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!

Madcats
FWIW I am not sure that Chris is still just a blacksmith (or was his garden installation for Lynda just a one-off).

Chris always has been a farrier (well since he passed his exams), and does blacksmithing on the side. As a farrier he may be earning £26K or more; any money he makes by doing saddle trees and bridle hooks is a bonus.

Ooh I forgot about the garden installation

Blacksmiths would call Chris a donkey-whacker 🤣
Fair enough for Alice to call him anything she chooses after his little stunt with that ruddy pony 💥

There don't seem to be many women tree surgeons, from a quick Google. Surely you need to be strong and fit, with stamina? - men are much stronger than women, and at the risk of being ageist, Emma turns 40 next year...

Edited to add: Perhaps she'll end up mainly running the wood chipper (which is at least outside), and doing the books (which she is already assigned to)

SequentialAnalyst
at the risk of being ageist, Emma turns 40 next year...

... on 7th August. Whereas Ed is not forty until 28th September, so he's an awful lot her junior.

@SequentialAnalyst , men are much stronger than women, and at the risk of being ageist, Emma turns 40 next year...
No generalisations, sexism or ageism there then.

But regardless of age, gender etc, tree surgery will surely involve a lot of physical lifting, working with potentially dangerous machinery etc. and Emma has never had that sort of experience. Does she really know what it involves? Is she not being a little naive?

At least Ed has worked outdoors with heavy machinery of various kinds all his life and a transition to tree surgery would in terms of that kind of experience be fairly straightforward?

Yeah, biology’s a right sexist bastard, isn’t it?
Men as a class are stronger than women as a class, like it or not.

As a feeble woman of advancing years, maybe Emma could stick to more suitable work like dusting, polishing and baking.
She's 39 so shouldn't be operating any machinery heavier than a Henry.

Women however are more resilient, and though the loads they can carry easily may not be as heavy, they can carry them for longer, and further, than men can carry the larger ones. (All class not individual stats, obviously: some women are stronger than some men, some men can carry smaller loads further than some women, and so on.)

The real question, to me, is, has anyone on the editorial team ever hefted a chainsaw for any length of time...

Thanks @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime . The vibrations from the chainsaw would put me off, but that wasn't mentioned.

FWIW, give me a chainsaw rather than a Henry any day.

I would be thrilled were Emma to start training as a tree surgeon. The chances of a fatal accident aiming out scones in the tea room is disappointingly low, after all, and I dislike her.

She could upset Jill Archer by saying the tea room lemon drizzle is better than Jill's then Jill do an 'Oddjob' with a lethal flapjack

There are things that can be done to reduce chainsaw vibration, of course. If the balance is out of whack, or it's out of level, or the blade is bent or damaged in any way, or it is simply dirty, that makes a great deal of difference, and those can be improved if you identify them as a problem, for instance. And ideally you need to lubricate the inside of the blade every half-hour or so while you are working. This is the sort of stuff you learn on the course Ed plans to go on, though unfortunately the £3,000 grant he said he was hoping to get doesn't seem to be available at the moment: "Please note that the Forestry and Arboriculture Training Fund is currently closed for new applications as all available funding is currently fully allocated."

I do hope the editorial team were not relying on that fund for a major storyline.

There are lots of mature horse chestnuts, plane & lime trees near my house and it isn't especially uncommon to see a couple of tree surgeons a good 10-15 metres up them, dangling on ropes. It's not a job I'd fancy (albeit an important job in a place where a lot of the parks and gardens have been around for 200 years).

I suspect that Ed and Emma were thinking more about being a "scrub clearance" team for the gardens of townies. A local letting agent has a team of "gardeners" who turn up with a chainsaw, mower, leafblower and shredder to maintain tenants' gardens.

I'm not sure what sort of chainsaw Emma was wielding, but it sounded more like a hedge trimmer.

A more plausible storyline (now that hunting/shooting/fishing shall not be mentioned ever again), would have been for one of the Grundys to ask to "manage" some of the woodland (does Brian still own some or did he sell it to Borchester Land?). Then again, the woodman we use was saying that it is a lot harder now he's getting older so perhaps it would have been more of a job for George.

Will needs a vocation - he could go into partnership with his brother. George could join them at some point. It would be good to see the Grundys have some luck and success.

