Archers thread #156: Fireworks in Ambridge! Helen gave Lee a rocket, but Grey Gables is a damp squib. Is the writing on the (church) wall?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're irresistibly attracted to George Grundy, 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 @OverArmour for the title suggestion, which I have tweaked a bit. I was strongly tempted by Less GGP (Grey Gables Peril) More GPP (Guinea Pig Plot), which was a plaintive cry from @PuppyPerson some days ago, but if Poppy has found new homes for the baby guinea pigs that may be the last we hear of them for some time, sadly.

Surely in the life of the next thread we must hear more from or of Rob, or Ron as some on this thread prefer to call him? <taps foot> Will Kirsty snap and tell Helen a few home truths? Will Pat's shotgun finally be brought into play? We can only hope ...

Also, will we ever find out who owns the other 60% of Grey Gables? Why is Adil AWOL (to use the other bit of OverArmour's title idea!)? Why aren't we hearing from Roy? Will GG ever re-open and will Emma get her Big Chance at last?

So many questions! Over to you.

I've definitely heard Anglican friends comment positively on the accuracy of Rev. I've never seen it myself.

When Father Ted first came out it scandalised my very devout Granny. She earnestly told teenage me that it was all very well us laughing at it, but that they actually 'let non-Catholics watch it too' and they wouldn't know that the Church wasn't really like that. My uncle shouted over from the other room that it was really like that.

Then again, she also forced me to watch Brideshead Revisited with a bedsheet draped over the TV and me, so that none of my younger siblings could be corrupted by it. I don't remember any explicit scenes in it, and I'm sure the themes were far too subtle for any of my siblings to pick up on anything.

I think unfortunately, the late stages of a glioblastoma could be responsible in itself for the delusional behaviour too.

I didn't get the context of why Peggy is withdrawing her financial support. Is it because of Rob?

He sounded dangerous when he was talking about insisting Helen comes to the next thing. He's going to try to do something to her.

Peggy is withdrawing her regular giving because she thinks Alan should not have supported Ron's baptism.

I think you're right re Helen. Cue melodrama.

I can’t see how Rob is well enough to cause much drama? He can’t get around on his own and he’s clearly weak.

Dairy window drama

I do think the pity and horror bring aroused for Rob is very well done. Tony's reaction to meeting Bruce for instance, there is ambiguity of response there, and personal development, given Tony had previously called a brain tumour an "easy death" that Rob didn't deserve. It's like with Helen and Pip: not all survivors of domestic abuse are likable people; a mature woman's first same-sex relationship is not necessarily a romantic idyll. These bits seem well-written to me.

Thanks for your post about church finances @AngryBirdsNoMore. Very interesting. I was a huge fan of Rev. Peggy's finances are of course a bit of a mystery which expand or contract to fit the plot - we were led to believe she's lost her fortune when Jick left everything to Hazel, but she still has enough to pay for a church window for instance and for her contribution to the church to be make or break for Alan. Rob's brain tumour is similar - he's walking with a stick, he certainly sounds as if he's deteriorating, but I don't doubt he'll rally to go out with a melodramatic bang. It makes me feel far less engaged with the story when it looks as if the SW are making it up as they go along (I know that's what they actually do, but I want them to at least try to make it believable).

The parish council worked out that it costs on average £25 per congregant per week to run! When I attended a different church as a teenager, that cost was £5 a week. What is the current socially acceptable weekly donation? I last attended church when £1 was thought to be ostentatious.

on another PP’s comment that Rex deserves better than Pip - is there any male in Ambridge we feel deserves Pip?

The only male who'd deserve Pip is Rob. Pip being The World's First Lesbian makes that union unikely.

And the fact he’s going to be dead soon!

There isn't a set amount in our church. A lot of people put in £10, but small change is also common. Not many give £20 or more by cash, but a lot of the larger donors give by direct debit. We also have a card reader in the church. Some people tithe, but not many. The amount of people who give a donation for baptisms etc has also gone down.

