Archers thread #166: Choppy waters in Ambridge! Look out for the red flags and 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 love to be married to Harrison, 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.)

Another thread started in great haste, mid-packing! Over to you.

This is interesting for all sorts of Archers reasons:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b56678e1-7f59-47c4-a85c-d05bb80c594f?shareToken=8649e134b16a00958b488bbc686260d9

Absolutely, we are all different and have different circumstances. My Mum was almost 93 and in my case it was for the best. I am sorry you lost your Mum.

What’s kind of doing my head in is my instinct is giving me a little voice in my head that’s wishing Fallon would change her mind and have a baby. TOTALLY against my head which is saying that she should stand by her views and be who she wants to be. That’s unsettling. I think it’s because I think she’s a lovely person.

funny how evolution gets in our heads against our will

Just listened to the last 15 minutes of so of the omnibus. When Harrison was talking to Tom, I was half-expecting him to say 'You've got two behbehs, Tom. That dun't seem fair. I'll tek one on 'em 'ome wi' me.'

(Also, does anyone else think his accent is getting stronger?)

Yes I commented upthread on his accent - I expect it to be completely indecipherable within the week

I reckon that there is no ‘Rochelle’. She’s a fantasy figure created by Joy.

And I’m not for a minute suggesting that men don’t grieve about a lost pregnancy, but haven’t we now had the Ben break down after Chelsea’s termination, Harrison currently losing his mind (and I suspect that Fallon may have kept the baby but felt pushed into saying she’d have a termination because of the way Harrison was going on ignoring her needs and that SHE was the one in the car crash and nearly died), and then Tom airing his views this week about Kirsty’s loss.

Yes, they are real people.

She didn't even say she would have had a termination, she just said she didn't know what she would have done and it was a possibility. At which Harrison all but said 'you would have killed our baby?!' but he could only get halfway through the sentence before he broke down and left, saying he couldn't do this. Then we heard the heartbreaking whisper of Fallon saying 'neither can I.'

I agree with you completely that both men and women can grieve pregnancy loss, but in Ambridge apparently only men do (apart from Kirsty).

His accent is definitely getting stronger, and when you listen to the actor speak it’s nowhere near that strong. Calling everyone luv, meyte and cocker 🙄

I think you have a point about Joy. Maybe she had a miscarriage years ago and her loss became a fantasy child. The two storylines coming together.

Yes @Fink thats what I’m feeling too. And true that Fallon only said she didn’t know what she’d do. Not sure how they come back from this?

So is the outcome going to be that Harrison moves to another district and meet a 20 year old willing to have his 7 children? That’d annoy me too.

I wouldn't mind in the slightest so long as we never heard him and didn't hear about it.

So is the outcome going to be that Harrison moves to another district and meet a 20 year old willing to have his 7 children? That’d annoy me too.

It would delight me. The sooner he goes, and the more silently, the better. I'd like it mentioned in passing - "Oh, did you hear, Harrison's been transferred to the Falklands?" - and then never spoken of again.

Transferred to the Falklands 😆

Itd be the bit about meeting a 20 year old having his 7 children that’d be annoying not him going away. I’m letting real life seep into my Archer’s sentiments but I’ve known too many women who wanted children but were with men who wouldn’t agree to having children. Being principled women, they didn’t get pregnant.

Only for the said men to leave them in their 40’s to take up with younger women who did have their child/ren. There’s a word to describe those men but I won’t use it here.

Now I know that doesn’t make sense as Fallon doesn’t want children! But it’s all mixed in there somehow…

My friend was with a wanker who kept moving the goal posts - we can have a baby if this/that/the other, for 10 years.

He left her at 42 and had a baby within a year with 30 year old.

I really thought my friend could die from overwhelming grief. It was not just the breakdown of the relationship, the new relationship, or even his baby. It was the fact that someone who supposedly loved her played so fast and lose with her deepest desire, to the point at which he knew she could never have it, and then took that desire made it his own with someone else. Incredibly dark behaviour.

The Archers intrigues me in that sense - all these guys who are very in touch with their family man identity.

The other type does not get too much of a look in.

I suspect that Fallon may have kept the baby but felt pushed into saying she’d have a termination because of the way Harrison was going on ignoring her needs

Or the other way round: she’d have wanted a termination but was pressured into keeping it because of Harrison’s reaction (which would have been a mixture of devastation and begging, along with promising that he’d do everything to look after the child, despite it being Fallon that would have to carry and birth it plus the whole lifestyle shift that would come with it).

I find TA’s preoccupation with baybees and people getting pregnant/not getting pregnant tedious in the extreme. It is presented as being the only part of life/relationships that really matters. Ageing, illness, death etc all breezily brushed over or not mentioned at all but miscarriage/baybee/abortion SLs drag on and on. It’s just interminable. Fallon’s miscarriage has been the major fall-out of the crash yet so much else matters so much more. Sigh.

Off the top of my head, the last time I remember a storyline with a woman who IIRC was quite clear about not wanting children but then found herself pregnant was when Kathy Perks had a pill malfunction caused by getting confused over dates when returning from a trip to NZ with Sid to see his adult daughter Lucy. Kathy went ahead with the pregnancy and Jamie, who was in the end much loved, was the result. I can't remember whether we ever heard any conversation between Sid and Kathy at the time of their marriage about whether they would want children, or whether Kathy's views were only shared with the listeners after she found out she was pregnant. That was a long time ago, though! Google tells me Jamie was born in 1995.

Was hoping Pat would bowl Harrison but at least it was Pat trained Chelsea that caught him out. I suppose he is getting back to himself but the way he said ‘3 wickets in 3 balls’ was irritating.ain’t have any of his distressed groaning

I can’t help thinking catching cricket balls could be bad for an older lady with osteoporosis (not sure any in the team)

I like that Chelsea and Tracey sound similar

why is she calling them her tigers and not tigresses?

So, thanks to the Ambridge Hedgehog Fairy St Phillip of Larkin, Harrison has come to terms with never being a father and will find great fulfillment in hedgehog rescuing.

He and Fallon need never speak of the other business again.

The Archers intrigues me in that sense - all these guys who are very in touch with their family man identity.

Afterwards, I think the connection between feeling annoyed at Harrison (and my friend’s exes) was how it was the men deciding either to have them and be family men or not have them both of which is leaving the women in a place of uncertainty and waiting.

That was when it was a case of ‘will or won’t Harrison leave Fallon know he knows that he wants to be a father’ but I guess it’s looking now that he’s recovering his senses. And presumably stay together?

Harrison needs to be less selective in his quoting of Larkin. If he's going to cherry-pick, the final stanzas if This Be The Verse and An Arundel Tomb spring to mind. Maybe Emma could help?

I have to admit that Larkin is not really the poet I'd select for uplifting optimism. Or conciliation or reconciliation.

An interesting choice - comparing your miscarriage to a hedgehog run over by a lawnmower - whilst Fallon is wielding a lawnmower

Well, technically it wasn't Harrison's miscarriage, but I take your point - tactless much? I think I dislike conciliatory Harrison even more than ranting loon Harrison, probably because I suspect this will lead to him attempting to persuade Fallon to "try again" - as though she had been trying before.