Archers thread #198: Josh sent to Patagonia, Pip stays put. Wrong way round! Discuss The Archers here.

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Not feeling greatly enthused about what's going on in Ambridge at the moment, tbh. I'm annoyed at Brian's hypocrisy about Ruairi given the furore over George's attempt to frame Alice as the cause of the accident. I do hope we don't have a slow drip drip drip now as one after another the members of the Aldridge/Archer clan find out what really happened and endlessly agonise over what to do. Frankly I don't care. There! I've said it.

Pip's OK. Well, good, but what was the point of that story, I wonder?

I suspect I'm in a minority of one in rather enjoying hearing (a) from Bert Horobin and (b) about Fletcher. I surmise Bert is here to stay for a while because the BBC has (amazingly) updated his character page: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/1wQP3mKR6yr9LVs05jddxcY/bert-horrobin (prominent actor photo warning). Given how out of date a lot of the other character pages are, this seems odd, but there we are.

That's all I can be bothered to say! Over to you.

So get rid of Susan who has worked there for ages and keep Tracey? That’s illegal surely?

How dare Tracey not be excited about a new cheese 🤔

@TottersBlankly you’re right, I think this is exactly why I’m finding it so uncomfortable. I did all of this with my dad, as many others here have, or are currently doing, and it’s bizarre to suddenly hear it as a PSA centred on a character we haven’t heard from or about for years and years, AND one who has been cast so oddly. Takes the piss really.

i had totally forgotten about Christine as well and actually have to admit i had even conflated her with carol (late thirties listener so missing some of the history and backstory at times!) I know Alice has mentioned ‘Auntie Chris’ at points but I actually don’t know how they are related. Will need to have a google unless anyone can fill me in.

I don't think they were thinking of getting rid of Susan? The dilemma was which one they would offer the extra hours to. I must say, I would have thought Susan should be entitled to first choice, even if they thought she would probably say no.

Helen will probably find that both inexplicably pass up this wonderful cheese developing opportunity and she'll be stuck with Akram or George.

Auntie Chris is the sister of Phil and Jack Archer. Peggy and Jill's SIL.

The people fitting domestic aids are used to working around frail people. Anna should get a proper OT assessment for Carol, if Carol wants one.

Getting respite care isn't easy. I rang about ten homes before one said they could take DH for two weeks at £1600 a week. In the end he had a fall the day I should have paid and remains in hospital now with palliative care.

Carol wants to stay in her house and garden and Anna should respect that and stop trying to impose her views. Suggesting an OT assessment might be better received if it's a route to staying, not being shuffled into the Laurels.

I'm slightly conflicted. Having had fairly recent experience with my mother, I know it gave massive peace of mind to know she had a pendant and someone on call if she had a fall or anything, and I'm only too well aware how suddenly things can change - my mother was pretty fit and active till she suddenly had a stroke out of the blue. But I guess in years to come I may not take kindly to my kids trying to organise my perfectly comfortable life for me.

Mind you, being reminded that Auntie Chris being still in The Laurels made me wonder about the costs. Given the recent refurb it won't be cheap, her son and Piggoi between them must have spent a fortune on it.

I thought she had the OT assessment last week?

Me too. The Jill actor, Paddy Greene is 95, and probably too frail to act now.

@JudyCoolibar thanks. I was listening at 3am from my hospital bed so clearly got confused.

There was certainly an OT visit.

Must've missed that in the general drone!

Here you go, @Yardbird:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/MrVfQXT37nq9tJ7lcCk82w/christine-barford

Heavens! They’ve updated the BBC Archers site - with grim stark photos of Alan and Anna (who now look like twins!) and entries on Khalil and Zainab that lack dates of birth. (All the better for unedited SWs to mess with biographies.) The photo of Carol has her with lots of lovely dark hair. They have retconned Anna’s history, apparently ‘losing a case against a male perpetrator of dv’. I didn’t know she worked for the CPS?

I thought Anna was wanting Ruth to put in a downstairs shower room at Glebe at the Dopey's expense.

Precisely the age Carol is supposed to be - and yet Carol is bustling about, bossing her family (or rather resisting their bossing), jumping in the car for a trip to The Laurels at no notice and generally sounding far too fit to require any of the help that is being proposed. I don’t object to her being cantankerous or feisty, but she should sound more quavery and hard of hearing and like someone who actually needs to wear a pendant. Carol sounds like someone who would have her phone on her at all times and knows how to use all its functions.

The pendant alarm is taking me back. My Nan had one many years ago and used to keep it wrapped around her statue of the Virgin Mary much to my father’s constant irritation.

I hope we are not being set up for a story about something nasty happening to Carol and being recorded by that camera.

