Archers thread #186: Eavesdropping on a home for the terminally confused. 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 swipe right on Dane, the new Grey Gables manager, 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/radioaddicts/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/radioaddicts/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.)

Thanks to @WitcheryDivine for the title inspiration. Over to you!

I remember Heelas. John Lewis since 2001.

Some of us still call it Heelas without thinking.

Robert Sayle in Cambridge, Tyrell & Green in Southampton.

I visualise the Underwoods food hall as being just like the one in Jenners. I loved Jenners too 😁

We used to go to Heelas when I was child, and I always irritated my DM by being unable to remember whether it was in Reading or Bracknell, or possibly not knowing the difference between Reading and Bracknell. I have a lifelong love of department stores. I’m not sure I like the idea of mini Underwoods but would definitely shop there all the same!

Oh, Reading town centre: when you walked down from Cottles the coffee-shop (meaning a shop which sold coffee beans, not a café: "half a pound of Italian beans please") there was a pet shop with rabbits and guinea-pigs in a sort of high-rise hutch arrangement outside the actual shop, where I used to stand while my mother went into the bank next door, and on the other side of the road there was Milwards for shoes and Heelas for cotton thread and cloth for making clothes and wool for knitting cricket sweaters and a china department that didn't mind my mother filling a teapot with water to check whether it poured without dribbling. I liked Heelas.

Morleys is a Department store in Brixton South London. It is very old. They had a referb in the early 70s and Tony Blackburn opened it. I was there.

@SisterTeatime, it was Bentall's in Bracknell. I liked Caley's in Windsor, now a gloomy TKMaxx.

Helen is so desperate - red flags ahoy

and the shop thing is yawnsome and I wouldn’t put up with Joy speaking to me like that

isnt the whole point of the village shop that you get the personal touch

Good Lord - Helen is already at fever pitch. How long before the poor man (!) runs away?

Doesn't that depend how long his contract with the hotel is?

I wouldn't put up with Susan's awful screeching voice or Jim's patronising know-all manner. Team Joy here!

Ian is also loathsome and needs to be taken out and shot.

I wouldn't shop in the village shop full stop. But I know that more than three people used to work there, so I might check who was "on" and only go in if none of Susan, Joy or Jim was going to be behind the counter.

We used to go to Heelas in Reading when I was a child and call in at the Kardomah cafe while we were there. My expensive school uniform had to be bought at Reeds. I didn't realise until I was an adult how much my parents struggled to pay for that.

I just want everyone to who fills out the survey to point out that a shop that only opens from 9-5 is no good for any customer who has a job.

I worked in Bentalls fabric department the summer I left school. It had opened that year, 1973. I believe it has been demolished now.

I also remember Caley's. My Ercol furniture which I inherited from my parents came from there. I have the receipts from 1964.

Many of the people who have a job in TA don't seem to work 9-5.

Maybe best to just include being a bit stabby in hobbies and interests?

I don't remember Jenners having a food hall. Jenners went downhill when it was acquired by House of Fraser.

Aberdeen had Watt & Grant and Esslemont & Mackintosh.

@Spambridge yes! Bentalls! And @IHaveAlwaysLivedintheCastle I also used to frequent Esslemont and Mackintosh in Aberdeen, although I’d forgotten it so it can’t have made too much impression on me. Watt and Grant may have been before my time. Jenners definitely had a food hall (this was pre House of Fraser, early to mid 1990s) and I used to buy jelly beans there and play a game with my little brother, taking turns to eat them without looking to see if we could identify the flavour. Good old-fashioned entertainment.

Back to TA - Helen is so love-to-hate. What a complete weirdo she is, and yet somehow completely believable.

Dane turned up with a Brummie, possibly Scouse twang today before he got over it.

Ok I’ll say it - I’m enjoying the writing this week. Helen being unbearably intense about her one date (don’t message, ring!!!) so in character but just symptomatic of everything that’s wrong with her.

And then the village shoppe virtual firing squad was fun, love that the identified that what sets them apart is a chronic belief that they know what’s best for everyone in the village. (Are they us?)

Does anyone remember Medhurst’s in Bromley? I have many childhood memories of this salubrious department store, often including coffee and cake in their cafe with my DM and grandma. I’ve always visualised Underwoods as being like this at the height of its fortunes, except that it didn’t have a food hall, alas. (But there was an upmarket food shop close by, called, I think, Howard’s). Google tells me the Medhurst site is now a Primark!

I remember Medhursts, @polyhymnia , but not Howard’s. There was a nearby delicatessen, though, where my mother and I would get potato and frankfurter salad to eat in the gardens beyond the Churchill Theatre. I realise this isn’t terribly helpful.
Pains au chocolat might also have been involved on occasions.

Ok I’ll say it - I’m enjoying the writing this week.

Me too. Jim: "we've all seen The Apprentice."

And Helen making me cringe as only Helen can - run, Dane, run!

Oh God stop it Helen! I hope she scares Dean off and he starts to like Kirsty.
Ian should have told Helen NO! But nobody does really.
I like the little shop bit it's like old Archers except its got Joy in it.🙄

Braggins department store in Bedford, anyone? Then became Beales, then closed. I still have gorgeous lawn handkerchiefs I bought there when I was feeling unusually flush.