Archers thread #201: Tempting fête in Ambridge? Free entry to 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 love to administer Bert's mucus medicine, 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/5538836-the-archers-spoilers-thread-12-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.)

There's a fair amount of stuff going on at the moment but I don't feel inspired to say anything more about any of it for now. Over to you - I hope you all have more enthusiasm than I do!

It is awful news about Lucy Davis, @BeaAndBen. I was just reading it in The Guardian, having entirely forgotten she played Hayley. (Who I always hope is leading a completely splendid life in Birmingham - and maintaining a good relationship with Phoebe.)

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/aug/11/lucy-davis-the-office-actor-stage-four-breast-cancer

I always think OldRobert was kinda sexy - and their marriage made sense in a three dimensional way. Whatever NewRobert brings to the role - I simply can’t imagine Lynda keening in distress and frustration at the thought he may no longer find her attractive. He’s just not that.

I wasn’t sure about New Robert to begin with, but to be honest recently I’ve just listened and forgotten about it. I think there’s a little bit of warmth and gentleness missing from the new version, but I think he did a good job in yesterday’s episode.

So sad about Lucy Davis. Only 53.

I always liked Hayley and felt much more could have been made of her character. She and Roy could have set up a day nursery in Ambridge. It would have made a lot of sense, building on both their skills, and providing a plausible location for people to meet, new employer for some of the locals, and so on. Another missed opportunity. I doubt it would have tempted Lucy to stay on/return, though. She seems to have built a decent career on screen.

I like dogs, but <gets into flameproof suit> many dog owners do seem to be under the illusion that their dogs are rational and more human than most humans. Lynda has always been very partisan so it doesn't particularly surprise me that she persisted in her deluded belief that her huge powerful Dobermann wouldn't hurt a fly as long as she did. At least she's accepted it now.

What a horrible position for David and Ruth to be put in, though. Are they effectively going to be given the choice of life or death for Monty?

Very sad.

Back to the dogs. I liked Alistair's unequivocal any dog, in the right circumstances, can turn.
Are they effectively going to be given the choice of life or death for Monty?
I'd be amazed if this was so. They are an interested party who could have shot Monty on the spot had they seen him do it, I imagine. There will be laws around this, the kind described by Harrison about restraint and muzzles, etc.
The carnage described on air would merit Monty being put down, I would think.

Lynda strikes me as someone who likes to have animals (e.g. the alpacas, or are they actually llamas? Alpacas sound a lot more likely) around and likes to believe that she is doing the best job with them, while fundamentally not really getting them at all. The sort of person who anthropomorphises with the best of intentions, while misreading the animal's actual language.

Once the boys' parents talk to them, I wonder if it will turn out that they let him out of the kennel. My understanding was that the latch to the garden gate was broken, not the door of the kennel itself.

But I would assume there is also an arrangement whereby the business funds the house and its upkeep, otherwise there is no point to it. That will presumably include obligations around allowing the business to use the house.

Didn't David say the value of the dead sheep and unborn lambs was some pretty massive figure? I wonder if Robert and Lynda realise that?

I've found following articles relating to actual incidents. Maybe there is hope for Monty yet: a lot of sheep died in the incident in the first link.

https://www.essex.police.uk/news/essex/news/news/2026/february/ret-investigate-livestock-attack/

https://www.hampshire.police.uk/news/hampshire/news/news/2023/april/dog-owner-pays-compensation-to-shepherd-after-sheep-is-killed-on-the-isle-of-wight/

It was after the absurd storyline in which she road-tested several possible rescue dogs and one of them ate Robert's copy of the Silmarillion, I think.

We had a Pembrokeshire corgi named Morgan, after the hero of Morgan, a Suitable Case for Treatment. He never savaged anything in his life, but he had an incredibly powerful bark which he used to terrify the bin men in Northern Ireland and herd them into a narrow covered alleyway where the bins lived between out house and next door. There was a gate at the other end, which was locked, so once he'd got them down there, there was no escape.

He wouldn't have bitten them, apart from perhaps a nip on the heels. He just wanted them under control!

Trivium4all
the alpacas, or are they actually llamas? Alpacas sound a lot more likely

Definitely llamas. There was a totally unfunny running "joke" quite recently whereby Zainab and possibly Azra kept calling them alpacas, and Lynda and Khalil kept correcting it to llamas.

I don't remember any of these replacements apart from Robert.

