Archers thread #183: The Scorekeeper's Apprentice. 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 to share 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.)

Credit for the title goes to @TottersBlankly who suggested it and @BeatriceBatchelor who coined this lovely phrase. (It's led me to take a look at the Wikipedia page for The Sorcerer's Apprentice. I had not known before that the animation in Fantasia that goes with the Dukas symphonic tone poem is more or less unadulterated Goethe, and the story goes back to ancient times. You learn something every day.)

At the end of the last thread, there was an apocalyptic tone as we were all bemoaning the lack of continuity and farming storylines (especially lambing, which used to be a big theme at this time of year). Are there any reasons to be cheerful? (Not just Part 3 - another reference for the older listeners here. ) Over to you!

Thanks!!

<twirls>

Thank you Gasp

New thread already?! Exasperation is driving us!

Thanks @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g!

Thanks @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g for the new thread. I've now got that excellent song playing in my head on the basis of your last paragraph. What a way with words that man had.

He did indeed. Played on Sounds of the 70s yesterday, so was in my head anyway. 25 years ago on Thursday since he died.

Thanks for the new thread @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

25 years. Gosh.

It was lovely hearing Clarrie and Emma together.

Thank you @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

Emma is definitely growing on me. George going to prison seems to have humbled her somewhat.

Thanks for new thread - excellent title. Reasons to be cheerful for me would be that we haven't heard from Joy or Mick for ages (and just like that I've probably conjured them up!) My main objection them is that they have no farming connections and no reason to be the in the village (unlike say the Maliks who have moved in because Azra is the village doctor). I would be happy for them both to leave\drown in sewage (perhaps it could bubble up into their hot tub) and never be heard from again. I'm not even interested in any resolution re the Rochelle situation because she was far more interesting as a mystery and the reality of her was even more tedious than her mother or Mick. I'm looking forward to The Bull socking it to the tea room under Fallon's command - that would make me very cheerful indeed.

Thank you for the new thread.

Assuming that Helen does actually make either Clarrie or Susan redundant, she missed a trick by not getting it done before 1 April when the National Living Wage goes up (I can't imagine the dairy pays them anything except the minimum). When did the dairy open, BTW? In my mind it has only been going for about 10-15 years.

On the plus side the SWs have remembered that Keira exists, mentioning her two weeks in a row, so I wonder whether she will start speaking soon? She's at school with Henry and omnipresent Khalil; it's not too late for them to have a chat about lambing and goats on the bus to school.

Helen is a lot older than I remembered. She's going to be 46 on 16th April. She must have started the cheesemaking enterprise after she left Reeseheath College. IIRC, Pat started off making ice cream and yoghurt first, with help from Clarrie. John died in 1998 and Helen was at Reeseheath then - graduated in 2000 or 2001? She was given compassionate leave and switched her placement from some other farm so she could keep the dairy going while Pat was with the nuns in Wales when she had a breakdown. She upset Clarrie at the time, can't remember the details - oh yes, didn't she promote someone else who was newer than Clarrie but more smarmy? Possibly Colin, who later left. That may have been when Susan started.

Madcats
When did the dairy open, BTW? In my mind it has only been going for about 10-15 years.

I think the Bridge Farm dairy must have opened in about 1992 when they started making yoghurt and ice-cream to sell in their farm shop – yes, they had one of those until the turning to get to it was deemed too dangerous, or something, and it had to be closed. (I wonder what they did to make it safe to open the present farm shop. A case of Scriptwriter Amnesia, or Swamnesia, I fear.) Ambridge Organics in Borchester was a present for Helen on her twenty-first birthday and opened in 2000.

The dairy was certainly open at the time of John's death in 1998, and in 1999 Helen was in charge of it during Pat's absence and brought in Tracy of all people to be the manager, thus deeply offending Clarrie (who'd been there from the start) and Colin, who used to be one of Tracy's teachers when she was at school. Colin resigned in disgust over the way Tracy lorded it over them, but was persuaded to come back after Tracy was sacked for smoking at work, and left again in 2009 just in time for Susan to be employed there when the Village Shop stopped having her as a full-time employee because it was becoming a Community Shop. Pat gave her a job to shut her up and stop her from attacking Peggy.

Aha! Well, I got some details right.

Most of them! I just added a few more.

Only I'd dispute Helen having got compassionate leave for more than a fortnight; she didn't come back for several months after John's funeral and certainly gave Pat no help at all during that time, since she had gone off to Ireland for most of the summer. It was Hayley who supported Pat and held her together until Helen deigned to return, at which point Helen at once had to get rid of Hayley (I suspected at the time that she didn't like the comparison) and among other supportive things told Pat (on air) to "just pull yourself together". That was when Pat finally had her breakdown, feeling that she was deprived of her friend and despised by her daughter. It was also when I started having a very low opinion of Helen....

