they called) uni, and have done very well in IT, and have no student debt.

I tried for Oxford in my 2nd year of Sixth Form, and like most applicants didn't get in. The plan was to stay on for 3rd year Sixth, the following Autumn term, and devoted entirely to Applying For Oxbridge. Thank goodness, I changed my mind and came here instead - I knew I would just waste a gap year, and wanted my new life to begin.
There are hills, dales, coastline, some beautiful rivers. Having since been to both Oxford and Cambridge (the places!) I am glad I did so - they are too big, too flat, and I can't ride a bicycle to save my life! Plus the terms were too short, really, especially for one who was Escaping To Their Real Life

OTOH it can get very cold and windy here, and the proximity of the North Sea means that we often have quite dull cloudy days.🌨

Similar! I got a Cambridge offer but didn't meet the conditions, so went to my insurance offer, which I had loved on sight, and which had offered me a place if I got two Es (matriculation offer). Looking back now, I can't imagine why I didn't just accept that and enjoy my last few months of school, instead of getting ridiculously stressed about trying and failing to reach AAA and a Grade 1 S level, which at the time were stratospheric results. As things turned out, I met the present Mr Gasp on day 3 of term 1 at the fallback option, and the rest is history. Three of the happiest years of my life. I'm not sure Cambridge would have suited me as well.

On Sunday 31st July, 2022, Peggy had the wonderful idea of celebrating the birth of her Incredibly Important Great-Grandchildren by donating a window to the church with two stars on it and a verse of psalm.

So without bothering to consult the vicar she told the family she was going to do this. It caused a fair amount of ill-will (as she so often manages to do) because Seren-and-Nova are not the only children in Ambridge nor even her only great-grandchildren. The original idea was to use a design of Peggy's to replace a plain glass window near the font. Alan was strongly opposed to it, the PCC were talked into approving the idea by Peggy, Jim was opposed.... However, the idea of a completely new window for Seren-and-Nova was shelved after Alan fell through Jack Woolley's memorial window on 13th October and Peggy's descendents hared off after the idea of replacing it with a new one glorifying Seren-and-Nova, instead of repairing and reinstating the one commemorating the landworkers in WWII.

And then Jennifer died and Lilian and Alice and Kate quit harassing Alan about Peggy's vanity project because they had other things to think about. Since I have a feeling the Alan had actively come down against it by that point and told them that a faculty would pay attention to his view, maybe they realised they were on a loser.

Sorry I didn't spell it out in all its utterly futile detail!