Archers thread #159: Sad news as 2023 draws to a close - RIP Ian Pepperell (Roy Tucker). 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 more of Gagriculture, 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.)

We start this thread with the very sad news that Ian Pepperell, who played Roy Tucker from 1995 without a break, has died at the age of 53. There's a lovely tribute to him in this article from Jeremy Howe, the current Editor. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/dec/23/the-archers-actor-ian-pepperell-dies-aged-53-roy-archer-eastenders

Graham Blockey, who played Robert Snell, died just over a year ago, also far too young (66). https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/much-loved-surrey-gp-archers-25524449 As yet, Robert survives in Ambridge.

I do hope they don't re-cast Robert, but it might work for Roy, I suppose, after a suitable interval. They've re-cast Tony, Tom, Kate, Pip, Clarrie and Emma, mostly successfully. I still wish Tom and Pip hadn't been re-cast. New Tom is a good actor but so was Old Tom.

Meanwhile, several very elderly members of the cast survive, and long may that continue, although not necessarily on air. I think most of us would say that the time has come for Jill to become a silent character, following the precedent of Peggy and Christine.

So! Christmas next week - will it be the best Christmas ever at either Brookfield or The Stables, or both? Then it's 2024. What does the New Year hold for The Archers? Over to you!

Congratulations @VillageFete

@TherapistInATabard Thank you! I shall try this - nightmare night!

@FiveShelties Thank you!

Will catch up tomorrow and see what’s happening in Ambridge, although seems from this thread it’s very Helen heavy.

Yes, but that puts you in the position of Miles, not Oliver. Miles knew who owned the land. Oliver has sold a small bit of land close to his own home and the other land he owns. Surely he would have wanted to know immediately who had bought it? I suppose a solicitor or estate agent could have done the bidding and said it was 'on behalf of a client' and then with Christmas and New Year there were delays in sending Oliver the paperwork. Even so, though, this is an entirely artificial delay for the sake of hyping things up, and it has (yet again) broken down the fourth wall for me. I don't want to be constantly reminded that I'm listening to a scripted drama.

Most Archers listeners aren't as masochistic as me, so will stop listening if it's really bad. Even I must have some sort of limit, I suppose. If I were a conspiracy theorist I might wonder if the BBC is actually trying to soften us up for getting rid of it.

I was convinced that was the purpose of Ambridge Extra, @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g! Shift the whole show over and then quietly bury it …

That didn’t happen - but perhaps TA-the-Faithful will soon discover a sealed envelope lying on an armchair?

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g I'm gone I'm afraid. The first time in over thirty years I've really no desire to listen any more which is quite sad really.

But this is a great thread with great contributions which I've really enjoyed. Thank you so much and all the very best to everyone.

@VillageFete , congratulations on your new baby TA listener. Hope you and baby are doing well, and Happy New Year.

@CarAccident , presumably the sale wasn't by auction.

"If you sell a plot of land at an auction, you can find out who bought it by checking the HM Land Registry. The amount of time between the sale of a property and the registration of this information with HM Land Registry varies, typically ranging between 2 weeks and 2 months1. You can search for information about property and land in England and Wales on the GOV.UK website. " (the Q I entered was 'if you sell a plot of land at auction when do you find out who bought it'

@bakedpotatoforlunch , spoilers should not be posted on the main thread.
Not that it is much of a spoiler but rules is rules.

What spoiler, @MerryChristmasToYou? I’ve missed it somehow. But maybe a lack of attention to detail on my part - channeling the script writers…

@bakedpotatoforlunch I have waxed and waned in my listening in the 10ish years since I started. I think I’ve been lurking on this thread for around 7. I hope we’ll see you back in due course!

@MerryChristmasToYou Yes of course, absolutely right. Sorry, my oversight and my apologies.

Going back to Ed, Emmur, texals, lack of land and needing money. Isn’t there a possibility that they could claim some sort of agricultural tenancy right on the land as they’ve been farming it for a number of years, and we didn’t hear Oliver give them official notice? I can imagine Oliver just letting the Grundies farm the land in a sort of paternalistic way with no proper contract.

My (extremely devious) exh grazed some land owned and adjacent to an old house. There was no tenancy agreement and when the house was sold he claimed these rights. The new owners ended up paying him in the region of £30k to vacate the land.

I suppose technically it is a spoiler but I think anybody who heard Friday's episode will be assuming that Helen is going to be agonising about what to do at some point very soon. Whoopy doo.

Don't be a stranger, @bakedpotatoforlunch! Maybe things will pick up soon. [Hopeless optimist emoji goes HERE]

@Molecule, the problem with what you've just said is that it assumes the SWs would want to be realistic and get the details right. On recent evidence, they don't seem to be too bothered.

If you sell a plot of land at an auction, you can find out who bought it by checking the HM Land Registry. The amount of time between the sale of a property and the registration of this information with HM Land Registry varies, typically ranging between 2 weeks and 2 months1. You can search for information about property and land in England and Wales on the GOV.UK website. " (the Q I entered was 'if you sell a plot of land at auction when do you find out who bought it

That's information for nosey parkers/ interested neighbours who want to find out who has bought land and what they paid for it. It has no relevance to the seller who for all sorts of reasons, both legal and common sense, will have known from the outset and before a binding contract is concluded who the buyer is. The sale of the land which became the charging station was equally nonsensical.

