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!

might you be open to the idea

Probably not if you lived in a radio soap and listeners had waited forever for the drama …

Why on earth wouldn’t she wait until Jack was 18, say, before starting to prep the ground for when he is 21.

Because gossip. More than one person in Ambridge already has the information. When they get together to discuss it they’ll be overheard. And then everyone will know. Henry would in all probability hear it from someone else before the end of this week anyway. Jack would be constantly walking into rooms where people swiftly start talking about the weather …

Another interesting point is that Bridge Farm is doing quite well. At some point there will be an inheritance and/or a share of the family business coming the way of Johnny, Henry, Jack, Seren and Nova.

Might the Bridge farm Archers be inclined to reduce Jack’s share since he has his pot from Rob?

Henry should talk to Lily. I mean, at least there is some vague logic to Henry not inheriting, given the different fathers. Poor old Lily has the same father as her brother and still doesn’t inherit!

I also just thought of something else- would Jack not have been Rob’s sole heir anyway under intestacy rules?

So he could have done absolutely nothing and achieved the same effect, but I guess by doing it this way he gets to insert Miles in Jack’s life as the trustee for a decade or so.

Not a lawyer. But have had some dealings with a Trust, and one which was changed substantially in that a trustee was removed, and it was split between beneficiaries.
Does anyone know if the beneficiariy of the trust could be changed (with the agreement of the trustees obvs). Now, we know Miles is a trustee. Could he be softened up? Presumably the other trustee is a professional one - a solicitor.
This is why if I was Helen I wouldn't rush into anything. I'd at least explore solutions. That would take a couple of months tops.. just to gather the info

Given robs obsession with my son I don’t know how this didn’t cross her mind

is she treating Henry a bit too much like the man of the house rather than her child?

Surely Knob's left it in trust for Gideon (which is how he always referred to My Son)? This is like the William and Edward inequity on acid - and at least that came out of the blue and was accidental, they didn't go through their whole childhood having to live with the idea. And to the poster who enquired whether Jack might be persuaded to share with Henry - this was what I wondered with Will and Ed and it was never even suggested or discussed. Henry is forever destined to be the fatherless child (however much Tony tries to compensate and however terrible Knob may have been as a father). I feel this storyline is also foreshadowing the other things Jack might have inherited from the father he never met.

I guess that Will and Ed’s relationship was already too far gone over Emma but you are right, it was a very un-Grundylike thing for Will to do, not sharing.

As for Jack, I wasn’t so much thinking that Jack might need to be “persuaded” @LillianGish , more that he might suggest it himself if he comes to fully understand what kind of man his father was. Helen was right to be worried that knowing about the money will potentially make Jack think Rob was wonderful, but surely there are enough people in Ambridge who can back up Helen’s account with their own experience, not to mention Jess and maybe him being able to read the court transcripts when he is old enough. In a way it could backfire on Rob as the family will have more reason not hide the truth from Henry.

I wonder what the position is regarding a trustee having contact with a beneficiary? After all, Helen had a court order preventing Rob from having contact with Jack. Would that not also cover indirect contact via relatives? Could Miles’ position as a trustee be challenged in a family court so he is dismissed or told it can only be carried out under strict instructions to have no contact with Jack? (I’m not sure he would need to have any direct contact to carry out the role).

Helen is the type to make sure Jack knows everything - more likely he will look it up and see the things she left out (the stabbing for eg) and will wonder what else she has lied about.

i suspect Jack is going to be a terrible teen and Helen is going to throw his father in his face

So, just to spell out what we now know, as it answers some of the questions we had after Friday:

Rob appears to have been a very wealthy man, which we didn't know before, as far as I can recall. I wonder if we are meant to assume he inherited money from somewhere, perhaps his mother, or a grandparent. He had a good managerial job for many years and didn't seem to be living an extravagant lifestyle, but not, I would have thought, earning enough to put by a large six-figure sum in savings and investments.

As soon as he knew he was dying, he made over a large sum of money to Miles in trust for Jack with instructions to buy land in Ambridge for Jack to inherit when he was 21. This is just bonkers. I know nothing about land sales but it might have been years before anything suitable came up. It seems to have cost him over half a million to buy this very small piece of land, albeit it's a barn with planning permission for residential or business development. Surely he knew he wasn't leaving enough for Jack to inherit an actual farm?

