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!

I think when Rochelle is away she builds this dream daughter then when she appears she panics because all the guilt etc comes up and so she tries to get rid of her so she can go back to her fictional life

if Joy was sectioned then you can argue what happened to Rochelle wasn’t her fault but I suspect the damage behind it is the fact Joy won’t discuss it with Rochelle and just denies it happened because she can’t face the guilt

i still maintain that as the child, Rochelle deserves more sympathy!

if Joy was sectioned then you can argue what happened to Rochelle wasn’t her fault I think it's more likely Rochelle who was sectioned and that's why she no longer has her kids.

She may well have been as well but I’m talking about the disputed abandonment when she was 15

i imagine she didn’t have the kiddies taken off her but walked out because that’s the only motherhood she knows. Things get tough so you run away

I place blame on Rochelle's dad and Joy's husband for being a cheating pratt who ruined his daughter's life and his wife's mental health.

I have a limited amount of sympathy for Joy because when you are a mother, your child comes first.

But blimey, i wanted to slap Rochelle so hard when she was complaining to Mick about Susan in the shop. Of COURSE you have to follow their system you annoying psycho. And accept some bloody responsibility for yourself. Sure, childhood trauma. Get therapy.

ETA: what we have heard from Pa Malik up to now leads me to believe that if the SW had been true to form he would have invited ALL the neighbours from Beechwood to their shindig. And i did like Khalil intervening on Lynda's behalf. He understands the trauma a little, i liked him for that.

I took that to be the sw making fun of Susan and also showing why Rochelle can’t keep a job. I find the writing is pretty bad tbh and I don’t think they are portraying things the way they mean to.

I think it’s quite good though - Joy runs away from her own home as she can’t deal with her problems and ends up creating more for herself!

or will an estate agent turn up next week and put a for sale sign up outside her house!!!

ETA and wouldn’t it be delicious if she put the house for sale cheaper and Natasha and Tom get pissed off about it

I don't like Khalil- the great animal lover who-

1.couldn't be bothered to take 2 seconds to look into the effect on a cat being put in a strange new environment (and then there is his clueless mother let the cat escape) and
2.appears completely oblivious to how much animals hate fireworks.

I thought Khalil and Lynda were nauseating last night. Is Lynda sucking up to the Maliks because she was so rude to (the much nicer) Adil when he first arrived ? (Wasn't she going to turf him out when she and Brookfield vying to put up Rylan?)

I didn't like Khalil sneaking around and spying on Kirsty and Rex and then pitching up at Brookfield with the bizarre expectation that David, who barely knows him, would help him with a homework project.

‘Homework’ was only the reason he gave. He actually just wanted company and to see the farm. As any intelligent child newly arrived in Ambridge and brimming with curiosity might …

(I wish it didn’t make me unreasonably sad that you harbour such actively negative feelings towards the Maliks, @IHaveAlwaysLivedintheCastle. The fact that you appear not to have disliked Adil makes it all the harder to comprehend.)

I have a limited amount of sympathy for Joy because when you are a mother, your child comes first - I think this what Joy herself thinks everyone thinks which is why she has painted the picture of Rochelle and the bairns that she has. But what if your child is abusive? Much harder to talk about or even admit to - almost impossible to explain (a bit like men who are abused by their wives or girlfriends). And because of this idea that as a mother your child comes first, much harder to make a clean break even if this the best thing for you. Joy doesn't strike me as a selfish person - given what we know of her behaviour since she arrived in Ambridge. She has always struck me as very obliging and a bit lonely. It could all be a massive act, but I think if it were we would have seen at least some evidence of that - this is Mick's point. It's why he can't take what Rochelle is saying at face value.

Why not say that then?

Why am I expected to like Khalil just because Adil was lovely? The Malik children have been horrible. I find it really hard to comprehend why Adil being such a likeable character means I should overlook how unpleasant his nephew and niece are.

But it’s complex isn’t it - we don’t really o ow what happened with the husband but he clearly abandoned them. And then both have said Rochelle ended up doing all the housework etc which Rochelle then said she hadn’t minded and it was the leaving her for a long period that was the turning point

so whilst Rochelle may have become abusive to her mother - it sounds like she was mimicking her mothers treatment of her

and I think Joy has always come across as being very false and acting the part she thinks she should be playing

I think the problem with the Joy/Rochelle SL is that they’ve finally woken up to the fact they have to come up with a back-story of some kind, and they’ve thrown everything at it, very much to its detriment. There’s something inherently comical about first Rochelle, and now Joy, both blowing up in tantrums, declaring they can’t cope, and running away. We only need Mick to run away from Rochelle for the full hilarious effect.

I’m sure they don’t mean it to come across this way but - along with the 'my Peter slept with my best friend, the next-door neighbour and the lady in the newsagent' and 'I had to bury a dead, decomposing German Shepherd with me bare hands in a heatwave' - it’s more than teetering on the verge of the ridiculous. It’s too Eastenders.

