Archers thread #179: Beavers, livestock, ferrets, but nododo! 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 be happy sharing a hot tub with 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 title started life with @JanglyBeads, whose autocorrect turned 'Oh no, nor do I!' into 'Oh no, nododo I!' on the last thread. For reasons of cowardice/prudence/lack of inspiration and the character limit, I haven't included @BeaLola's even more mysterious autocorrect - her phone had her asking Abdul if he'd always wanted children instead of Neil. Perhaps one of the mooted beavers can be Abdul.

For the first time ever I've added a poll to the OP. Over to you!

Bit late but just to clarify (since I was so unclear before) I meant that Debbie mistook Joy as being someone Brian would be romantically interested in. Not that she mistook Joy for Jenny.

... 40 year age gap, it's too much, can you imagine what Mumsnet posters would say.
There would probably be a few posters who would say it was perfect for them.
"Myself and DH met each other and eloped 3 weeks later, and despite the 45 year age gap and the 5 children we had between us, we blended families harmoniously. We went on to have another 3 DC, and 25 yrs later we are blissfully happy and have a wonderful sex life. Nobody could be happier"
The others would clutch their pearls.

Sod the age gap, Lily is also single

Pip was but I like Brian too much.
Fallon might be soon.

Pretty glad to say that I don't have a strong regional accent, a hot tub or a daughter called Rochelle.

Sorry for the misreading, @TottersBlankly.

What a snobbish post.

Oops. Has @IHaveNeverLivedintheCastle been outed as having a strong regional accent, a hot tub, and a DD called Rochelle?

I’m pretty sure that the poster was explaining the stereotypes that the SW have gone for, not expressing her own judgment.

I think I'm just repeating what Asking has already said, but I'm still gobsmacked at the rewriting of history going on with Neil. Having dug out my Archers books, here is what The Book of The Archers says about Neil's arrival in Ambridge:

He was born in Oxfordshire, moved to Birmingham with his mother and at sixteen [in 1973] was apprenticed to Ambridge Farmers under an agricultural training scheme. He left the city and got lodgings with the Woodfords.

My other tomes add nothing to this. I wasn't listening in 1973 and by the time I was (early 1980s) Neil was so well established that nobody was talking about his background. I don't remember a single mention of his mother or any other family member in all these decades, which is certainly odd by normal standards, but par for the course amongst those who go to live in Ambridge. Was anyone here listening in the 1970s?

So what, it's how Joy is portrayed, in my opinion. Do you really think she comes across as a sophisticated, middle class woman?

But surely if they rarely mentioned Neil’s family then it’s fine to give him this back story now, as nothing really contradicts it? Yes I’ve commented on the fact that we’ve never heard it discussed on air in the intervening 50 years but as long as they give Susan a throwaway line like “I’ve been on at your father for years to go on that Stacey Dooley programme” I’ll be happy.

I think that's how the production team would justify it, yes. TBOTA and the other books I have presumably drew on the character information kept in the production office on a card index in days gone by (database now, I assume). I would not interpret 'lived with his mother' to mean 'lived with his foster mother' but if that's just about all that was said in 1973 I suppose it's plausible. It would explain (to an extent) why he never went to visit any family, never mentioned family members, not even deaths, etc etc. Still odd.

Mostly I just ignore this stuff but when the SWs throw a strong light on it I find I can't.

I'd love to pop back 52 years in a time machine to stress to the writers that in a 1/2 century's time a group of strangers will be arguing about this (from computers and magic phones all around the world) so could they please come up with a better back story.

Now that we know that Neil was abandoned by his mother, there would have been several occasions on which Neil (and certainly Susan and/or Tracey) were likely to have expressed some fairly forceful opinions:

• Helen and her sperm-donor son
• Lexi leaving the country after being a surrogate for Ian and Adam

Rosie never seeing her Dad, Henry and Jack having to watch Lee emigrate...

On balance, I think I am more annoyed by the breadth and depth of the Am and how odd it is that it doesn't flood any more.

Was it a SW inaccuracy (Lee said he was enjoying the warm breeze) or a Helen inaccuracy, designed to show how little interest she had in Lee?

Bridge is definitely one up from house numbers! I would definitely scroll past bridge posts!

Twenty Five years of the Archers (1925) by Jock Gallagher, BBC page 39

When Neil arrived in . . . . 1973 he was a skinny sixteen-year-old townie.

