Thank You For Your Support – 300,000 Times! (Bonus Posting)

It has been something of a landmark week, as on Tuesday 11^thSeptember 2018, our Hits counter for the blog stood at 300,380, which I think is a pretty good achievement.

The idea began – as do so many others – in the pub, where Neil, Karen, Louise and I sat around, discussing the latest episodes of The Archers. This was just after Norman Painting had died and we were wondering how the soap would cope with the loss of Phil Archer. “We could write our own stories” one of us suggested (probably in a bit of a slurred voice) and the idea for the blog was born.

At first, that’s exactly what we did, as can be seen by Alternative Archers back in December 2009. We soon realised that this was unsustainable (ie it was too hard to think up new storylines) and what we should be doing is providing a summary of the week’s episodes. These are by no means comprehensive, and indeed, some storylines are ignored altogether, but we do try to inject a bit of humour here and there. We also express our opinions about characters and stories – I don’t think any of our regular readers are in any doubt about what I think about Lynda’s Christmas plays/pantos – and there are lists of people who get on our nerves (Wayne, James, Leonie, Martyn Gibson – I could probably go on for pages, but I won’t.)

It’s always good to get feedback and the number of people who wrote in (especially during the Helen and Rob saga) saying that they no longer listen to the Archers on the radio, but rely instead on our summaries, made us realise the great responsibility on our shoulders! I believe I’m right in saying that we have never missed a week, despite illness, operations and, of course, holidays.

If I may be excused a few moments of self-indulgence, I’d like to name some of my favourite blogs. My all-time favourite is Guilt Trips  (January 2011) which dealt with, almost exclusively, the death of Nigel Pargetter. Another one I liked was Another Foot, Another Gob(January 2012). In writing this bonus posting, I have had a great time re-reading some of the postings, including some that I had forgotten about. It was interesting too to re-discover old characters, many of who have vanished without trace. Darrell and Olwen are to that spring to mind, if not to the ear any longer.

The Excitement Is In Tents (June 2014) and Mike’s Had Better Weeks (September 2014) were – to me at least, memorable, as was Don’t Expect A Father’s Day Card, Tony (June 2017). 

In January 2016, Neil managed to insert a couple of audio links into Do We Need A Rob Alert? And there wassound (albeit not a lot) to accompany the words – ah, the wonders of technology!

This last posting was one of our Bonus Postings, which we occasionally add during the week when an idea occurs to us. One such was The Pedalo Of Doom (March 2015) which invited readers to select four characters to be confined in a pedalo, which then went over the hitherto-unmentioned roaring cataract on the Am, never to be seen again.

When Helen was on trial for stabbing Rob, A reader suggested that it would be more immediate if we had a posting every day of the events in court. It seemed a good idea, so we had a week of Bonus Postings Helen In The Dock 1 – 7 in September and October 2016.

I could go on and on, but I would just like to say a heartfelt ‘Thank You’ from Neil and myself to all our readers for racking up over one third of a million hits. OK, it has taken the better part of a decade, but we have never advertised the blog and the growth in numbers is entirely down to personal recommendation among our loyal readership. And I do mean loyal, as some of the people who make comments do append their names and we think things like “oh good; Zoe’s still listening after all these years.”

So, please keep spreading the word among friends and family and thank you all for tuning in every week. Thank you too for the comments – keep them coming in, as we enjoy reading them and it’s nice to know that our efforts are (generally!) appreciated. If you have half as much fun reading the weekly summaries as we do writing them, then we have twice as much fun as you!