So how did Joy afford the house ???

Peter was a very busy boy wasn’t he. Going to guess he was either a window cleaner or a milk man

now my quick google shows a UK heatwave in 1995 so Rochelle is 45 so Joy late 60s?

would love to know where her money comes from

and I think Joy has always come across as being very false and acting the part she thinks she should be playing - I would agree. And this is something we do know for sure - the pretend phone calls and the pretend visit to the hospital, the glowing reports of Rochelle and the bairns. But I don't think this is how you would behave if you had abandoned your child. This actually happened to a friend of mine and when she finally tracked her mother down some years later she was living with a man who had no idea she had children. I think Joy's pretence of contact was because this was how she thought a mother ought to act - she couldn't bring herself to admit she was hiding from Rochelle. What do I know? My previous theory (before she actually appeared) was that Rochelle was dead!

I must say, Adil’s extreme likeability passed me by. A neurotic incompetent, a liar and a fantasist ( the fiancée/wife ‘save’ was hilariously inept).

I thought he was sweet. I felt sorry for him for Lynda being so horrible to him when he first moved in. Remember the ticking off about singing in the shower?

I think the incompetence was purely plot driven to lead to the purchase of GiddyJack's field.

Exactly this.
I think when Joy was brought in they hadn't really planned what her storyline would be, I think she was brought in with a vague idea of a problematic relationship with her daughter but nothing beyond that.
Now it's been decided this story needs to be dealt with and the SW are flapping around but none of them really know enough about the complexities of such relationships to write well about them, plus all 3 characters, Joy, Mick and Rochelle are inherently unlikeable and because they came with no connections to ambridge or the people in the village, listeners just don't care. I want the story to be over and done with quickly so they all leave asap and never come back.

Agreed. It's just occurred to me that it would have been very easy for the SWs to introduce Joy as a cousin of Ruth's who'd decided to move south based on a conversation with Ruth at a family funeral or similar. If they'd hardly seen each other in recent years it would be plausible enough for Ruth to know very little about Joy's past life. Having Joy arrive out of the blue with no reason ever given for her decision to live in Ambridge and nobody even asking her about it just seems inept. And that's before we start on the fact that it would have been an expensive house - where did the money come from?

I base this partly on the fact that one of my Dad's cousins did in fact move to the island some years after my parents retired there. He was a young boy at my parents' wedding and they had rarely seen him since, especially as his parents died decades ago. Once he and his wife were settled, they took to visiting my parents and thus it was that my parents got snippets of information about his life - that his first marriage had broken down long ago and this was his second wife; his son no longer went by the name he'd been given at birth; what jobs they'd both done before retirement; and so on.

It wouldn't have taken many lines of dialogue to tie Joy in with a few similar details and still leave a great gaping hole in her life story if that's what the SWs wanted.

Also - when someone is sectioned, aren't questions asked about their caring responsibilities and arrangements put in place to look after children? Surely Social Services wouldn't have just left a 15yo girl on her own for weeks on end?

I'm not buying the whole "you left me for a summer with no money and a dead dog" storyline at all. Equally I don't think that Joy would flounce off this week or 30-odd years ago. It's almost as daft as the Gills living in Home Farm but only being friends with mucky Mick.

Joy being distantly related to Heather-pet would have been a genius move, particularly if she had inherited her hefty funds from a mutual aunt or similar.

It’s true - she could have been a little-known relative who inherited a big chunk of Heather’s dosh, much to Ruth’s chagrin. That would have provided an entertaining start to her life in Ambridge.

As things stand it can only be money acquired through her ex-husband, or a lottery win, that has enabled her to buy the Beechwood house. (And I can very easily see why lottery cash might make you run very fast from a daughter you’d rather be without.) Lately Joy has been making little impecunious noises; she doesn’t appear to have a paying job so I’m guessing whatever money she had is rapidly running out.

There's something being hinted at re Joy's money. Rochelle was taken aback last night to learn the shop role is unpaid. Didn't she say something at Christmas about how nicely Joy seemed to have set herself up at Beechwood?

The money must have either come from a nefarious source or possibly Rochelle might have an expectation that it would be shared with her and it hasn't been e.g. inheritance or similar from the ex husband?

Maybe, Peter died in a terrible milk float crash and Joy got a load of compensation and Rochelle is annoyed that she didn’t share it

I wonder if the SWs do know where the money came from - or if our musings have left them running about, squealing and flapping their hands?

Well if that's true @TottersBlankly then @Bruisername has made an excellent suggestion 😂

Perhaps it was the dry cleaning chemicals that finished him off. We know he's did a lot of, ahem, dry cleaning.

Total italics fail. Less innuendo and more terrible typing.