George Grundy’s name is mud! And his lies about the great Borsetshire car crash have caused heart attacks and near-death by chainsaw. But even that couldn’t stop a cosy crime subplot worthy of Richard Osman
Mere prose seems insufficient to map the latest rifts and schisms in Ambridge: an infographic, a diagram, possibly an interpretation in the form of expressive dance seem better suited to the task. But to offer an attempt: George Grundy’s name is mud, now that everyone knows he lied about causing the great Ambridge car crash, and is anything but a hero. Brian Aldridge gave himself an angina attack even thinking about him, and police officer Harrison nearly beat him up. Lilian gave her sister-in-law Pat an earful for offering to be his character witness. (Pat, a known Guardian reader, has dangerous progressive views on whether Prison Is the Answer.) Emma has left the tea shop because she and Fallon can no longer be in the same room (this after a ghastly “mediation session” run by the ever-pompous Tom Archer). Emma and Ed had a row while doing a tree surgery job (one of them is bound to sever a limb with those damn chainsaws, or be crushed to death by a falling branch). George stopped speaking to Emma (though a rapprochement has been effected). Eddie stopped speaking to Susan. Formerly super-close siblings Emma and Chris may never speak again. At the Bull, Jolene and Kenton threw George’s special beer mug, presented to him for his “heroic” rescue actions on the night of the fateful crash, in the bin. I’d like to say that covers everything, but I don’t suppose it does.
What to think? This column has tended to take a dim view of George Grundy. But, as Pat said, he is complicated. Venal and amoral he may be; selfish and a bully, certainly. Would he be cured by a spell inside? I think not. Will some seed of goodness – his occasional bouts of hard work, his ambition – pull him through to some brighter future? I guess you never know.
George Grundy adapts to life in prison, and someone has already wet his bed. There’s been quite the terrifying crime surge in Ambridge lately
Well then, George Grundy was sent down. The prisons system being what it is, there’s no room for him among the young offenders. He’s with the big lads, in proper grownup jail, and someone has already pissed in his bed. It sounds … awful. George has promised he’ll come out of this experience better than he went in. Good luck with that: I’m unsure how he’ll survive without getting sucked into The Gang That Runs the Wing.
Brad Horrobin has been to visit him, George understandably preferring to see his undemanding mathematician cousin than his spiralling-out-of-control parents. George has historically got Brad in trouble – the affair of the vandalised bench in Grey Gables springs to mind. Maybe Brad will be the steadying influence who helps George survive his ordeal. Or maybe – I can see this all too clearly – Brad will end up the introverted but ruthless bespectacled accountant running the money-laundering side of George’s future criminal empire, the seeds of which will be sown during his time banged up.
While her family roast their own turkeys, bitter Emma calls a halt to festivities, what with her son being banged up. Then Joy’s mystery daughter arrives, fresh from a … cult?
The wheel of fortune has turned. This Christmas, the Aldridges – finally on an even keel after Alice was exonerated from involvement in the fateful car crash on the Am – spent a day of familial bliss dining on Scandinavian themed treats, like so many Norse gods in a Wagner opera, under the elegant awning of one of Kate’s yurts. The Grundy/Carters, by contrast, are in a state of schism, broadly along the lines of who was willing to grass George Grundy up to the police and who wasn’t. Various festive lunch combinations were mooted in a bid to circumnavigate the great Eddie Grundy/Susan Carter rift (Susan having definitively broken the code of the Grundys when she insisted the police handle the crimes of her grandson). The Grundy festive table was all about turkey, of course, since they raise the birds; the Carters were planning a typically upwardly mobile affair of salmon en croute and a baked ham, with the lower branches of the family expected to shuttle between the two households. Emma Grundy (née Carter) called a halt, though. With her son George banged up she couldn’t face the pretence of joy and celebration.
Emma: what a fascinating package of human qualities she is. She is filled, very often justifiably, with class resentment. She is chippy, yet – what with her recent excursions into studying English literature – aspiring. She can be malicious – as when she posted anonymous remarks to the stables website denouncing her ex-sister-in-law Alice. She can be self-regarding and oddly blind (is it any wonder that, having concealed a crime from the police, someone might have objected to her presence on the parish council?). Amid all that bitterness, though, is a woman who loves her son and wants better for her family. Perhaps, what with the new arboricultural business, she will attain contentment yet. If she doesn’t accidentally chainsaw off her own limbs first.
A rewilding project is sending residents of Ambridge silly – and they must be unique in the English-speaking world for not giggling whenever the rodent’s name is uttered. Please stop it now – us listeners can’t cope!
