Archers thread #167: Welcome to Ambridge, the world capital of loose ends! 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 The Archers to be wall to wall election conversations for the next month, 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.)

Over to you!

VoxPop
Alan just read it out, as I recall Harrison did not really know what was going to happen

Alan had given him the prayers to read in advance, and he said clearly that he had done so and they were all fine by him. So he absolutely did know they had included Fallon, against her expressed will. (Why Alan had to send them to him again is a bit of a mystery, but then, Keri Davies did not write the scene with Alan and Harrison in the church so he may not have known about that bit.)

Fallon had already made it clear how she felt, more than once, so he had, as she rightly said, bulldozed over her and showed no respect for her feelings.

If Harrison had really wanted to resolve his grief privately with Alan, he could have done so in the vicarage rather than in the church; I am sure Alan is not the sort of Christian who has some vague idea that God lives just abaft the altar and nowhere else. I am equally sure that if Harrison held such a very old-fashioned view Alan could set him straight about the words "omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent." Perhaps he needs a cross-stitch sampler to hang in the loo: "Thou God seest me".

I completely agree. She's massively unreasonable to object to a private prayer with the vicar.

Not at all unreasonable, though, to object to being included in the “parents” on whose behalf God was being bothered.

At lease she’s noticed how pompous Burns is. That’s as good as ‘the ick’: she won’t be able to unsee it now.

The parish church is not a private place; it is open to all. So a prayer there might at literally any moment become a public one, as Susan comes bustling in to see who has left the lights on or Neil wanders by to check that the bells are properly in trim for ringing practice on Wednesday. Or indeed whoever is in charge of choir practices these days comes right up into the chancel to check that the hymn-books are all in the right places and the music for the organist has not been mislaid. Or someone else drops in to kneel quietly in a pew and open his or her heart to God on the anniversary of the death of someone beloved.

I guess.

As a firm atheist I couldn't bring myself to care though.

To be fair to Alan I think he was always a little bit uncomfortable that Fallon was not included in the plans and perhaps the "parents" thing in the prayers was just his way of acknowledging that there had ben two "potential" parents, and he was trying to be inclusive in a good way - not realising how extremely strong Fallon's feelings on the matter were.

Leaving God out of it, I think I would object to someone talking about me behind my back when I have particularly asked them not to, though.

And that is the crux of it all: Harrison wants to wave Fallon's private medical affairs round his head like a banner and proclaim his grief and anger about them to the world; Fallon would prefer them to remain Her. Private. Medical. Affairs. These two desires are clearly not compatible.

I feel that Alan is a strangely insensitive person. He sometimes seems to feel that by virtue of being a vicar he has some kind of jurisdiction over people. The way he has handled this has been a bit odd. Harrison has been a pillock but I do have sympathy for him as he has had a big shock. Alan ought to have more empathy for Fallon (and it’s true he did try to get Harrison to tell her about the prayers) and ought to have kept the prayers as simple as possible. I am dubious about whether he would think the ‘child’ was in heaven?? It seems a bit theologically weird to me.

Whether or not they were going to have sex on the roof, it's massively inappropriate for Joy to be hanging around so much while Mick is supposed to be working. That in itself should cause Oliver to discipline him. I get that security is a boring job (mostly), that doesn't mean you can liven it up by bringing your partner along.

Sussurations
I am dubious about whether he would think the ‘child’ was in heaven?? It seems a bit theologically weird to me.

If it's true that embryos without a heartbeat make it to heaven, heaven is chock-full of Todals.

Harrison has told Alan that Fallon feels differently, but what does Alan know? Does he know that Fallon was actively avoiding pregnancy by having a coil, and that the miscarriage may have been the coil-related?

Or does he think that they weren't actively "trying" but would have regarded a pregnancy as a happy accident?

Does he appreciate that for the entirety of the time they knew about the pregnancy - less than 24 hours? - Fallon was in a state of shock following the accident?

Fallon was harsh but for all of his ‘we need to talk’ he hasn’t even tried and just runs away like a big baby

i I thought he and Joy had used the health club at night. Which should have shown on the cctv because it would be a bit odd if they only covered the one corridor and had done that badly. Don’t want to think about what they got up to in there

I think it's clear that Harrison knew perfectly well that his "private" service in the church would very much upset Fallon; why else was he keeping it a secret from her? That can't have been from consideration for her feelings, because not only did he ignore Alan several times telling him that he must talk about it with Fallon, he didn't bother to tell Alan that it was to be kept from her at all costs, with the result that Alan has dropped him in it twice, and therefore twice made Fallon seriously unhappy.

– in fact, if Alan had thought at all he would have realised that what he, Alan, was doing was wrong, because it was being done behind Fallon's back. Good priests don't do things hole-in-corner unless there is a very good ethical or moral reason, and causing one person pain at the behest of another is generally neither of those.

The big shock was, or should have been , almost losing his wife.

It's massively unreasonable of Harrison and the vicar to co-opt her into their prayers.

This miscarriage saga is dragging on for too long. I’m finding this constant merry-go-round of screaming matches between the two of them followed by heartfelt declarations of love then yet another argument really tiresome.

