The Chaise Longue

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  • #4127
    Jehane DewarJehane Dewar
    Participant

    If I owned an Edwardian chaise longue with the slightly scruffy but original upholstery I would kill whomever took it to an outbuilding. Especially a tenant. Surely a tenant can;t do that to the furniture of a rental property!

    #4128
    LandlessGentryLandlessGentry
    Participant

    Absabloodylutely! I know the original arrangement happened at short notice after the flood, but there’s no way in real life that Caroline and Oliver would leave their furniture in the house if it was being rented.

    I don’t like the way they’re writing the Grundys at the moment, in particular Eddie. He’s always been a bit unlucky and a bit useless, but never completely unthinking and lacking in respect and empathy for other people like this.

    #4134
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I am getting a bit ticked off at The Grundys myself at the moment. Being a new listener I’m not up with their checkered past but I’m not happy with how Eddie and Joe are behaving. Oliver is being more than generous, ridiculously generous, and they are acting like an old episode of Steptoe and Son, cluttering up the yard with rubbish and carting an antique out to their cider shed. I used to love it when the Grundys appeared (particularly when things with Helen and Rob were so dark) but I clench my teeth now waiting for the next slightly dodgy plan to unfold. Young Ed has always been a favourite because he tries so hard but I don’t like the way they have manipulated their way into staying at the farm.

    #4141
    WitherspoonWitherspoon
    Moderator

    Completely agree. What landlord would allow their furniture be ruined? It’s as if Oliver, and now Caroline out of exasperation, have been coerced into running a charity for the Grundys. You can bet your bottom dollar that Eddie will try to connive a way of not paying the rent.

    #4142
    Sarah PassinghamSarah Passingham
    Participant

    And where’s Clarrie when she’s needed? She was always the voice of reason, the collective conscience of the family, and pretty well ‘wore the trousers’. (It’s why she’s been my favourite character in the past.) Clarrie would never in a million years have allowed the removal of anything of Caroline and Oliver’s from the house, and she has been obsessed with keeping everything immaculate to the point of neurosis, in the past. Where is she?!

    #4143
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I’m going to be a bit controversial here. Whilst I mostly agree with the sentiment that Eddie and Joe were blinking bloody thoughtless….I really dislike the way that they are being written at the moment, because their story IS an important one.
    My hackles rise, and the old shepherd in me (that’s person who takes care of sheep, not large dog ) ; gets quite “Captain Swing” every time Caroline wafts on about her home in Tuscany.
    Told you I’d get controversial …… bear with me.
    I was probably the last generation of farm workers who could expect to live on the farms on which we worked. Our cottages were rented to us at a nominal rent, as part of our work contract. (They were rented to us, so that we could be turfed out legally when we left the farm, as we were technically tenants ). In the decades following, more and more farm workers /villagers found themselves squeezed out economically, as farm cottages went up for sale, were sold as second homes, investment properties, and holiday cottages . The price of the houses shot up, and nobody in the villages could actually afford to buy. Especially on farm workers wages …..and definitely not on contract farm workers wages.
    In the village I lived and worked in, my neighbours were small time farmers. The family had lived in the village since before Domesday. Literally. The 3 boys of the family became, in turn, a dairy farmer, a farm manager, and a thatcher. The farmer is still living in the village, the other two men could not afford to buy, or rent in the village. The village has become a virtual show place of holiday lets, and second homes. Very pretty, utterly useless, mostly empty on a Wednesday in February.
    Eddie and Joe are being written as comic ne’er do wells, which is sad. Although Eddie has always been rather fast and loose, and Joe is just, well, Joe. …Ed however, is a young man I admire. Trying his level best under tough circumstances. (Am I the only one who is still yelling C’mon Harassment Burns!! Where the hell did the rustled cattle go? Was there ANY investigation at all?)
    The SW’s have the opportunity to highlight properly the plight of rural Britain. Oliver and Caroline, although “kind” are only doing what was once expected of folk in their position, renting out a place they are not living in, and do not need to live in, to a local family, at a reasonable rent. It was considered the done thing, in the bad old days. A way to keep the village / the rural economy healthy. And every time Caroline mentions Tuscany and says “ya” , I want to send her a message from Captain Swing.