@AngryBirdsNoMore Perhaps. I hope so anyway. The Archers has been part of my day for so long I can't quite remember what it was like before. And I've listened either live every day or on catch-up at home or abroad in some pretty far-flung places.

But I think these past few months I've been tuning in because it's been part of my day rather than because I've wanted to know what has happened next in the course of storylines which have been frankly rather dull or just a bit silly. I'm not looking for high drama - that's not what the Archers at its best has ever been about - but the heart of what is essentially "Ambridge" has gone for me. I'm really sorry to be saying it and hope that others feel differently and will continue to enjoy tuning in.

I've been hoping for a while for some more inspired scriptwriting but it just hasn't come and the most recent episode with the revelation that it was the Titcheners who were the buyers of the land was the final straw really. Maybe things will look up in the future. I hope so. I've always thought it was the jewel in the crown of radio drama.

Domestic chore avoidance: ‘Ends of lines’. (So not all the same dynastic generation.) There are actually a more than healthy number of young stretching up to meet the sky!

Pip - Rosie; Fairbrother complication.
Josh - no issue (literally) yet.
Ben - nothing concrete beyond himself.

Dan - disappeared, no apparent issue.

Meruel - in waiting …

Lily - ready and waiting.
Freddie - evolving. Apparently asexual?

Ruairi - primed and dangerous (inheritance wise!).

Phoebe - no issue as yet
Noluthando and Sipho - in waiting …

Martha - linchpin.

Mungo - ditto, less so though. (Despite Academic Archers.)

Johnny - who knows?

Henry … super primed.
Jack … surely trouble coming.

Seren & Nova - too tiny to matter yet.

George - trouble.
Keira - (and Henry, In a tree, Kay Eye Ess Ess …)

Poppy - blank slate as yet, though lost her mother very young.

Mia - Harvard 🙏🏽

Chelsea - World at her feet, potentially.
Brad - Durham … Nobel prize …

Who have I forgotten?

@bakedpotatoforlunch , it was only a spoiler technically. Maybe I should have added a winky whatsit.

@IHaveNeverLivedintheCastle , I only quoted what the internet AI search thingy told me.

@TottersBlanklyIntoBimboCore , Phoebe

Nah, Phoebe’s there!

Oh yes, sorry. Xander.

Jake? Not technically in line, but is Mia's brother.

I do hope that Brad goes to a well-known and respected university. Same applies to Mia. Quite happy for them both to go to the same one.

Xander! Who may or may not grow up content. Will probably want a slice of Home Farm - if the SW haven’t sold it all off by then.

Have rather given up on Jake ever being an active character.

How old is Meriel?
BBC Radio 4 - The Archers - Meriel Archer has her as still at school, but she must be older than 18, surely.

I worry about Xander. Both Ian and Adam were over 50 when he was born, right? He’s going to be quite young when they are old and in need of care, or he may lose one or both quite young. And he’s an only as well.

I felt I’d spelled Kenton’s daughter’s name wrong - but was multi-tasking with kitchen stuff.

It is intriguing to speculate where the obvious flashpoints might arise - though I guess all the offspring ought to carry the same weight and get the same airtime.

Looking at the amount of land and property due to be inherited and fought over, it’s a crying shame the SWs removed The Lodge from the game. After all Peggy’s grand fondant fancy posturing, in the end it’s just gone the way of almost all things. Care home fees! When I’ve waited half a lifetime to see which Archer would inherit it.

I wonder, @KingsleyBorder if there might eventually be an unorthodox return of his biological mother? (That sounds odd …)

Meriel Archer was born in early 2001; Kenton telephoned to tell his parents Mel was pregnant on 28th August, 2000.

Her existing was the reason he was so determined to have another slice of the Brookfield inheritance cake, having had his share twice or possibly three times over already.

I'm not sure how much we were told about the genetics involved in the surrogacy story. I think Adam, for reasons I can't remember, but surmise were all to do with transmitting Archer genes, is Xander's genetic father. Lexi was the surrogate, i.e. the woman who went through the pregnancy and birth, but did she provide the egg? If not, we haven't a clue about who Xander's genetic mother is, but if I understand the law on this rightly (far from a given) he could eventually find out and try to contact her.

I hope very much that nobody else in The Archers goes in for surrogacy. It's not good for my blood pressure.

It was a donor egg IIRC

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g
I'm not sure how much we were told about the genetics involved in the surrogacy story. I think Adam, for reasons I can't remember, but surmise were all to do with transmitting Archer genes, is Xander's genetic father.

Ian's sperm count was so low there was no point using his sperm. This made the entire reason for the surrogacy irrelevant, since what Ian wanted (and was determined on having no matter what Adam felt about it) was a child who would inherit his mammy's smile and there is no chance whatever of Xander doing that; they might just as well have adopted, which was the original plan.