If Fallon doesn’t believe in God, praying etc then I don’t see why she should be so bothered by it all. The atheists I know would laugh if someone prayed for them. Alan wasn’t broadcasting her medical condition to all and sundry. He wrote a prayer and sent it to Harrison. She shouldn’t have read it and I thought she sounded extremely controlling. Harrison is not allowed to discuss the miscarriage with her and is banned from talking about it with Alan and engaging in private prayer. Now his messages are being monitored as well.

Where did Mick live before he bought the motor home? Was he homeless? I don’t understand why he’s living there or why Joy would spend the night in what sounds like a rickety, unpleasant space instead of her own home. He cannot keep himself clean or remotely presentable and seems lacking in cognitive skills. All very odd.

Asking, I agree with your last few posts. It was a bit strange using the church - Harrison even questioned it and Alan reassured him that no one would come in - I wondered how he could be 💯 sure of that at the time - but I put it down to a SW being a touch High Church or something.

Yes the main problem with Alan all through this is that he hasn't shown enough concern for Fallon at all. In his desire to help H in his grief he has acted quite unlovingly towards Fallon, which is definitely wrong.

Would that we'd heard him consulting his midwife Dd Amy, and them reflecting together on how hard miscarriage can be and how people sometimes react differently to their partner and it often depending on whether they ever intended to have children and other such pertinent and useful thoughts....

Christians pray for non believers in various ways all the time though 🤷🏻‍♀️ . But should definitely not attribute to them thoughts and emotions which they clearly don't have, that's like trying to deceive God. Which is a bit silly.

The atheists I know would laugh if someone prayed for them

I think it's a very arrogant thing to do.

Why arrogant? Most people are dismissive of things they simply don’t believe in.

As far as the script goes Harrison had wanted to tell her but could not bring himself to because
a. they had agreed not to discuss it any more
b. every time they did it caused an argument

Harrison had made it clear to Alan that Fallon didn’t feel anything like he did, and Alan realised she did not want to be included in prayers, although he preferred her to be told, but said the prayers were about Harrison’s personal grief.

It was definitely wrong (in my opinion) to include Fallon in the Prayer when no one had sought her agreement. Although the only prayer I recall we actually heard was much more generic.

I see no reason why Harrison should not have had his private prayers with Alan in the church. It was unlikely they would be interrupted (and they were not) and there were a number of ways they could, and possibly did ensure that was the case. It also allowed Harrison to reflect alone in peace afterwards.

I disagree this was wrong and think it unreasonable to describe Harrison’s private prayers with Alan to help him with his grief as such, because he is a person too and obviously seriously grieving and needs help. If Fallon had wanted to deprive Harrison of that, then it is quite controlling, given it was as private as it could be.

Alan totally messed up the first time, but this time it was a private message to Harrison and just “unfortunate” that Fallon saw it as it arrived and read it. I also don’t understand why Alan would have included Fallon in the prayer in the first place given the situation and the fact that he picked the prayers, but if Harrison saw the prayers before hand he should have picked that up. Of course it makes no sense for Allan to have sent them again to Harrison, if he had already seen and agreed them (except as a device for Fallon to find out again).

Perhaps Harrison could have claimed it was painful to him for Fallon to get drunk, stand on a bar and publicly belt out explicit songs, such that she got asked to leave, especially when he was still grieving. So we could say it was wrong for her to do that.

But I would hope he would see it as what she needed to do to cope and move on, same as his private prayers with Alan.

I felt sorry for Harrison too, to be honest he is very very upset about the loss of what could have been a child, which sounds like he wanted all along but kept that to hisself because he didnt want to upset Fallon.
He didnt know ,when he married her that Fallon didnt want kids.
I think Fallon should just say do what you want to get over your sadness but leave me out of it.
Wheres Joy gone. This character has changed so much. Joy was very sensible so why has she become this silly women now with hobo Mick.
And how many Doctors do you know would come into a carpark ,sit in a car and diagnosed a patient in the 10 mins you are allowed per patient.
I say this because I havnt seen my RA Consultant for 2 years, my hospital appointment has been cancelled 4 times now.

If Fallon doesn’t believe in God, praying etc then I don’t see why she should be so bothered by it all. The atheists I know would laugh if someone prayed for them

I think generally this is probably true but the problem is that she is married to H. So his quiet evening of prayer for a baby she doesn’t think actually ever existed underlines the seismic gap in their relationship and beliefs and illustrates how utterly incompatible they have become on a fundamental level. They might be ok talking about take away menus but they are far far apart on the big stuff. I agree with PP who say they won’t be able to survive this. Or they wouldn’t be able to IRL. But we are in the world of the soap so who knows….

I also agree that Joy wouldn’t be relaxed hanging around Mick’s place of work. She would be bustling around the kitchen in Beechwood and getting things prepped for him at the end of his working day but not sneaking about snogging in GG. The SWs are weirdly obsessed with sex and French farce at the moment. They have obviously have been told to spice things up a bit but have no clue about how to actually do it. Don’t they realise less is more?

Do we know for sure that Fallon is atheist?

I am and I honestly couldn’t care less if people include me in their prayers or what not as it is meaningless to me. However, I do not like being co-opted into religion and to me it does feel like it was being imposed on Fallon.

people can be very judgmental of those with no belief and there a few times in my life people have tried to manipulate me into religion - especially as a child- so I am wary of people trying to include me

on Joy - I thought there were issues with her and Helen at the start because she was a bit of a nightmare neighbour with the hot tub etc?