    “Dear Duchess of Tuscany
    The chaise lounge that thee values, would look lovely on fire
    Horsehair burneth well
    Captain Swing. ”

    (I wonder if any of our Aussie /Tasmanian listeners are descendants of Swing rioters??)

    (The history of the Swing Riots can easily be found on the internet)

    #4144
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I should point out, lest you misinterpret me. The Swing Rioters never intended, or indeed did harm to any person. The only person killed during the swing riots was one of the protesters, by a soldier. After the riots, 6 of the rioters were hanged, and the rest sent to Australia and Tasmania.
    Their intent was the damaging of property, not people. Similarly, I would not want to cause damage to any persons, real or imaginary, sigh, no, not even Rob.

    #4145
    Sarah PassinghamSarah Passingham
    Participant

    Very well put, FSP. The Grundys have had some bad luck in the past and also made some poor decisions of their own, but they did try to maintain a core of dignity (apart from Eddie in his cow-horn hat, of course!) especially Clarrie. I think that’s what has gone now. They seem no more than the pantomime element, brought in to offer comic relief after the bile of Rob. Proper villages are made up of people from all walks of life and Ambridge does purport to be a ‘proper’ village, so the Grundys and their family, realistically portrayed and complete with humour, are very important.

    #4146
    Ibn BattutaIbn Battuta
    Participant

    FSP – thank you so much for your post. I don’t like the way that they’re portrayed as yokels ruining Oliver and Caroline’s tastefully decorated home but you are absoutely right about the death of the countryside. And they’re right when defending the choice to bring animals to grange farm, it is a farm.

    #4148
    LandlessGentryLandlessGentry
    Participant

    I can relate to your post FSP – We were not farmers but there’s no way I could afford to buy a house in the village in east sussex I grew up in any more. That’s one of the reasons I’ve moved to Australia. My father paid what was 3-4 times his salary for his house thirty years ago – I have a similar job to the one he had at my age and he sold the house a couple of years ago for 10-12 times my salary.

    #4149
    Jehane DewarJehane Dewar
    Participant

    Even though I started this protecting the bloody chaise longue, you are 100% on the ball Fiona. I wish the Grundy’s weren’t written so comically. Actually I can’t believe if this was a real situation they would behave in the way they have. The SWs play fast and loose with the economics of a rural community. I wish they would be more more truthful. Do we still have a farming advisor?

    #4161
    WitherspoonWitherspoon
    Moderator

    We’re in agreement that the plight of the Grundys could be written in a way that highlights the unfair disparities between the rural (and interloper) wealthy and the rural working poor without portraying the Grundy elder males as being disrespectful to the person (Oliver) who is trying to treat them fairly. But Eddie is someone who has always played fast and loose with the rules and has even recently engendered the enmity of his own son, Will, for jeopardizing his livelihood.

    #4165
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Ah! Witherspoon, you’ve encountered my one deep seated prejudice ….my intense deep seated dislike of Will. …Can I get counselling for that? (Ironically I love his wife, the disappeared Nic; and whilst I love Ed, I dislike Emma almost as much as I dislike Will….maybe I really need help?)

    #4168
    Phoebe FigalillyPhoebe Figalilly
    Participant

    If a landlord is concerned about what might happen their furniture, they shouldn’t keep it in the rental…. therefore, Grange Farm should have none of Oliver and Caroline’s furniture…. surely the Grundys have some of their own.

    #4175
    WitherspoonWitherspoon
    Moderator

    Fiona-So what you’re suggesting is that Ed and Nic get together! When I first started listening to TA and HH explained to me that Ed had stolen his brother’s wife and was now raising his baby, I became a Will-man; but Ed has grown on me during the years. I run hot and cold with Emma, as per next week’s caller-in, she’s in my good graces to say the least. It was nice that the two couples and kids all got together to celebrate a young-in’s birthday. Too bad that once again Nic was MIA.

    Phoebe-Agreed! But Oliver would feel too guilty to remove their furniture.

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