Archers thread #202: How are you finding your visits to Ambridge? Fill in your feedback forms 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 think working as a hotel receptionist is a perfectly reasonable career choice for a graduate from a family with a stately home, 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-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.)

Over to you!

But Tony didn't keep the toy, did he? He found it buried in the garden.

Perhaps Lynda could find a scruffy, dirty ripped apart toy that belonged to Monty and take it in to be lovingly restored by the Teddy Bear Ladies, and we can hear the whole tear jerking tale all over again.

If it had been buried in the garden for over twenty-five years I am surprised it could be recognised as anything in particular. Earth and water are bad for most metals over time.

Actually if it was John's when he was a child, probably more like over thirty-five years, because John wouldn't have been playing with toy tractors at the time of his death in 1998, when he was in his twenties.

I'm 71 and still have some of my own toys including a bead necklace I had when I was a baby and my teddy. My sewing room is like a small museum.

Edit: also would you really throw away a toy that was special to your child even if that child had died?

Flipping heck... lots of thoughts on tonights episode but waiting to hear what others think before i start

Had enough of Lily and Harrison already

It’s like a shit version of Brief Encounter

too small to reach things in her own house but big enough to ravage old men

She's like something out of that 1973 Readers Digest book of British Folklore Myth and Legend

Shuck, Black Annis, Lily of Lower Loxley.

outdated, but compelling reading back in the day

www.amazon.co.uk/Folklore-Legends-Britain-Readers-Digest/dp/0276001680

I've got my bunnies, farm set and Noah's Ark. One bunny was given to me by my godmother on my baptism in 1963 and it was made by her mother. He could do with a tidy up by The Repair Shop, but I wouldn't want to part from him.

I might keep my own (except I haven't), but I would think it ghoulish to keep a broken toy belonging to a child of mine who had died. In any case I thought it was found buried in the garden, rather than kept as a memory of John. What surprises me is not that it was there, but that it was recognisable as anything: it's not as if digging at Bridge Farm is particularly archaeological, I wouldn't suppose, with every trowelful of soil carefully sifted.

To be honest, after thirty years or so I have no idea which Dinky car was special to any of my children. Why would I have?

Maybe a bit different when it’s a child that died though. Also, think this one was written as to be found outside.

honestly...I just want to slap Lily
haven't decided on a suitable admonishment for Harrison yet

Other than being relieved that Lynda and Robert are finally having The Conversation, I don’t have any strong feelings about tonight’s episode, @Yardbird.

Just as one poster @TottersBlankly I think often points out the way the SWs can't do money, I also think they can't do class/ social strata. In real life I think mixed class couples are pretty rare but here we have a doctor married to feckless plumber, the daughter of the manor and former art student having to live in a grotty flatshare, work in telesales for years and lust after an inarticulate policeman who asks about baked potato toppings.

The Lily and Harrison "in lust" story - impinging as it does on so many different other characters - will make for more enjoyable drama than the recent totally miserable Monty storyline (although its repercussions continue for poor Robert and Lynda).

I would like to have seen that.

Unless you have lost a child I dont think there is anything goulish about keeping a toy. I also think saying goulish is a horrible thing to say regarding a child you have lost toy or not.

I think Lily and Harrison is supposed to be giving a bit of a (revolting) Lady Chatterley vibe with Lily leading the way.
Harrison's accent seems to be getting stronger by the day and he talks so slowly, doesn't seem sharp enough to be a policeman.

It's a shame the SW have made lily into a woman who likes men almost old enough to be her father, it's lazy cod psychology to suggest she has "daddy issues" because her father died.

Agree about the mixed class issue. I know quite a lot of doctors and with no exception their spouses are either doctors, nurses, pharmacists, radiologists, other medical professionals, lawyers, actuaries, accountants, teachers etc i.e. educated professionals.

I also think that with an arranged marriage( which I assume Azra had), as parents of an educated intelligent woman, her parents would not have married her off to a plumber/farm worker.

I agree, goulish is an awful word to use. Sometimes it is just too difficult to throw things away.

Reassuring to see that the SWs’ well of mawkish slop has not yet run dry.

I have bored myself and this thread relentlessly on the subject of the SWs’ incapacity and squeamishness regarding social stratification in TA, @WombatCowgirl! To the point where I’m trying not to talk about it any more.

I’m fairly sure we had at least half a thread’s worth of frank discussion months, maybe a year ago, regarding the unlikelihood of Azra and Akram ever being a couple.

The rest of Lily’s life is utterly incomprehensible and nonsensical - but I definitely don’t see her residence at The Stables as a ‘grotty flat share’. In truth it’s the sort of thing you only have access to if you’re the gilded niece or nephew of the wealthy owner. (Or a friend of theirs. There were times when I was in my twenties when I would have killed for something similar.) It’s always been in a mess because the gilded youth are shit housekeepers. (And leave it all to Paul.) I do know for an absolute fact that the Stables residents would have employed a cleaner from the day they moved in. But the SWs either don’t know that, or won’t go there - because elitist, innit.

Thankyou yes. I have a box with my late daughters things in and I want to renew the box. Ive told my DH that he will have to transfer her things because I can't bare to do it. My DH wasnt her Father so it wont be so hard for him.

Honestly!

Especially in a small town/village.

The Lily and Harrison "in lust" story - impinging as it does on so many different other characters - will make for more enjoyable drama than the recent totally miserable Monty storyline

I'm all for a Lily/Harrrison romance. But then I adored Russ so what do I know.

I agree that White Russians on a Monday night seems like a bad idea. I am quite enjoying watching the L-H romance unfold. It’s clearly not a good idea. The only problem I have with it is the inevitability that she will get pregnant (so the baybee SL can be resurrected). IRL I think Lily would have contraception issues firmly under control.

I used to know a doctor married to a firefighter (ended badly but not for that reason afaik) and a doctor married to a gardener. In the latter case they married quite young and he supported her through her studies then, later, got more qualifications of his own.