One of our biggest problems is that people haven't increased their donations to take account of inflation. They've been putting £5 in the plate for the past 20 years or more.

Some priests are good at speaking about it without looking grabby. But our current priests just find it too embarrassing so they barely mention it.

We run at a loss from donations, but because we're a busy shrine church we used to more or less break even from candles, which are very popular. But with the prices of everything going up we're not doing well. Our heating bills were over £1000/week last year!

I'd have been more impressed by Tony-meets-Bruce if that had not already happened more than once, back in 2016.

And somehow I don't feel that meeting Bruce and the view that a brain tumour is an easy death can be related all that much, since they have in fact absolutely nothing whatever to do with each other. Bruce did not cause Rob to get his glioblastoma, and I don't think Tony was under the misapprehension that he had.

Are you seriously suggesting that Pip is a mature woman? Mature? Really? Pip????

Ugh Peggy is just the worst. Why on earth didn't she just raise her concerns with Alan and ask for his side of the story? She's full of spite and I agree with pp's who say she uses her money to control people. I do feel sorry for Alan having to put up with it, after the silly window thing too. Those things Peggy said about Tony a while back too, horrid! Tony sounded so hurt.
As for Pip and Stella I'd LOVE Pip Stella Ruth love triangle. Pi-ella Struth! 🤣 Alas I think it unlikely...

Yuk! I hope that's not on the cards. Fancying mum and daughter is a bit much in my book!

That’s exactly it, @Fink - people have always put in a fiver, so they’re still putting in a fiver, which leads to a big real terms loss in income for the church at a time when costs are increasing.

Christmas is the exception - that’s when you see the occasional £50 in the collection plate!

Direct debit is the the norm in our church, and the card readers at the back are well used. Cash isn’t as common since covid, when the card readers were installed and direct debit system encouraged as coins and notes were considered such a vector for transmission.

There’s no set donation amount. In the plates you see coins and notes and no one will bat an eyelid anymore if you don’t put anything in as you may be giving in another way. That said, I went to a wedding in a cathedral recently and their card machine was set to a minimum of £5 - interesting approach I thought.

Legacies / bequests in wills are also a major source of income, of course. Being as church attendance slants towards older people and can be a lifeline to prevent loneliness, it is common for regular attenders to leave something in their will. A large gift in the will of a one-time regular attender paid for the organ in one of my previous churches - something like £300k.

Why is Peggy so wealthy? Sorry if a stupid question.

I know some consider Alan to be a bit wishy washy but I think he’s amazingly patient, as he’d have to be with people like Peggy and Natasha! I like the way too that he listens to other perspectives before giving his opinion usually quite gently. I think that’s true of some of the good clergy - Protestant and Catholic - who I know or have known well.

I love Father Ted. The visits of the bishop in particular - wonderful. DH and I quote it on a probably daily basis.

But with the prices of everything going up we're not doing well. Our heating bills were over £1000/week last year! What temperature do you heat to? I remember from my younger days churches being perishing cold. But now I belong to an organisation which organises events often in churches, which range from snug (usually modern Methodist) to freezing (often old CofE) which are noted and not used again - especially if there are no indoor toilets.

I'm inclined to the view that Peggy's large SO donation may not be as large as she thinks it is. We've not booked tickets to a concert we'd love to go to because they're £25, and with DH's illness there's a chance we wouldn't make it, and £50 seems too much to lose. I suspect to younger people this is laughable.

The more evangelical (and possibly the more non Pentecostal) a church, the more likely it will be that people tithe - altho it may be nearer 5% of their income than 10%

Many regular churchgoers (possibly at the younger end of things and in larger congregations altho I guess anyone in the CofE can use their Parish Giving scheme) pay via direct debit, so it's all unseen except by the Treasurer or possibly another officer of the church. The vicar shouldn't know who pays what.

*the more Pentecostal, sorry

Peggy is the worst kind of absolute snobby performative "christian" and my understanding of Alan's reaction was that he was inwardly rolling his eyes and thinking that is just the sort of vindictive old bag she is.

