Archers thread #178: Ambridge or Scambridge? 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 fancy Mucky Mick, 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 https://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.)

The scars from Scambridge week will take some healing. Most of us felt we were the ones scammed - where was The Archers we know and (very occasionally) love?

Anyway, onwards and - almost certainly not - upwards. Will it be the best Christmas ever in Ambridge? Do we still care? Over to you!

Lilian has wardrobes full of cashmere coats going back to the 70s probably.

Yes, my own experience concurs - my dad born in the early thirties was William Edward. I’m in my sixties and was at school with children named all 3, but only one Alice to a fair few Williams and Edwards. Over the years I’ve met many Williams and Edwards and a few Alice’s. I have two members of my extended family called Alice now in their forties (no Williams or Edwards, but a few Toms, Jacks, Bens, Joshs, Sams) Now I can think of at least half a dozen girls named Alice in their twenties.

I don't think there was any mystery about it. One social climber knows another - I felt Brenda was happy to sweep back in knowing she’s made it. As a PP commented, I can’t wait until she meets her old boss Lilian! Natasha likes to think herself a cut above with her expensive purchases and makeovers, but was caught out in her fleece on the way home from the farm supplies shop and very much cast in the role of country bumpkin to Brenda’s sophisticated business woman (which is how N likes to think of herself). I thought it was a fantastic scene - Brenda left Ambridge as a down-trodden Tucker and has returned as good as (if not better than) any Archer. Natasha likes to think she’s done rather well for herself in snagging Tom - Brenda made her feel like she could have done much better.

And of course Miranda (if it’s true about all the money being hers) probably has entire streets of storage units full. But she doesn’t yet officially live in Ambridge so doesn’t really count.

Lynda would have one or two.

Lily - possibly.

Elizabeth - definitely.

Sure there are more, but getting to my train stop.

Cashmere makes my neck itch. This has no doubt saved me a small fortune over the years and means I don't have cashmere-envy. What with that and not being called Brenda, I am feeling truly blessed this morning.

My sister's ma-in-law was called Avis. When she was being particularly annoying, she was referred to as Hertz Van Rental.

I also loved the fact Brenda spoke so dismissively of her engagement to Tom as an aberration and something that wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t lost her mum. Dearie me, that must have cut Natasha to the core.

I'm sure all Jenny's lovely clothes that were jettisoned so quickly included cashmere, so many an Ambridger could have snapped some up.

And anyway, Natasha brought it on herself. She couldn’t wait to dash over to Willow Farm to inspect her never-actually-rival. And I guess she underestimated Brenda because she’d found Kirsty to be no threat at all. It was a learning experience - next time she’ll go home and glam up before meeting an adversary.

I wonder what meeting Brenda will make Natasha want. The Beechwood house all the more? Or Bridge Farm house? Or an ‘executive home’ somewhere beyond Ambridge?

I wonder what meeting Brenda will make Natasha want. The Beechwood house all the more? Or Bridge Farm house? Or an ‘executive home’ somewhere beyond Ambridge?

Or a new husband?

Why did Brenda and Tom split?

Didn't Brian give a cashmere something to Joy? Perhaps a scarf? Debbie spotted it and had a huge meltdown as she thought it meant the two of them were having an affair.

Didn't Joy buy it at the fete or something?

More BOOPs for That fabulous scene. Thought the Prickliness of Natasha and Brenda was entirely likely and v well done.

Can imagine them being fab frenemies eventually though if Brenda returned. Perhaps she’d like home farm as a holiday house 😂

apologies for erratic caps - typing while breastfeeding

I thought it was something to do with lack of commitment from him? Would love a precis from someone who was paying attention at the time

I don’t get the hate for Tom - I know he jilted Kirsty but I’m not her biggest fan so can’t blame him

perhaps I just feel sorry for him having to grow up with a revered dead brother and Helen

As I recall it, @Bruisername, Brenda experienced a seismic jolt of horror when Tom suggested they could build a marital home on Bridge Farm land.

And I think she was dissatisfied with her employers. Weren’t Pusscat and Tiger working her into the ground?

Unfortunately, what with Matt going to prison and the AmEx intervention, the details have gone from my memory.

It’s true though that Tom takes advantage of any hysterical bonding opportunity. He comforted Brenda when her mother died; then shagged already jilted Kirsty in the immediate aftermath of Helen being found not guilty. (Which led to poor Wren.)

Didn’t Brenda end up getting involved with a Russian criminal? Or am I totally making that up..

Yes, but that was in Ambridge Extra!

That happened on Ambridge xtra, so I heard about it rather than hearing it. She had a fling with Pusscat's dodgy toyboy on the real Archers. That didn't end well.

I kinda hope that now she's rich and powerful she has come back to destroy the Archers (family) and return Ambridge to the downtrodden workers.

I remember that there was a toyboy. Am I right in thinking that Lilian never forgave Brenda for luring him away from her? What I can't remember at all is what order all this happened in, and how long ago, or what said toyboy was called - oh no, wait a minute, was he Scott? Had Lilian only recently returned to Ambridge? The Grey Gables pool/spa seems to be involved somehow in what passes for my memory.

Brenda was such a wasted character for so long. She got excellent A level grades and unlike Roy decided not to go to university. Instead she was taken on as a trainee radio reporter at Radio Borsetshire (yes, a BBC local radio station ) and toiled away there for years and years without any apparent progression. She could have been transferred to London or Brum and still made regular visits home to see the family. But no. So eventually when she got fed up there she applied to what I think was an unnamed university but had to be Bournemouth to do a prestigious radio journalism degree course, which of course she had barely started when Betty died. So she dropped out of that and the following year went (inevitably) to good old Felpersham to study Marketing (I think) and all the time she was doing this she worked at Amside for Lilian and Matt doing all the grunge work. How and when she got fed up with that too and left escapes me. I didn't listen to AmEx. I think she may then have taken a job far enough away from Ambridge to require finding digs near the workplace. She was living with Tom then so came back home every weekend. It wasn't long before she jacked that in, IIRC, because it was all too much. He was building up his sausage enterprise at the time.

I do hope she's back for good, and not just for a short cameo.

I also hope Brenda is back for good, or, at least, for a good long stay. I am not sure how they will manage it though if she carries on in whatever job it is that requires her to travel to Dubai, etc so frequently. Perhaps, having made her pile, she is ready to retire from the corporate rat race and set up a new enterprise in Ambridge or take over BL.

I enjoyed the scene with Natasha enormously. I have a soft spot for Natasha, so, unlike almost everyone else, I felt sorry for her suddenly seeing her life with Tom as a poor second best to Brenda's more glamorous and successful life. Natasha was telling Tom only a few days ago that they were "executives" and deserved to live in an executive home, and now she is faced with a real life executive.

There is clearly endless scope for competition between the two if them, although I wasn't convinced that Brenda was putting Natasha down deliberately. I may be wrong. I do hope though that things don't descend into the childish point scoring competitiveness we have seen at times between Lillian and Lynda or Jim and Robert. Whenever the SWs try to be funny it is invariably at an embarrassingly primary school level.

I also hope it doesn't lead Natasha into debt - although I fear it could be going that way. Another PSA storyline seems on the cards.

Executives would rarely want to live in an executive home!

what does Brenda actually do?

I know. Horrible term!

Rather old fashioned by now. I well remember in 1973-4 when my parents were househunting my mother collapsing with laughter at being shown the plans for a new (rather cramped and squashed together) development of 'Executive Euro Residences' on the outskirts of Limerick.

An executive is just someone who executes the instructions of someone higher up the corporate ladder anyway; I can't think how it ever came to be thought posh.