I don’t understand Carol’s attitude. If she wants to avoid a care home the best approach is to be open and honest about what you’re struggling with and accept help when it’s useful.

My mother was desperate to avoid a care home and the fact that she was happy to have a stair lift, grab rails, walking frame for outings etc as well as be open about anything she was struggling with meant we could all relax somewhat. We knew we could rely on her to be honest with us if she was struggling. She died at home at 96.

I don’t care how old Carol is but there’s no need to be rude to people who are kindly giving up their time to help.

But Carol doesn’t see it as help - to her, it’s interference. From her point of view she’s toddling along quite nicely at home and Anna has turned up full of unwanted and (in Carol’s eyes) unnecessary ideas.

However much it may appear that Anna is full of concern there’s also a lot of guilt there - she wants/needs to be able to go home and get on with her life without the constant worry that her mum has fallen and is lying, hurt or worse, and unable to call for help. Or quietly starving to death without ‘proper’ nutritional meals. Anna needs to be able to get on with her own life without that worry. So it’s not entirely selfless.

Carol, on the other hand, perceives a threat to her independence and is fighting hard to maintain it.

I don’t know what the solution is other than a very strong and very consistent relationship between adult children and their parents. Preferably living round the corner so that regular popping in is the norm, not just something that starts happening when frailty or vulnerability is noted. Multigenerational living may not always be practical (or desirable) but I’m sure it’s best from this angle at least.

My mother lives miles away from me and is currently very fit and well but I actually don’t know how we will manage if/when she or her wife need extra support - it will, frankly, be very inconvenient to me/my life if I have to go down there with any kind of regularity, and I’m sure I’ll be erring on the side of help alarms etc (assuming she refuses to move closer to us) but she may well see that as interference when the time comes.

We always have a flurry of ‘something must be done’ home visit requests at the surgery around Christmas - people visit their elderly relatives then and realise the daily risks that they face. Obviously there is genuine concern, but what they also mean is “we have to go home and it’s a four hour drive and we don’t want to be worrying all the time… over to you doc”

Absolutely spot on, @Prestissimo
DH and I saw exactly that in our working lives.
Also saw a neighbour, who had fallen and broken her pelvis, swooped on by her son and daughter who installed every device and aid possible in her house over the space of a few days without really checking what her actual needs were.
They wouldn't accept the fact she had dementia and really couldn't coordinate the stair lift they'd insisted on.
She broke her hip falling down the stairs while trying to squeeze past the lift as it sat at the top.

The daughter of a friend of mine in her mid 70s (few years older than me) is trying to persuade her parents to 'future proof' their house. My friend is not happy about it but their house is full of clutter and hazards so I can see the daughter's point of view.

We are going through this exact scenario with FIL at the moment. Trying to balance his wishes with the stark reality of his increasing frailty. Meanwhile, A&E becomes his second home…

It will capture Jill or Bert breaking in to Glebe Cottage by shimmying in through the window left open by Carol and Carol bashing the intruder with a frying pan.

My family is very scattered in Europe and North America, and my sister and I had moved back to Europe for work some years ago. It was a major operation to persuade our mum to move back to Europe, closer to my sister, and we only succeeded once she'd had several falls and broken bones, and was looking at not-very-nice care homes and an ever-narrower circle of friends. The amount of pressure from friends/the system overseas that one or both of us should give up her job and come look after her was unreal (and pay for rent how, precisely, let alone other responsibilities?). We both got the impression that similar ideas would not have been held about any sons...

Our mum herself definitely wouldn't want us to sacrifice our own lives to become her carer, and has very strong ideas about "not wanting to be a burden", which ironically sometimes blocked the efforts at finding solutions that would make her less of a burden, as it were. I can relate to Carol's narkiness: it's her only line of defense, I think, even though it's often unfair to people around her. What I find a bit less realistic is that seemingly, nobody takes offense at it, and is endlessly understanding. I hasten to add that our mum isn't narky! I probably would be, though, in such a situation.

She's now in a supported-living-type seniors' residence that has integrated care should it be required, a short train-ride away from my sister rather than a transatlantic flight, and altogether it's much better. There's still a ludicrous amount of admin to help manage, and so many mistakes/problems/miscommunications/possibly-outright-lies, that I'm quite infuriated at the thought of how someone without two savvy daughters would fare.

While it's good if there's a family support network around the elderly person, a system of elder care that assumes the existence of such a support network is clearly a big problem, because there are many, many situations where the network doesn't exist, or where people in it have too many other responsibilities. Not to mention the equalities issue when it's inevitably the daughters/female relatives that are expected to give up their careers, homes, etc. to deal with care needs.