She won't be happy until he loses his job - and for that reason alone i hope he stays. (she is being controlling in exactly the way Rob is. That's pure irony)

Pip. Jeez. How the heck Stella doesn't just yeet her away.

I'm sorry to hear your husband is ill, Mere. Apologies if I've forgotten a previous post about this.

@AngryBirdsNoMore, Peggy was not born to wealth. I believe she grew up in the East End and met Jack Archer, her first husband, during or shortly after the war. I think she was in the ATS. Jack was the eldest son of Dan and Doris Archer of Brookfield Farm. Their younger children were Christine and Phil. Phil took over the farm and was Jill's husband and father of Kenton, Shula, David and Elizabeth.

Jack was not interested in farming and succumbed to alcoholism eventually, no doubt not helped by becoming landlord of The Bull. He was the father of Jennifer, Lilian and Tony. Peggy took over as licensee after Jack had to be put in residential care, where he died. Peggy eventually appointed Sid Perks to manage The Bull for her, and eventually he and his wife Kathy bought the pub from her with help from Guy Pemberton, the Oliver Sterling of his day.

Peggy meanwhile had moved over to office work. I think I have a dim memory from the early 80s of Peggy working in the Estate Office with Shula. Shula worked for Rodway's, an estate/land agency in Borchester, and with some difficulty qualified as either a chartered surveyor or a land agent. She managed the Estate, which has morphed into Borchester Land in the years since. My other vague memory is that she worked at Grey Gables with Jack Woolley, who owned it. Eventually she retired and after a long will-they-won't-they courtship she and Jack Woolley got married. Jack died a few years ago leaving substantial sums to both Peggy and his adopted daughter Hazel (his first wife's daughter from her first marriage). Peggy definitely has The Lodge, which was built as the lodge for Grey Gables when it was a country house, I suppose. As for where all the other money came from, Jack owned the Borchester Echo as well as GG, and must have had various other enterprises at different times as he arrived in Ambridge back in the 1960s or 70s as a hard-nosed wealthy businessman from Birmingham. He used to own the village shop which he subsidised for the benefit of the village. Hazel owns that now and grudgingly allows the shop to continue. He owned two cottages, April Cottage and Keeper's Cottage, which Hazel now owns as well.

As others have said, Peggy's money waxes and wanes depending on how much the SWs need her to have at any given time. She handed over a huge sum for the rewilding project and doesn't seem to have been significantly affected.

@OverArmour you said:
I think unfortunately, the late stages of a glioblastoma could be responsible in itself for the delusional behaviour too.

I agree. Psychosis is a state, regardless of how it comes about. In my post at 21.09 yesterday I said:
Rob sounded genuinely psychotic to me. It creeps up on you, whatever the organic or social cause.
organic meaning (roughly) physical, eg a brain tumour

I trust this thread enough to disclose that, had it been me on the traffic island, the police would already know I have a psychiatric diagnosis, and thus there would be a much higher probability that Harrison would have detained me under S136, that I would have been assessed by HCPs, and very likely detained in hospital under a S5, overwise known as being sectioned.

This is as it should be. The hard part for the police officer is talking the psychotic person into the car. Harrison was excellent at dealing with Rob.

I am not ashamed of my past mental ill health, however I have been appalled at the way mental illness has been portrayed on dramas, soaps etc over the years. But so far, = BOOP from me

Thank you for sharing that, I think this is one of the safer places on the internet and Mumsnet itself

It’s a tough storyline in multiple ways for sure.

18°, so not exactly toasty! We were heating to 21° a couple of years ago but can't afford it anymore.

The halls and offices get up to that temperature relatively easily and are pretty comfortable - we have smart controls on the walls so can see what the exact temperature is. We put it higher for things like the OAP group. I suspect the church itself rarely gets up to temperature: it's large, with a very high roof, and draughty. We ask people to leave the spaces near the radiators for the elderly and disabled, and to keep their coats on.