Time to dig through Beeb Genome again? I’ll be getting back to the cast lists in a while, so can make a brief detour into some (even more) ancient history, if you want.
OK - cast list from 15/8/66:
Written by BRUNO MILNA
Produced by TONY SHRYANE
Edited by Godfrey Baseley
Friday’s broadcast (Light)
Contributors
Written By: Bruno Milna
Produced By: Tony Shryane
Edited By: Godfrey Baseley
Daniel Archer: Monte Crick
Doris Archer: Gwen Berryman
Jack Archer: Denis Folwell
Peggy Archer: June Spencer
Jennifer Archer: Angela Piper
Lilian Archer: Elizabeth Marlowe
Philip Archer: Norman Painting
Jill Archer: Patricia Greene
Tom Forrest: Bob Arnold
Carol Grenville: Anne Cullen
John Tregorran: Philip Morant
Jack Woolley: Philip Carston-Jones
Polly Mead: Hilary Newcombe
Sid Perks: Alan Devereux
Walter Gabriel: Chris Gittins
Ned Larkin: Bill Payne
Clare Madison: Noreen Richards
Roger Patillo: Jeremy Mason
Thanks very much! I don’t think I believe in Phil having an affair with her; I’ll include it as said by the sources but not as something I think factual.
And I have just finished with C for this tranche, so all is good and I can go to bed with a clear conscience.
That is very kind, annakist. But please, please don’t stick out your neck too far; I would absolutely hate you to get into trouble for saying anything about me.
Joe, I hadn’t noticed that neither of the Books gives Clare Madison’s actor, or I wouldn’t have thought it worth asking; but she did speak, and your cast-list gives it, and I am even more grateful than before.
David is a Bore. I have managed to get him married and living in the Bungalow, which takes me to 1989, and I still have at least twice as much again to do of him. Up until him I had done Debbie Aldridge and Daniel Hebden Lloyd, and Doughy Hood for light relief, and David feels as if he is going on and on for ever.
I have got him as far as July 2007, and am finding it hard work; I had forgotten just how much I disliked the way he behaved over Sophie and then Sam. Being even slightly objective is difficult, and is involving a lot of deletion and rewrites to make it sound less angry.
And oh lord, this is the first of the major characters I have done apart from Brian (whom I rather like) and Debbie, and I now realise I have not made a thorough job of Brian. I’ll have to go back and add stuff. (Don’t want to go back. Want to get on. Drat David!)
I was planning to say only that "Nigel asked for his help to take down a banner from the roof, and since he was reluctant to return the following day to do it he encouraged Nigel to do it later that evening, in spite of Elizabeth having said that they were not to; Nigel fell and was killed, and David, knowing that he had been involved and feeling guilty, undertook to do a lot of work for his bereaved sister’s business, to the detriment of his work at Brookfield. " followed by “On [date] he told her of his fear that what he had said to Nigel that evening had caused Nigel to go onto the roof, whereupon Elizabeth blamed him absolutely for her husband’s death and forbade him ever to have anything more to do with her or her children.”
This misses out my personal question as to why the hell David was needed at all, given the number of people at Lower Loxley and who had put the thing up there in the first place (Kenton, who was living at LL at the time); also why either of these adult males, one of whom as a farmer (and one who had already been present once when an accidental death involving height took place) would be very safety-conscious, would have been so mind-numbingly idiotic as to go onto a freezing roof after dark at all.
I agree it seems a fair summary. Fanta, would you like me to post on this thread the summary I wrote quoting verbatim the relevant (according to me) events that lead to Nigel’s plunge? It’s a bit long, which is why I ask first. I could put the link to the snapshot I have of it in Photobucket, but PB is dreadfully slow nowadays and besides, if I post the actual text, you would be welcome to copy it and file it away if you wished.
Nigel asks David to “pop back tomorrow”. David hesitates but says yes. Nigel explains Kenton will be busy at Jaxx and Lizzie wants it down by 12th night.
Ruth notes that David is ‘on the wine already’.
While waiting for news of Helen:
Nigel: We could go and get the banner off the roof.
David: Oh yeah. Good idea.
Lizzie Now? Are you crazy?
Nigel: It would save David having to come over tomorrow.
Lizzie: Doesn’t mean you should start clambering about on the roof. It’s dark.
Nigel: We could put the flood lights on.
Lizzie: The wind’s getting up. If you want to go and do something useful, go and help Lewis.
Later, when news of the baby comes through and Lizzie asks Nigel to organise the Champagne:
Nigel: Well, I suppose I’d better get down to the cellar.
David: Yeah, um, I was thinking we might head in the opposite direction.
