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.

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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!

I’m finding it hard to comprehend why, on the Radio 4 News, the headline on the death of Stephanie Cole lists only her TV performances, with no mention of the thing most R4 listeners would remember her most fondly for.

Oh no.

Hmm …

Nope.

Not my experience anyway.

Anna has had her mother for decades - what more could there possibly be to say? (I was actually surprised to find that real life is nothing like TV / radio fiction, which, for the sake of drama, always seems to require some last minute speechifying.)

A few years ago I looked into dog fields, as I have a bit of land and thought the local ones weren’t much good. They definitely need planning permission, and in my area to even speak to the planning department is £450. Then as others have said you need fencing, most probably something like deer fencing so the dogs can’t jump out, hard standing, collection and disposal of poos (remarkably complicated), a way of making sure it’s only used by the paying customers and so on. I decided it wasn’t an easy way to use up a paddock or two, and the upfront costs would be very considerable. Definitely not something to be done on a whim.

That was hard to listen to.

A really moving, authentic performance by Isobel Middleton there, I thought.

"Why couldn't you wait for me, Mum?"

Because all you ever did, Anna, was nag the bloody woman.

I would love Fallon to move onto Rex’s boat and really bring that location to life. Upcycle some compact furniture for tiny homes, grow a garden on the roof and plant some stuff on the adjoining bank, string fairy lights and generally turn it into an absolute des-res and lifestyle (which I think she would be eminently suited to). And she would finally be on a par with Emma in her caravan and the two of them could compare notes and support one another re living in small spaces. I think the boat, as a location, has been wasted on Rex.
RIP Carole. Not sorry to see the back of her, but Alan is about to be in huge trouble. How big do we think the transfer would have been? I’m thinking £25 for the flowers so maybe £25,000? And with Carole gone, there is no one to defend Alan. It was a lovely, peaceful death and Alan has shown nothing, but kindness to Carole - he doesn’t deserve this.

I dont understand why they’ve deaded Carol before Gill

That was a lovely episode. When my father was ill, not dying, he had a turn and was taken to hospital. In the morning the Catholic priest was doing his rounds, giving the Sacraments to the RC patients. He was my dad's parish priest.

Dad was awake and well enough. The priest heard his Confession and gave him Holy Communion. He died of a heart attack a few minutes later. A good death by Catholic standards.

This episode made me cry , it was so well done. Not sure about Anna's vocalised bit, but this is radio.

Surely flower delivery can’t be so much cheaper where you are, @LillianGish? £50 would only buy a disappointingly miserly bunch from all the sites I come across.

(Which potentially puts Alan in even more trouble! 😈 😈😈)

But yes, Fallon + houseboat might be absolute perfection. I love your thought about Emma.

I don’t think Emma’s ‘caravan’ is an egregiously small space, just a somewhat unofficial one. Not really comparable to a narrowboat.

I hope Fallon either falls off and drowns or strangles herself with a string of effing fairy lights.

Agreed

Not sure he'd risk telling Elizabeth. There's an excellent chance that he'd get the same response from her as he did from Lily, with added embarrassing detail.

Btw - Rex already has moved in with Alice.

Echoes of Carol not waiting for Anna when she and Alan planned Richard's memorial service in the garden. That was very moving.

From experience with hospices, people often wait until their vigil-keeping relations have gone to the loo, popped out for a sandwich or a breath of air, to die alone. A friend chose the moment when her husband went to the door to take a tray from a nurse. He had hardly left her side for four months. My mother picked a quiet time to slip away last year and then DH three months ago.

I have heard this many times. It happened with my parents and my in laws.

Such a moving episode, but I really don’t want the Alan had embezzled money from vulnerable elderly person that is about to come. Think it will get very nasty as Anna is a barrister and feels like Alan keeps taking moments she should have been there (Richard’s memorial and her death). But it’s such a depressing storyline when Alan is obviously struggling and is just being unbelievably kind all the time.

If I’m sending flowers to my mum I would use M&S (admittedly I haven’t done so for a year or so because now she’s Carole’s age, even a lovely gesture like that is an extra complication she doesn’t need!) But you’re right - a delivery from a florist would be much more expensive. Maybe £100 - with a couple of extra noughts? How much trouble do we think he’s in - 5 figures or 6? Or even just 4 - £5,000 instead of £50? Is Usha also going to be implicated since she’s suddenly been given her voice back after years of absence. Why was she on the Laurels tour with Anna?

I imagine Usha is going to be implicated too, maybe accused of distraction or something? I had a half idea they were going to go this way after the online banking thing. But it’s so grim.

I am very much hoping that when the twist we've all decided is coming makes its appearance it's done and dusted within one episode. I really couldn't bear having Anna complaining that Alan is a thief who stole from a dying woman to the police, the Bishop and anyone she can corner for months on end.

If Anna is going to play some useful and interesting part in Ambridge life in the future, she can stay, I suppose. I can't see her wanting to move to Glebe Cottage, though, and the Archers may be delighted to get the cottage back so they can sell it and raise cash for the farm.

Liz John did a good job with this week's scripts. One of the better weeks in recent times!

Going back to the transfer, briefly - my experience of this is based entirely on transferring eyewatering sums of money from my Mum's bank account to the nursing home. I was very reassured to see that the Bank of Scotland make it quite hard to do that by mistake. When you set up a new payee there are various checks with the payee's bank to make sure the details all match and then you have to confirm by phone (automated call) that you really do want to pay this person/business. If the sum is large there's an extra screen with grim warnings asking you to check again and again that you've got the details right and pointing out in very plain English that if you go ahead anyway and then try to claim you've been scammed you will probably not get any recompense.

None of that appeared to happen when Carol transferred money to Alan.

But Ruth and David have promised Glebe to Josh!

If Anna is going to play some useful and interesting part in Ambridge life in the future, she can stay, I suppose I can’t see any reason for Anna to stay in Ambridge. It has always been an inconvenience for her to visit - that was part of the point of this plot - it would be a supreme irony if she were to move there after her mother’s death. It’s not even as if Carole owned a house in the village - she will just have to clear the cottage and then it can revert to Jill - or Shula and Elizabeth or Josh depending on who’s writing the follow-up. This story has been unsatisfactory in so many ways…

It’ll be interesting to see how the (presumed) bank error is identified. If Alan suddenly notices a huge amount in his account and speaks to someone about it that will be very different to Anna noticing the transfer from Carol’s end.

i agree though - the number of times you need to confirm that yes, I really want to send £25 to my dad and I’m really not being scammed makes this kind of mistake fairly unbelievable. Particularly for Carol who seemed quite IT-naive and so presumably wouldn’t just click on ‘yes, yes, yes’ while muttering darkly, like I do. More likely to have worried to Alan that she’d done something wrong.

I thought the death scene was well done and realistic that she waited for Alan and his soothing voice but not for Anna, but am pleased that Carol is no longer with us. Realistic also that Anna felt she had more to say - I think having (probably) said everything already is still very different to having those last moments when you know death is upon us. Especially with a calm and quiet death as Carol was fortunate to have.

On a more cheerful note I agree completely that Fallon should move into the houseboat - completely her vibe.