Onerous job for Miles, keeping on top of all the land sales in the Ambridge area from his own farm a long way away in Hampshire. If he asked an estate agent to keep him posted, that presumably would require payment to change hands in some form.

I've no idea what the inheritance tax position would be. He seems to have put the money in trust for Jack with instructions that it should be used to buy agricultural land, or maybe just land. Does that reduce the IHT liability at all? From my extremely limited knowledge of these matters, he'd have done a lot better to buy a property which would have been his sole dwelling and leave it to Jack, as that does reduce inheritance tax considerably. Gov.uk says if your total estate is less than £2m, which this presumably is, and you leave your home to your child or other direct descendant, instead of having the first £375k exempt from inheritance tax it goes up to £500k.

I imagine the production team's response to this would be that Rob wasn't interested in tax planning, he was looking for a way to control Helen, Henry and Jack from beyond the grave for decades to come.

As someone upthred said, the pp will run out on the land and there isn’t enough left over after iht to build atm. So bit of a waste.

trusts can be complex for iht purposes but I imagine the sw are thinking the trust avoids the need for iht. Whether they are right or not is another matter!!

agree that Rob having that much money is unlikely

PS Clunky bit of dialogue between Oliver and Tony. It was something like this:

Oliver: My land sale is causing problems for Ed too.
Tony: Why? I thought he had plenty of land for his Texels at Grange Farm?
Oliver: Yes, but the fields by the Am get waterlogged so he always used to move them up to that patch by the barn in winter.
Tony: Of course! That land is higher so it drains better and stays dry.

You don't say, Tony! We the listeners could never have worked that out. Amazing that you, a lifelong resident of Ambridge and farmer, should not have thought of this, and that you should need to spell it out like this to Oliver, longstanding resident of Grange Farm. Go and have a word with the SWs.

Gosh, put a barn in a field that’s not waterlogged you say. Who would have thought it.

What was the guide price for the land? How much money is left to maintain/develop it?

There could have been Capital Gains Tax payable by Rob when he gave his fortune to Miles. And as a PP pointed out, there will be 40% Inheritance Tax on Rob's estate in excess of the applicable threshold, because even though he gave it away to Miles, he died less than 3 years afterwards. That money would have to be found from somewhere - and not from Rob's estate, as he'd given his money to Miles! So I think Miles would have to settle it by paying it himself?

Over the years, SWs just make up what they want when it comes to money issues.

No cgt on the gift of cash to miles but it would fall into the iht net as gifted within 7 years of death

being generous to the sw- could the 840k be what was left to put in the trust?

still can’t believe rob would have that much

If it was cash, you'd be right about CGT. If it was in equities, there is definitely a possibility of CGT, depending on the size of the increase since acquisition, and how long it had been since Rob originally acquired the equities.

Rob would have been an idiot to have held that amount of money in cash. Not much return on cash in a savings account in recent years...

It's the gift to Miles that could have attracted CGT. Nothing to do with Rob dying.

If he gave it in cash to miles then that would be after tax - crazy amount of money for him to have had

crazy all round really

Paraphrasing Austen, easier just to go along with it all: I do not think they deserve the compliment of rational opposition.

BeaLola
Similarish to George & Ed - George inheriting from an Aunt and Ed receiving nothing

Not George! Will inherited, Ed did not. Aunt Hilda knew they both existed and had known this for several years, even having a photograph of both of them in their smartest clothes, and yet left Ed nothing. My theory remains that she had heard about his going off with Will's wife and her Aberdonian sense of right and wrong was outraged, so she wrote Ed out of her will

Somewhat tangential, I know, but the 🔮says that in a few years Henwee will go in search of his sperm-donor father, which will throw up all sorts of interesting possibilities.

Reflects real life in that respect.

Be fair. They’re explaining it to us. Just like Holme’s Dr Watson, or Bernard in Yes Minister. The real recipient is the audience.

I think if it’s been set up as a Discretionary Trust, the Trustees are allowed to add beneficiaries

@MereDintofPandiculation
Excellent! That must be what happened with ours. Kind of. Also a discretionary trust. So Helen really oughtnt dash into telling Henry until she's tried to solve the problem.

Convicted murderer