The Archers. An everyday story of country folk.

[Feek]

Does anyone else listen to The Archers?

I used to but somehow I stopped about four years ago for no real reason I can think of, but now that there's a daily feed on iTunes I've started listening again.

Looking at the Timeline on the official site, I reckon it was early 2003 that I stopped listening so there's been a few changes that I didn't know much about - I guessed that Betty Tucker died but don't know any details and I was surprised to see that Julia Pargetter croaked as well. I assume that was just old age?

It's also shocked me to realise that both Pip and Daniel are now teenagers! I remember them both being born.

And I see that Caroline "The Village Bike" Bone has married again!

So, anyone else a fan (I was a member of the Archers Addicts for a good few years) or am I blathering to myself?

[Tak]

Is the theme the national anthem yet? (3 guesses as to what I was watching today )

[Feek]

Billy Connolly?

Wasn't it An Audience With....?

[Dymetrie]

Have always enjoyed the archers that's what you get when you're brought up middle class :/

No idea what Tak is on aboot though :s

[Haly]

I used to listen to it every lunch time when I was home educated as that meant a break Since then though, I'll occassionally listen to it in the evening as my Mum's hooked on it.

[Tak]

Originally Posted by Feek

Billy Connolly?

Wasn't it An Audience With....?

Yup - Had the original and yesterday found an uncut version of it (extra 40 minutes worth of stuff)

I would try to go back to the original subject but I have never listened to The Archers

[Feek]

Boooo, Norman Painting (Phil Archer) has died aged 85.

He'd been in The Archers since the beginning back in 1950.

[Aitch]

RIP Phil Archer :-(

I follow the Archers but I have to confess that it is not entirely intentionally. I listen to R4 a lot generally so often catch it particularly in the evening as it's between the 6:30 comedy slot and arts review program and I'm usually on my way home.

I do have a fondness for it as my mum & dad have always listened to it - at one stage it was my bedtime music (and prerecorded and played earlier if my parents wanted to get us into bed earlier ).

[Feek]

It was all a bit odd today.

I car share with the boss, he lives in Colchester and I drive there listening to The Archers. I'm listening a week behind as it's easier for me to do that as I listen via podcast.

I was expecting to drive in to work today after picking up Allister and because I've got tomorrow off I'd planned to listen to three episodes this morning Thursday, Friday and Sunday.

So I did Thursday, got almost all the way through the Friday episode with just three minutes or so to spare as I arrived at Allisters house. He promptly told me that he was going to drive into work today.

Off we went, did a days work and came home again. I got in the car and carried on where I'd left off.

Within 2 minutes Jill had returned from a days outing with Peggy and Christine to find Phil dead in his chair.

That episode finished and I moved onto the Sunday episode.

I was in tears all the way home. It was too much of a parallel for me.

It's a bloody good job that Allister decided to drive today.

The Times Online website has a great article.

When the end came, it was as gentle as the man himself. Last night Phil Archer, sage patriarch of The Archers, passed away four months after the death of the actor who played him.

Norman Painting, who died of heart failure in October, aged 85, had played Phil since the trial run of the show in 1950, believed to have made him the world’s longest-serving actor in a single role. Phil was referred to, though not heard, when the Archer clan gathered to celebrate Christmas.

In last night’s episode of the Radio 4 serial, his devoted wife, Jill (Patricia Greene), found him dead in his chair as The Dream of Gerontius played softly in the background. Producers took the unusual step of not ending with the show’s signature tune but fading out to Elgar’s mournful score.

“We wanted to play Phil’s death gently and respectfully,” Vanessa Whitburn, the series editor, said. “We didn’t want to do something dramatic. It would have been totally inappropriate. Phil loved music and he was a quintessential Englishman — Elgar, as one of our greatest composers, seemed the right choice.”

In a coincidence that Whitburn discovered only afterwards, Painting had once chosen to have the same music played when he underwent a surgical procedure while conscious.

In last night’s episode, Jill, Peggy Woolley and Christine Barford, Phil’s sister, went to an exhibition of hats. There Jill remembered meeting Phil at the village fête in 1957 on a scorching day.

The reminiscences were gentle but avoided mawkish nostalgia. Clarrie Grundy tore a strip off her husband, Eddie, for making her look stupid by putting her name on his new van. The mystery continued over the identity of Ambridge’s guerrilla graffiti artist — “a budding Banksy”, according to Christine Barford. But the predominant tone was golden and wistful. The women reminisced over farmers wearing hats in the fields. Jill recalled that Phil had sat on the hat that she wore on David and Ruth’s wedding day.

When the women returned to Glebe Cottage, Jill went in to check on Phil. “What’s the betting he’s having a nap?” she said.

But then we heard her say: “Phil — oooh — oh, no — Phil!” Her voice broke a little. “Oh no, Phil,” she repeated. And the Elgar flowed on.

“I think the last time we didn’t play the theme music at the end was when John Archer [Pat and Tony’s son] died,” Whitburn said. “We only do it in exceptional circumstances. There was online speculation we would choose a dramatic slice of the main Barwick Green theme, but it doesn’t exist in stereo and it’s too dramatic. It wouldn’t have sounded right.”

She said that Painting had been “an absolute professional” and even when frail had come to recordings when required.

Over the next few weeks, Whitburn said, listeners would hear how the Archers family and their wider community dealt with Phil’s death. “They will all feel his loss,” she said.

I'm really going to struggle with this over the next few weeks but I have a feeling that they will be episodes that I'll never delete.

[Haly]

I know my Mum heard a bit of the omnibus last week and realised what was about to occur. She's deliberately avoided listening to any others as it's all a little too close.

Can see why others, like you, would still listen though.