Nigel: Really?
David: Well, you saw how excited they are, they’re going to be ages chewing the fat with Mum and Shula about this. I’m sure we’ve got time to get that banner down.
Nigel: But Lizzie said we shouldn’t.
David: Oh, come on, Nigel, are you a man or a mouse? (slight pause.) You’d be doing me a favour, actually, I really would rather do it today, while I’m here.
Nigel: Of course. And you’re right. It won’t take long. I’ll have plenty of time to sort the Champagne too.
David: Yeah. Well, better to do it before we start knocking that back rather than afterwards.
Nigel: Indeed! Lizzie need never know. I shall present her with a fait accompli in the morning.
On the roof:
David: Oh! I hadn’t realise we’d be this high up.
Nigel: Roofs do tend to be on top of things.
David: Oof! Your gutters need cleaning out if you don’t mind me saying so.
Nigel: Careful! It’s frosty. … It’s so much easier in the light.
David: Gasp! Oops!
Nigel: Are you all right?
David: I’m fine, it’s all right. … Oof! I see what you mean!
Nigel: Maybe Lizzie was right. Perhaps this isn’t such a good idea after all.
David: Uh! I’ll be more careful. We’re up here now, we may as well finish the job.
Nigel: You stay there, then, by the end of the banner. I’ll do the other end.
David: Are you sure? … I don’t mind …
Nigel: It’s much more sensible if I do it, I’ve been clambering over these roofs since I was a child.
David: Really? I’m surprised Julia let you.
Nigel: She didn’t! It was mine and Daddy’s little secret.
What? He came with you?
Nigel: 'Course! Showed me all the footholds. Secret Pargeter knowledge, passed down from father to son.
David: (laughs) I see!
Nigel: Mummy was FURIOUS when she found out. But he told her it was a family tradition.
David: And I just learned how to milk! Oof, right, have you got it?
Nigel: Yes, only Kenton seems to have tied it on with one of his sailor’s knots.
David: Oh.
Nigel: You unhook your end, ready to let it drop.
David: OK
Nigel: Dear Daddy, we had so much fun together.
David: Right, I’ve got it, Nigel.
Nigel: I wonder if Freddie and Lily are too young to come out here.
David: Well I think Elizabeth might have something to say about that!
Nigel: (laughs) I imagine she would! Oh, that’s done it.
David: Good.
Nigel: She’s rather like Mummy in some ways. I’ve been very lucky to have had two such fantastic women in my life.
David: Yes, well, don’t want to hurry you, but one of those fantastic women was right, the wind’s coming up.
Nigel: It’s free now.
David: Good.
Nigel: Oh, blast!
David: What’s the matter?
Nigel: Stupid thing’s got itself tangled up. I just need to get a bit higher.
David: Careful, Nigel!
Nigel: I’m all right! I’ve got it now! I’ll just … oh, heavens …
David: Nigel!
Nigel: David …
David: Nigel, hang on!
Nigel: Aaaaaarrgh!!!
David: Nigel!!!
I had forgotten that Ruth pointed out that David was drinking. If he was half seas over, that would explain his forgetting all the basic safety rules which would be second nature to any working farmer.
Down by Twelfth Night? Then it didn’t have to come down that night or even on 3rd at all!
Yes, the plot is all a bit rubbish. They over-egged it quite a bit by making it frosty, dark and windy as well. Each one a good reason in itself not to do it besides, as you point out, there being plenty of time between January 2nd and Twelfth Night. And why on earth must a banner saying ‘Happy New Year’ be taken down by Twelfth Night anyway?
We know from Ruth that David had had something to drink. It might not have been all that much and he is supposed to be a big chap, though come to think of it, do we have any on-air proof of that apart from Vanessa Whitburn saying he is ‘a bear of a man’?
Your splendid account has convinced me that I can’t add too much, but perhaps I can use that as a footnote in some way? It ought to be possible. In fact I might have a section for “what they really said” on the website, for the correction of mishearings which have become Pravda on Peet’s board…
I have left out David’s invention at the inquest of moonrise after dark had fallen on 2nd January 2011 (it sank in the afternoon and there was no moon that night) and cantered onwards, and I have now got him as far as the threatening phone call at the beginning of Farmageddon and I am going out to the gym!
Oh lord, that’s when I started to join in with those who called him Dopey, if I recall correctly, because he and Ruth were so, so stupid over the whole thing. That rushing up and down to Prudhoe was hilarious! I imagined poor Heatherpet at the door with the poker in her hand fending off the Bad Men. How nice of them to put her, an elderly woman living alone, in jeopardy, selfish whatsits.