Of recent months, I have been aware of a strange phenomenon: my husband, normally a mild-mannered, wouldn't-say-boo-to-a-goose sort of chap has been shouting at the radio, on a fairly regular basis. Normally this only happens occasionally when he listens to Any Questions, but I know that's not on every evening. It turns out that he has been listening to the Archers again.
I used to listen regularly, from a child in fact, because my mother was an Archers addict and my childhood was one of sacred silence at 7.05 for the fifteen minute duration. (Woe betide you if you spoke or even breathed loudly!) However, when the evil Vanessa Witchburn sent lovely Nigel falling from the roof of his ancestral pile, thinking that this would be a good start to the year, in 2011, I stopped in protest.
It's not that I disagree with them killing off characters; indeed, this can become a necessity when they want to leave, like John Archer, who fell under a tractor, so that he could pursue his career elsewhere. It's just that Nigel was sweet; unfailingly pleasant and jolly, with a penchant for dressing up in a gorilla suit and driving an ice cream van, and I feel that we could do with more people like that. There were plenty of characters I would have been happy to see the end of: snobby Susan Carter, Peggy Archer, Kate Aldridge, (the spoilt-brat hippy-child), or her equally irritating, carefully-enunciating mother Jennifer. Also Elizabeth, wife of the lovely Nigel, or her unbearably annoying sister, Saint Shula of Ambridge, or Tony Archer, who was a bit wet, or the incredibly joyless and exasperating Helen Archer. However, in reality, as someone wrote recently, awful things do happen to annoying people and Helen simply doesn't deserve what has been going on in her life recently, which is coercion and bullying by her despicable husband the allegedly charming RobTitchner. (The reason for my husband's increasingly loud invective.)
If you have been in a hut on an island for the last few weeks, Helen has just spent the last few months of her pregnancy and childbirth in prison, because she finally snapped and stabbed her utterly vile husband Rob. (He handed her the knife, I might add, and told her to kill herself. Charming chap.) Anyway, because Rob is a cunning and clever psychopath, most people have thought that he is just a caring and loving husband. He patently isn't, obviously, he's a manipulative swine, but that is only apparent if you are a listener.
Having walked through the kitchen, on various occasions, to see what the shouting was about, I found it too uncomfortably chilling to listen to the way that Rob's control has built up over hapless Helen, and her son Henry (who is currently in Rob's custody; someone go and fetch that child sharpish, please). Apparently I was not alone. There have been complaints about this, but also praise, because the portrayal of the recently criminalised coercive control that Rob has been exhibiting, has been advised on by women's groups, and they said that what happened in the end can happen in real life, "when Henry was threatened Helen did an ‘exploding doormat’ ". (It is unusual though, because, sadly, most women are the injured ones, rather than the stabber, which is what Helen became.)
We listened to the trial last night, which was mainly the jurors deliberating (and squabbling) and the jurors were a shocking blend of pleasantness and prejudice, including re-incarnated "Nigel", as Dennis, a rather prejudiced man, the not-so-lovely-this-time Nigel Havers, the self elected chairman, on a mission to get Helen banged up for good, (because these women are all unstable), Catherine Tate, who initially wasn't bothered, and the indomitable Eileen Atkins who singlehandedly fought Helen's corner, and talked the men round. (There were only 11 jurors, because one idiot tweeted about the case. Seriously!) Husband did have a grumble because he thought the men were all awful and he even got cross with Catherine Tate's Lisa, who thought Helen was making a fuss about nothing (turns out her chap was a total swine as well).
Anyway, Helen did walk free at the end, but this storyline could run and run, because psycho Rob still has Henry and I expect she'll will want her son back, but I'm not sure I can take any more of this emotional rollercoaster. (I had to anoint myself with Moor Lavender oil before going to bed, as I felt totally shattered.If I had any withers, they were wrung!) Still, it was an hour long episode, and it's available on Listen Again, if you can bear it...
Let's hope this story has helped many women in similar situations to recognise that they are not mad, and that coercive behaviour is not part of a loving relationship. In fact, the real hero of the hour is a chap called Paul Trueman on Twitter, who started the Helen Titchner Rescue Fund and has also caused an amazing sum of money to be raised for hospices in Helen's name. It stood at about £150,000, last night!
I hope they go back to lambing and worrying about the wheat yield soon, though, because I'm not sure that I can cope with any more emotional distress at supper time!
