The Archers

Jolene has serious concerns and Jazzer takes a stroll down memory lane.

Pip turns up at Home Farm, worried how Stella is coping with Brian’s antipathy following Friday’s Board meeting, but Stella brushes it off as an occupational hazard. Later at The Bull, Pip tells Kenton how upset she is by Stella shutting her out instead of sharing her true feelings. Kenton reckons Pip has to be honest with Stella, tell her what she thinks and not let it fester. Then after supper at Rickyard, Stella confesses how the tension between her and Brian is unbearable. When Stella hears how upset Pip is that she didn’t confide in her before, they reaffirm their love for one another. Stella reckons the whole rewilding debacle is her fault. But she’s so glad she’s got Pip and promises she won’t ever withhold her feelings again. Fallon gives Kenton the bad news that Tara, their new kitchen assistant, has lied about being away on jury service. Kenton’s clear, they’ll have to sack her, but Fallon worries how they’ll find a replacement. Then Joy pipes up – what about her? Both Kenton and Fallon are delighted. Later, when Fallon describes the lovely birthday break she’s had with Harrison, Joy senses her ambivalence about how much she’s enjoying being back with him. Fallon doesn’t want to talk about it, though. When Fallon approaches grumpy Kenton to talk about formally interviewing Joy, he tells her the police want him to help get Markie and his gang convicted for illegal dog trading. But the last thing Kenton wants is to recall the horror of the night he was attacked.

Kenton is grateful to Joy, who in Fallon’s absence has taken over the task of providing the cricket tea for Ambridge’s match against Franchester. Kenton is then horrified to realise he has seriously underestimated the number of pies needed, before Joy comes to the rescue, cooking batches of mini Yorkshire puddings, which they will fill with what’s available in the kitchen. When Fallon returns unexpectedly to The Bull she joins in helping get the tea ready on time. When Tom pulls out of playing shortly before the cricket is due to start Lynda bemoans their chances of success without him. Her attempts to find a replacement are stymied, before Harrison appears and Lynda corrals him into agreeing to play. Convinced she’s solved all their problems Lynda thinks Ambridge should win easily now. However, it’s a nail-biting finish with Harrison only scoring the winning runs off the last ball, but Ambridge have broken their losing streak. Overbearing Lynda then claims she was right to let Freddie make the critical decisions, but Joy and Will know it was her driving everything. Will is unhappy with the team’s general underperformance, plus having to rely on Harrison’s one-off heroics, and leaves the celebrations early. Everyone else though is delighted by Ambridge’s triumph against the odds, on both a sporting and culinary front. Joy’s mini-Yorkshires were a big hit and Fallon’s going to steal the idea for future menus! Joy modestly accepts the praise and assumes Fallon is happy too, now Harrison is back, before Lynda raises a toast to him.

At the family holiday meeting there’s light tension between Kate and Jakob. She insists she’s made peace with his decision not to come on the holiday – and he’ll be jealous when they come up with somewhere brilliant. However it becomes clear the meeting isn’t going to happen as one by one attendees drop out. Kate thinks they’re all a nightmare. How can she organise everyone if they can’t even turn up to a meeting? Maybe Jakob had the right idea; what Kate would really like is to go to Scotland and visit Phoebe and the baby. She starts to look up places to go. At the Borchester Land board meeting Stella sums up the ecology report, parts of which Brian acknowledges make pretty gloomy reading. Stella asserts that she knows BL should take action – and they’re already putting a lot of the right things in place that will make a difference. Justin ventures that these might not be enough, and raises his rewilding proposition. Afterwards Brian declares it will happen over his dead body. Martyn scoffs that Justin’s become a tree hugging beaver lover. Justin insists he has support on the board, naming Annabelle specifically. Brian’s appalled that Stella knew of Justin’s plans. She’s stabbed him in the back and he’s never been so disappointed. Stella can’t believe Justin revealed the plans, having said he wouldn’t. Justin insists he needed an element of surprise to make an impact. Stella retorts his duplicitousness has probably cost her her relationship with her boss, and possibly threatened her job.

Alice is delighted to hear Brian’s relationship is becoming something significant. She likes Miranda and is glad her dad’s happy. Brian spots Alice is a bit pre-occupied and she discloses her concerns over Martha. Brian’s surprised to hear the nursery’s comments about her development. Alice confesses she lives with constant terror that she’s harmed Martha by drinking. Brian assures Alice she might never know what made Martha who she is, but she couldn’t love her more. She’s a lovely mum. In the moment they both admit to missing Jennifer. Justin enthuses to impatient Stella about his plans for the rewilding of Borchester Land. She points out Home Farm stands to lose their contract if half of the BL estate is rewilded. Justin counters with the bigger picture, but Stella insists they need food a lot more than eco tourism. Justin insists his mind’s made up; he’s telling the board tomorrow. In that case Stella reckons she needs to tell Brian right now. Justin relents; he’ll hold off at the meeting until they’ve had a detailed chat next week. Stella and Pip finally get their picnic, and Pip wants to know what’s bothering Stella. But Stella doesn’t want to talk about it any more. She feels like she said the wrong thing implying Rosie might not have been innocent in the school incident. Pip accepts Rosie may have been partly culpable but she feels the school made too big a deal of it. Hopefully everything they were worried about is now sorted, asserts Stella. They agree that would be nice.