You'll remember, Asking - did Tracy speak back then? I don't remember her doing so, and she certainly wasn't played by Susie Riddell at the time.

I did remember vaguely about Hayley, just not the timeline. I wish they hadn't got rid of her. She was a good character.

I’m not really clear what was going on in the late ‘80’s-mid ‘90’s as I was usually working late. The internet might have its faults, but I love “catch-up” and listening/watching online.

Helen (and Kirsty) were involved with Ambridge Organics for several years after Greg shot himself, weren’t they? I remember his daughter, Annette, turning up (wasn’t she pregnant and wanting an abortion?). I also remember that Helen went a bit weird and went in search of a sperm donor after Annette escaped the lair. That has to be about 15 years ago?

Can somebody tell me about Pat and the nuns; I’ve always had her down as an atheist?

Thank you for the new thread @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g.

So Helen needs four days to make up her mind. More like the SWS need four days to stuff in some silly developments to flesh this out.

No, Tracy didn't speak in 1998-9. She was going out with a silent Owen-the-Rapist at that point: his character was completely rewritten to turn him from a rather shy bloke into a rapist.

Hayley refused to be given the bum's rush from the village by Helen, and stayed around; she just wasn't allowed to have as much to do with Bridge Farm as she had been when she was acknowledged as John's girlfriend. She started to go out with John's best friend Roy after a bit.

Pat was said to have gone for a retreat with nuns in Prestatyn when she had her breakdown, Madcats.

I am now trying to work out how Susan is senior to Clarrie, when she is part time to Clarrie's full time and has been working at the dairy for less than half as long.

Reasons to be cheerful for me would be that we haven't heard from Joy or Mick for ages (and just like that I've probably conjured them up!)

Lillian! What did you just go and do! 😧

That 'redundancy interview' thing was both entirely predictable and infuriating. Helen is SO ANNOYING.

And if they don't want to make a decision based on an interview why did they make Clarrie and Susan do interviews?

Madcats
Helen (and Kirsty) were involved with Ambridge Organics for several years after Greg shot himself, weren’t they?

Yes; Greg shot himself in 2004 and Helen continued to work in the shop she ran until in the end it was closed more than ten years later because Rob objected to Helen working there and insisted they ought to reopen at the farm or perhaps not at all. And Kirsty worked there for her until Tom jilted Kirsty at the altar and she left Ambridge in a fury, having told Helen to "inflict her friendship on someone else". (She came back later, just in time to rescue Helen from Rob. Or not: she ought to have let him die, the court-case would have been a lot more clear-cut if he had.)

After Greg's death his daughter Annette turned up in Ambridge and lived with Helen in the flat above the shop for a while until she was impregnated by Helen's boyfriend, an Aussie or Kiwi called Leon who worked in a bar and played the field. She had an abortion in spite of every heavy persuasion used on her by Helen (who didn't know who was the father of the baby, but wanted to bring up Greg's grandchild).

Losing control of Annette and the baby, and babysitting for I forget which child but possibly Nic's, convinced Helen that she would be a perfect mother, and anyway, as she said, she was no good at relationships and wanted to have someone who would have to love her always, which a child she gave birth to would have to do. (Yes, she said that on air.) Definitely a bit weird... It wasn't a sperm donor exactly, she went for AID at a clinic.

Ye gods, Robert is a pompous old fool. Only marginally less objectionable than his ghastly wife.

Robert lecturing Mick about his behaviour and the “I want you to think about that” at the end was patronising and just awful. I doubt he’d have spoken to someone he considers his social equal in the same way.

And what exactly was he expecting Mick to do, or to be able to do, about it in any case? The complaint has been put forward and Mick has no further power over what may or may not be done about it.

Yes. Other than telling Mick to reflect on his actions, it wasn’t clear what Robert wanted him to do. Apologise to Emma? Retract the complaint perhaps? From the sounds of Mick’s very sullen “ok then” response neither of those outcomes seem remotely likely.

I think if the decision is being made tomorrow or the day after, it's too late for Mick to retract his complaint anyway. Once the matter was raised, the people considering it can't pretend they don't know about it, and if they are considering it at all they must think it has enough merit to warrant consideration.

(And in any case having a son who went to prison after she shopped him to the police, which Emma did, is not grounds for chucking her off the Parish Council.)