Archers thread #185: Some farming would be nice. Discuss The Archers here.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

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Over to you!

There is certainly no particular reason to think she did from evidence within the programme, but I expect that like Neil she will turn out to have some backstory or other which has nothing whatever to do with what we heard on air, and involves having to flee to England because she was involved in Meibion Glyndr firebombing second homes owned by English people, or some such. The editorial team are unlikely to care that the arson campaign really got going in the early eighties and Pat left Wales in the mid-seventies....

i always thought Pat was Welsh in that a parent was Welsh but she was brought up in England (like the twins!!)

I think she originally had a Welsh accent when she was talking with her Welsh uncle (and excuse for being in Ambridge at all) Haydn Evans, but lost it completely after he retired and moved away.

Wasn't it just a tiny field?

From what I remember she did have more of a Welsh accent when she was younger, but it was never a strong one say like Natasha, and then lost it, but that can often happen when people move away. It certainly happened to my parents who both lost their accents after going to university at 18 and never again living in the areas they grew up in.

Ten acres, I think: but they were The Most Important Ten Acres In The History Of Farming according to Ed, who rents land from Oliver and bitterly resented Oliver selling anything Oliver owned.

But if they're going to make things up out of the blue, Pat having spent her 1950s summer holidays with a Welsh speaking auntie and wanting to rediscover her roots would make MUCH more sense than random bedrooms coming and going, foundling Neil, the Am periodically changing depth and direction of flow and the mysterious, never accurately located, Bridge of Terror.

So sixty+ years ago rather than just fifty. o...kaaaaay

Ah, I'm enjoying reading about the lieklihood of Pat speaking welsh rather than the Joy, Shelle and Mick show. I hope for much more over the next few weeks.

OK but was anyone else shouting at Alan wittering on about the baptism and completely neglecting to remember that just when everything was going tickety-bo about the Holy Starry Twins' Window - he broke The Sainted Jack Wooley Stained Glass Window and this, rather than anything else that turned the matriarch against him? (but that may have added to Peggy's antipathy to him)

God but it is annoying when people just witter on and someone is trying to tell them something. We've had that recently too. Grrrr

Has Alice fallen into The Ambridge Void with Ian and Adam? We hear the odd mention of Martha, but that's it.

Where is Jakob?

I like the Meibion Glyndŵr suggestion. It would explain why there don't seem to be any holiday lets in Ambridge.

We also missed Henry reporting that Pat sings 'Cyfri'r Geifr' each time she does the milking, and that Hen-dad-cu Lewis Lewis sang baritone for the Treorci Male Voice Choir, despite the family being from Nefyn.

Alice, Adam, Ian, Zander, Jakob, Alistair, Denise, Paul, Josh, .... have all floated down the Am, but will be back when the tide comes in.

Brefugee
OK but was anyone else shouting at Alan wittering on about the baptism and completely neglecting to remember that just when everything was going tickety-bo about the Holy Starry Twins' Window - he broke The Sainted Jack Wooley Stained Glass Window and this, rather than anything else that turned the matriarch against him?

The Starry Twins Window was only suggested after Alan had broken the Memorial Window to the Land Girls of WWII (paid for but not in memory of Jack Woolley). Obviously restoring the original window was what the church was going to agree to, not one for the benefit of two infants who might grow up to be axe-murderers.

(Little Seren took an axe
Gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done
She gave her father forty-one.)

The Starry Window was suggested before that. Alan, quite rightly, vetoed it as a revolting display of vanity and ego.

His breaking the existing window was unrelated to the Starry Window.

You missed out Ruth , Will and Oliver.

It could not have been more obvious cause and effect. Alan broke a window; by the end of that week Peggy suggested installing a new and different window rather than reinstating the one that had been there. It's absolutely clear in the synopses.

Thursday 13th October, 2022
According to Alan, he is proposing a perfectly straightforward manoeuvre, though Usha has her doubts about his plan; she reluctantly agrees to hold the ladder, while still trying to dissuade him. Then he inadvertently pushes the ladder sideways so that Usha can no longer hold it, and falls with a sound of crashing glass; he is unharmed, but he has broken the Jack Woolley window.

Sunday 16th October, 2022
After the church service Jim is in the vestry making fun of Alan about the breaking of the window and the resultant damage to his hand; Alan agrees Jim has an interest in the repair of the window because of his involvement when it was designed. Jim has seen Tom and Natasha in church and supposes they were there to stake some sort of claim to a celebration of the Archers Brand; this supposition is proved right when Natasha comes to tell Alan that Peggy thinks they could replace the window with a new one in the twin star design, for Seren and Nova, and wants that to be made easy.

Was the original Jack Woolley window celebrating land girls?

Yes, it was. Non-services workers of all sorts, officially, Jack being a Stirchley non combatant himself, but in Ambridge, land girls.

Synopsis again:
Tuesday 25th February, 2014
After lunch at the vicarage, Alan and Jim discuss the proposed stained glass window for Jack Woolley. It should include heavy reference to home front workers in World War 1, but which? Land workers from the locality or those, especially women, who took an industrial role? Jack was from Birmingham after all. Alan is impressed when Jim suggests an inclusive community competition to decide on the window design.

Thanks. Seems very crass of Alan to not want to replace with the same idea

and odd of Peggy

Alan absolutely did want to replace it as it had been; Natasha was very much in favour of a window celebrating Her Twins and Peggy then set her heart on Natasha's idea.

Alan and the diocese got their way and the starry window was not installed.

Oh I see - I missed a bit of window gate.

seems such a bizarre concept to have a church window dedicated in that fashion

To the land workers as a bequest: fine.

To a pair of local infants and paid for by their great-granny: not acceptable to the diocese even if Alan had been in favour, which he wasn't.

But it’s so bizarre Peggy would have supported that. I can kind of get Natasha as she’s quite narcissistic and PFB

can you imagine someone visiting the church in 50 years and being told the window was dedicated to a pair of random twins