But on the other hand, I 've had the occasional "is that a new actor?" when I haven't heard the character ( or any of TA) for a while, so it's probably just me. Both Fairbrothers suddenly sounded all wrong to me at one point 🤔

Anyway, Monty. Well, that was cleared up quickly, we just need to hear if David and Ruth are going to be reasonable. It's a bit of an odd legal situation I think with dogs, in that they are treated as property in a lot of ways - so if you dog is stolen, injured, killed even, the crime is treated much the same as a theft to the value of £££ or property damage, but if the dog "commits a crime", it's the dog that gets "punished" so to speak.

To be clear, I'm not one of these "it's not the dogs, it's the owners" types - I absolutely believe dogs can be total dicks and some types / breeds are just not suitable to be kept as pets in the 21st century. But I would like there to be some room for making sensible decisions, which hopefully this community resolution or whatever Harrison called it will provide. Absurd as it was for Lynda to think she could just get Alastair to diagnose Monty as not having mauled the sheep, there must be a way of establishing the difference between the sort of incidents that are the inevitable consequence of careless and irresponsible dog ownership (probably quite close to 100℅ of all livestock attacks) and this (strangely contrived and still pretty far-fetched) unfortunate incident that the owners were not to blame for.

I just remembered, why is Harrison suddenly The Man Who Swipes The Last Of Everything 😆 First the milk and bread at home, now the chocolate biscuits in the shop? Where are we going with this?

What a horrible storyline, that’s made me profoundly miserable. The idea of having an animal of mine taken away and destroyed makes me feel sick with horror.

I get that a storyline about dogs worrying sheep is a good thing - and to show that almost any dog is capable of it - but are the SWs trying to traumatise their listener base?

(Haven’t been on these threads for a while, I kept dipping out of TA then having a listening marathon!)

I get that a storyline about dogs worrying sheep is a good thing - and to show that almost any dog is capable of it...

Only they didn't use 'any dog', they used a strong large dog with not the best reputation (unfairly so in my experience of them).

I would have preferred it to have been the sort of dog I see being walked around here. Nearly all are 'cuddly teddy bear' types.

We had a Pembrokeshire corgi ... they're cattle dogs and will nip. The name means 'cowshed dog' (not 'dwarf dog' as claimed by Wiki).

I think a story about disposable barbecues would be more useful right now.

An elderly dog of whatever breed managing to have the stamina to kill fifteen sheep and injure many others all in one lightning raid is somewhat remarkable.

They should have picked a dog that was a little younger and more spry, I feel.

But then, the Archers' editorial team has always been ropey on the ages of dogs; there was one who lived to be about twenty without anyone remarking on his senility, and Holly (a collie cross born 2013) seemed to be going strong and rushing about out of control when she terrified Kenton last year. I just wish any of my beloved large dogs had been as durable as the ones in Ambridge.

So why wouldn’t Monty get out of the car at the fete? This feels like it will prove to be relevant!

Perhaps Monty ran at the dog who REALLY attacked the sheep and defended the woolly creatures and that's why his blood was at the scene. While doing so, he sustained a muscle sprain that meant jumping out the car was uncomfortable.

It could be Gelert all over again.

It must be all that swimming in the once toxic River Am that is giving these geriatric dogs such gusto!

Admittedly I've missed lots of episodes, but have I got this right:
-Lynda and Robert went out for a couple of hours, leaving Monty in the back garden and the B&B* guest family in the house unsupervised
-Monty decides to escape up to Home Farm (arable for as long as I can remember, but seemingly hosting some of David's sheep in a field)
-10 year old Monty chases and attacks the flock then trots back to the garden, through the dodgy gate, covered in blood
-the B&B visitors' sons (age unspecified) somehow manage to clean Monty up with neither their parents noticing nor the Snells wondering why their guests left bloody (kitchen?) towels/cloths
-the kids don't bother to mention it to anybody at the time or even when they returned home

This storyline would have been much better if the dog had belonged to Anna T or Esmee

*Is it really likely that Robert(83) and Lynda (79) would still be running a B&B?

This hasn't got anything to do with Khalil, has it? He was at the fete - as we know from the Alan's Haircut incident - and he was involved a lot with Robert and Lynda's animals. The guest thing is a red herring, Khalil took it upon himself to walk Monty and lost control of him/let him roam unsupervised?

I feel some sort of compromise should be sought, and suggest that Monty be muzzled at all times and that the Snell woman be painlessly destroyed. I’m not going to insist on the ‘painlessly’ bit, tbh.