Although born in Oxfordshire, Neil came to the village from Birmingham where he had spent most of his life.


. . . . he didn't like the 'mothering' he got from his landlady, His own background was that of an unstable home and he just couldn't understand that she was simply concerned for his well-being. He saw it as interfering.

That isn't exactly what we've been told lately.

Though Oxfordshire raises the possibility of his poor young mother's situation being the result of a dalliance with an undergraduate who has since become a senior academic and/or fabulously wealthy and powerful, and now, in his old age, wishes to bestow his wealth and wisdom on his only child.

George's genes had to come from somewhere.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g
Was anyone here listening in the 1970s?

Yes; it's why I am so outraged by the revisionism. When he first came to Ambridge, Neil had a mother in Birmingham to whom he was once or twice encouraged to write, though she never spoke. After a year or so she ceased to be mentioned at all, just like any other family member living outside Ambridge (various parents, sisters, brothers and so forth.)

I think I remember his also having had a stepfather he didn't like, or the possibility of one in the near future, and that was why he was keen on getting away via the agricultural apprenticeship, but that may be faulty memory.

Oxfordshire is a big place (1,006 square miles, in fact), most of which has nothing to do with the university of Oxford. It is between the Cotswolds, the Chilterns and the North Wessex Downs, and it is quite a long way from (say) Henley to Banbury. I think that's about sixty miles, though I haven't checked, but it's a journey I used occasionally to do and it took over an hour.

yes yes I know, and Neil's father will probably turn out to be a horny-handed son of toil, but I can dream can't I?

At the risk of being boring, we have a lot of sun, but the sea is very cold, so when it's hot in the East Bay it either pulls a strong, v cold wind through the Golden Gate, or we get thick fog. So the land feels warm but the wind or fog is cold, it's very confusing! That also means we get our summer in September-November when it cools down inland so we just get to enjoy the sun without the fog.

The vendors at Pier 39 do a roaring trade because lots of visitors end up buying a giant hoodie from them as they're unexpectedly freezing! I think it's particularly jarring for people doing a road trip that maybe started in San Diego or LA where it would be hot, before coming to NorCal which has a really different climate.

<end bore>

What sort of accent must someone have to quailfy as a "sophisticated middle class" woman? Joy has, as you say, a "strong accent" but her speech is, as far as I've paid attention to it, always grammatically correct. She doesn't sound anything like Chelsea, Tracey, Susan or Emma.

Not quite sure why a "strong accent" precludes being a "sophisticated middle- class woman". I mean have you heard Nicola Sturgeon's accent? Or Baroness Helena Kennedy's?

She owns a house next door to a house Helen can't afford and Tomtit and Gnasher probably can't really afford either.

I admit that the word "sophisticated" sets my teeth on edge. In Style & Beauty it's virtually a synonym for "wears a lot of beige cashmere"

I hate Miranda's voice. That weary, too tired to get the words out droning was awful from Adam and it's just as annoying from Miranda.

I was listening in the 70s but I was a student at the time and my memory of details may very well be hazy as a result. However, for what it's worth, I vaguely recall Neil mentioning his mother.

I very much agree though that the SWs are insulting our intelligence by introducing Neil's supposed back story at this stage when neither Neil or, more significantly, Susan have ever breathed a word about it before. As others have said, if the SWs wanted to have a 'foundling reunites with long list mother' SL, there are plenty of less well established characters for whom this would have been more believable.

I am going to buck the trend by saying I like Miranda a lot. She can't help her accent (any more than Joy can) but I think she is intelligent, humourous and self deprecating and I enjoy the way she stands up to Justin and Brian. Definitely not a doormat like Jenny Darling. I am only surprised she sees anything in Brian who is not intelligent, humourous or self deprecating in my view.

I would to this the time Susan was verging on rejecting Christopher because of his cleft palate.

She had a lovely time swanning around France a few years back, I think looking at Montbéliards, possibly a bit of cheese tasting.

I too think that it's entirely in line with her character to have simply assumed San Francisco would have a warm sea breeze. Although I think it would, conversely, also be plausible that she would have spent hours enviously researching every detail of Lee's new life whilst bemoaning her misfortune in being cruelly evicted from her boys' home.

This Neil SL is unbearable

Rochelle sounds like a stroppy teen still. But this SL really isn’t interesting me. And I don’t really want more teens

Just listening now. The Neil storyline is dreadful.