These are some of the tweets I’ve read recently about Joe Grundy (94). In this blog I want to explore why we used to love the Grundies, but now we seem to hate them. What happened? What might have caused this?
THE NEW SCRIPTWRITERS
Well this is the obvious one, isn’t it? The latest SWs, under SOC, have changed the personalities of many of the Archers’ cast, such as Pat (ex-feminist strong socialist woman, now woolly minded daft female). Cast members that haven’t undergone a total personality transplant have perhaps had their characteristics emphasised, and are now caricatures of their former selves. This could certainly be the case for Joe and his family (Eddie, Clarrie, sons Ed and Will, their wives Emma and Nic, plus grandchildren) who were previously loveable rogues, introduced to the story in the 1970s to give a bit of light relief. Now we don’t see so much of the humour (except perhaps for Elf World, and some marvelous asides from Joe himself – calling Lynda’s Resurgam stone Absurdum) but we do see a lot of the rogue.
Tweeps have not been reluctant to call out the Grundies' ingratitude to Caroline and Oliver, who’ve allowed them to live rent free in their house, Grange Farm, for the last 6 months. Now they want their property back, in order to sell it to fund a purchase in Italy, where they want to settle. They’ve come back from Italy to find their lovely home ‘trashed’ and the Grundies asking for a few more weeks there, until they can move into their future rental home, currently occupied by other tenants. Caroline and Oliver have agreed to this, as they do have another place to live in; the extensive country hotel, Grey Gables, owned by Caroline, and managed by her until Oliver persuaded her to retire.
Then, there’s the human factor: why are Caroline and Oliver so soft on them?
THE UNKNOWN BACK STORY
I’ve listened to The Archers since the mid 60s. Every decade sees new listeners joining we happy band of archers’ fans, and of course, those that have joined recently haven’t seen the loveable rogue aspects of this troubled family. Perhaps I can help fill in some history for you?
The relationship between Caroline and the Grundies goes way, way back.
Who remembers the teenage Shula, Caroline and Clarrie drinking wine and having a laugh together in Shula’s bedroom? In those days, the three friends didn’t have so much that divided them as they do now. (Don’t forget, there is more that brings us together than that which divides us). Now, the three girls occupy quite different social strata. In a parody of the ‘I look up to him’ John Cleese sketch, Caroline is Upper Class; Shula, Middle Class; and Clarrie, married into the Grundies, definitely at the bottom.
We would once have called the Grundies Working Class, but the current term that fits them best is the Precariat: living hand to mouth, their lives are precariously balanced in a battle to keep a roof over their heads and food in their mouths. It wasn’t always like this. Although it’s true that they always had to work hard to put food on the table, when they first arrived in our storyline in the 1970s they were tenant farmers at Grange Farm. I guess this could come as a surprise to some newer listeners, who may not know that the Grundies’ current good luck, being allowed to live there rent free, isn’t the first time they occupied it. As tenant farmers, they had security of tenure – they couldn’t be evicted without just cause - and had space to farm, as successfully as most small scale farmers could. In all respects, Grange Farm was their home, and Grange Farm land was their land.
So Caroline and Clarrie have been friends for a long, long time, and Caroline is godmother to Clarrie’s boys Will and Ed. She has a soft spot for Ed, who missed out financially when his brother Will was left comfortably off, through a legacy from an elderly aunt; of course, this should have been shared between the brothers, but the aunt hadn’t changed her will since the younger brother was born, and Will got the lot. Being Will, he believed he was absolutely entitled to the full amount, and mocked Ed without mercy for being a loser. It was this legacy that allowed Will to buy the ex-council house on The Green that he now lets to tenants, and into which the elder Grundies are going to move when the present tenants leave.
Caroline often stepped in, whatever partner she shared her life with, to help the family. Six months ago Oliver and Caroline invited the whole family to live at Grange Farm while they were on extended holiday in Italy, but this is only their most recent generosity. Some 10 years ago, it extended to inviting Ed into their home, Grange Farm, and looking after him whilst he recovered from apparently hopeless drug addiction (this was brought on by seeing Emma, the love of his life, reject him, taking her son George with her, and moving back in with her parents). Oliver’s continued faith in the newly recovering Ed led him to support the young man while he found his feet again as an independent dairy farmer, operating on a small scale on Oliver’s land.
So the shared history of the two women is partly responsible, but I’d add that there’s also an element of guilt in the mix. To understand this, we need to look at how Grange Farm stopped being occupied by the Grundies, and came into the ownership of Caroline and Oliver; I believe this change is at the heart of their guilty feelings towards the Grundies.
That’s enough for part one, and we’ll look at the history of Grange Farm’s occupation in part two.