‘Stop. Saying. Beaver.” This was the despairing text message I received from an Archers-listening friend. His anguish during these past rodent-heavy weeks was only partially assuaged by Lynda Snell’s use of the splendid word “gallimaufry”. Residents of Ambridge must be unique in the English-speaking world for not instantly giggling when the word “beaver” is uttered, proof that they truly are living in a version of The Matrix (a fact slammed home this month when it turned out that the beaver activist urging Rex and Kirsty to introduce the creatures into the rewilding project was called Neo). I was put in mind of a famous incident from my life when my late mother, hosting lunch for me and a handful of friends when I was a student, innocently issued the immortal instruction: “Show Julian my beaver,” a reference to a wooden dish at that time in use in the parental household as a receptacle for nuts. Much muffled hilarity ensued, the joke remaining evergreen until the Archers permanently tore away the joy from any and all beaver silliness.
“To beaver or not to beaver”; “beavers are an absolute menace”; “surely beavers are a welcome addition to the countryside”: on it went, as we learned that “beavers are smart, determined and really strong” and caused a billion pounds’ worth of damage, or something, to Brian’s friend’s farm in the West Country. Pip is anti-beaver, Josh is pro-beaver, Justin is keen to bring beavers into Ambridge in the teeth of local opposition, Brian is taking the beaver issue to the BL board. But who cares any more, except to say that I will be at the barricades with David Archer to prevent beavers’ entry to Borsetshire for ever, not because I’m not a beaver fan (I am, why wouldn’t I be?) but because I never want to hear them mentioned again on the Archers.
The most revolting bit of plotting – a tide of human excrement – has flooded the town and it’s the perfect metaphor for the stinking state of the wider world
Ambridge is covered in a fine, or not so fine, layer of human excrement! Yes, this month sewage worked its way up through the downstairs shower drains on the Beechwood estate. It gurgled and fountained its way out of the lavatories. It spat itself, horrendously, out of the kitchen sinks. It washed in a great wave through the yard at Bridge Farm. And it gushed and eddied into the dairy, where Helen, Clarrie and Susan dashed about, piling up cheese from lower shelves to higher. Bridge Farm is an organic producer. But not usually quite this organic.
The culprit is the local water firm. It is the now familiar story of sewage dumped into a river after heavy rain. The Beechwood people are now dispersed while the dehumidifiers hum and the insurance “journey” begins. Joy and Mick are housesitting the palatial Shangri-la of Home Farm, now owned by mysterious City banker types; Azra the doctor and her kids are at the Snells’ B&B. Somehow, everyone is taking this in their stride. How are they managing this? Once, I found a giant spider in my hair, which I realised, too late, had been hunkered down in my hairbrush. A friend remarked, “Literally the worst thing has now happened.” True, it was pretty bad. I shiver to recall it. But it was definitely not the worst thing that could happen. Everything being covered in shit, though, is pretty high up the league table. A cursory glance at local authority advice on what to do should this happen to you (and I pray it never does) suggests broadly that you should run screaming for the hills. Hazmat suits and goggles, the disposal of clothing even remotely relating to the cleanup work, the chucking of the tools you have used to clean up, are strongly recommended. The smell lingers for a long long time. At this point, no one wants to visit the Bridge Farm tea room – now whiffing of disinfectant rather than the other stuff – and who can blame them?
The disastrous sewage dump continues, leading residents to protest by dressing up as giant bog rolls … and staging a 10-hour campanological marathon. Only in Borsetshire
A miasma hangs over Ambridge; an enchantment of sorts. Its inhabitants seem bizarrely foggy about events in the outside world. For example, the word Palestine cannot be spoken in the village. The Malik family have been saying a few prayers during iftar, among which “Let it stop soon,” is the nearest anyone has come to mentioning The Situation. They have now moved back to their house on the recently sewage-engulfed Beechwood estate – departing their temporary accommodation at the Ambridge Hall B&B perhaps just before the well-meaning joining-in-with-Ramadan by Lynda Snell (MBE) got oppressive. The Snells, on the other hand, are missing the Maliks so much that Constanza upped and died (she’s a llama).
Ah, the sewage. Aside from its olfactory effects, the longer-term consequences continue. No one wants to eat cheese or yoghurt artisanally produced amid human excrement, remarkably, so Helen Archer’s organic dairy business is in trouble. The plan is to make one of Clarrie Grundy or Susan Carter redundant, a typically humane move from the Bridge Farm Archers. The threatened job loss has only strengthened Emma Grundy’s resolve to campaign against the evils of Borchester Water. She and Pat Archer turned up at a demo dressed as giant bog rolls, and soon, a plan for a bellringing protest at St Stephen’s church was hatched. Alan Franks, at his trendy vicar best, loved the idea, and a 10-hour campanological marathon, plus an outburst of citizen handbell ringing, was devised. Not everyone was delighted. Martyn Gibson, twirling his moustache and swirling his evil capitalist’s cloak, swept into the church on the verge of an apoplexy. The bells rang out, nonetheless.