Madcats
A more plausible storyline (now that hunting/shooting/fishing shall not be mentioned ever again), would have been for one of the Grundys to ask to "manage" some of the woodland (does Brian still own some or did he sell it to Borchester Land?). Then again, the woodman we use was saying that it is a lot harder now he's getting older so perhaps it would have been more of a job for George.

Mike Tucker still seemed doing that sort of work when he was in his late fifties, indeed I have a feeling that when he left Ambridge he had still been being a tree-warden and general tree-clearance man (as opposed to Jamie being a tree-surgeon, which Mike encouraged Jamie to become). Mike was sixty-six in 2015 when they moved to Birmingham.

I really really want Ed and Emma to make a success of the tree surgery business and to be able to live a better life at last.

As to accidents... Didn't Jethro Larkin (Ed's Granddad) fall out of a tree and die? I can't remember why he was up a tree, although David might have been involved.. I was very young at the time and it's one of my earliest Ambridge memories, albeit a fuzzy one.

Jethro Larkin refused to wear that new-fangled safety gear David tried to get him to put on (because he had never worn that sort of stuff and he wasn't going to do what he was told by a whipper-snapper half his age who'd only been working at Brookfield for a few months), stood under the limb of a tree David was trimming off, and was hit by it when it fell.

Great post.

On both the tree surgery and the pony storyline, the killer will be upkeep costs - including insurance.

My sister had a pony when we were teens, a round, sweet natured beastie who preferred eating to dressage (her nominal purpose). Livery for this pony, shared with another family, 20 years ago and in the north west, was well into the thousands. Insurance was definitely over £100 a month. I guess there appear to be no childcare costs for Martha, and neither Chris nor Alice pay any rent, but still - in my fairly limited experience, the cost of upkeep on a pony or horse is likely to be beyond the means of most ordinary families with young kids. Money can be replaced with time, if you’re willing to do a lot of the legwork yourself, but Alice and Chris both work full time - and have a three year old.

The much older brothers of a childhood friend are / were tree surgeons - three of them, in partnership together for several years. One lost several fingers in horrible crush accident (I don’t know the exact details). After that the other two went into employment, so as to be covered by someone else’s insurance if the same was to happen again. I reckon this is where we’re heading with this storyline - not to a dramatic chainsaw massacre, but to a run in with insurance when Ed fails to pay insurance and upkeep on his tools and then screws up his health or someone else’s property. And then it’ll be someone else’s fault, poor Grundies, downtrodden by the man, etc etc.

Emma is married to a feckless and selfish man. Ed is addicted to his pride and puts it above any thoughts of his family or his wife. She could have had the house of her dreams - but more important that he gets to show the odd Texel, eh?

EDIT: thousands each year for livery, not each month. Just to be clear.

So couldn’t be bothered to listen to the episodes I’d missed

does the vets really need 2 nurses - and is it professional to have a mother and son? Seems an expensive way to try and get your leg over. And fgs, could she just end her marriage and get on with it

always nice to hear Brian - and nice interaction with Kate. I think they’ll make good housemates

Sorry @Bruisername I was going to give you an answer to your question about whether it was worth listening to the last week's worth of episodes but never quite had a moment.

I'm my opinion you've not missed anything much and I wouldn't spend precious time listening through. A bit of a silly episode on Christmas Day - an event that was in the end a non-event with Brookfield Christmas dinner being transferred to The Stables because the Aga had broken down, Alistair going all gooey with Denise on an emergency call out in the afternoon and Alice being sort of cross with Chris for getting Martha a pony. And then in the following episodes Ed deciding he'd like to be a tree surgeon and Emma saying she would too and wouldn't it be fun to run it as a business together? And then Lilian and Justin making up and having a big kiss in The Bull to a round of relieved applause from the other punters (relieved I think because they wouldn't have to put up with Lilian's sour mood any more).

That's more or less it I think, unless I've missed anything?

If you want to catch up without having to listen, there are synopses of the various episodes as they were on air at https://ambridgereporter.org.uk/synopses/2023.html#December
and BBC synopses of what is supposed to have happened at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qpgr/episodes/player
(open episode and click on "show more" to pull down the synopsis.)

Thanks! Looks like I didn’t miss much!

confused as to how the Brookfield oven broke and the many kitchens on site didn’t have one. Pip or Stella must be closer? And what time was this noticed? I can’t imagine the stables having a kitchen big enough to feed that number

@Bruisername Yes, that's what lots of us were wondering!! 🤔