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Rural theology is explained here as a form of practical theology that seeks to interpret the rural context in the light of the central themes of Christian theology and vice versa. If Christian theology can be understood as concerning belief in God and the understanding of human relationships with God, the created order, and each other in the light of that belief, rural theology expresses that in the light of the lived experience in a rural context, which for these purposes is the daily bulletin from Ambridge. The author draws on his experience of teaching in the Cambridge Theological Federation to reflect on three recent examples: the recent changes at Brookfield in response to the perennial issue of the milk price lead us to ask who benefits from the production of higher quality food; the care for the land and Adam Macy’s reforms at Home Farm point us to issues about sustainability and responsibility; and the cohesion of a community with shared values and its treatment of Rob Titchener asks questions about the limits of inclusion. As with much practical theology, the outcome of the reflection is in ethical action and some further ethical questions, which, as the example of Jim Lloyd’s philosophical conversations with Alan Franks illustrate, are not the monopoly of the Church.

Ambridge residents live with extended kin and non-family members much more often than the population of the United Kingdom as a whole. This chapter explores cultural norms, economic need, and family and health care to explain patterns of coresidence in the village of Ambridge. In landed families, filial obligation and inheritance norms bind multigenerational families to a common dwelling, while scarcity of affordable rural housing inhibits residential independence and forces reliance on access to social networks and chance to find a home among the landless. Across the socioeconomic spectrum, coresidence wards off loneliness among unpartnered adults. Finally, for Archers listeners, extended kin and non-kin coresidence creates a private space where dialogue gives added dimensionality and depth to characters who would otherwise be known only through their interactions in public spaces.

Much discussion has taken place in real life and in cyber space about the future of Henry Archer. He has been the subject of gossip, with the nature of his conception, and then gained a stepfather, seemingly a gentleman, who cared for both Henry and his mother. Coercive control came to dominate the relation between Rob Titchener and Helen Archer, giving an outward appearance of perfection in all aspects of family life. Henry experienced the gaslighting along with Helen and having seen his mum stab his new adoptive father, Henry was left without his mum, and in the care of evil Rob, effectively prevented from contact with his staid, and consistently caring grandparents. This paper will consider the impact of the trauma on Henry's potential psychological self as an older child and adolescent, looking at the impact of attachment, disparate parenting styles, social learning theory and domestic violence. There is also a comparison to a case study which could illustrate Henry's future, should he decide to begin a career in serial killing.

In 1976, in a speech at Ruskin College, Oxford, Prime Minister James Callaghan asked ‘Why is it that such a high proportion of girls abandon science before leaving school?’ (Gillard, 2018). Little has changed over the last 40 years; a recent report from the National Audit Office (2018, p. 28) stated that only 8% of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) apprenticeships were taken up by women in 2016/2017 and that the shortage of STEM skills in the workforce is a key UK economic problem. However, just as the Aldridge marriage has been the source of considerable interest and the site of significant financial investment in terms of designer kitchens and expensive holidays, so has the issue of ‘girls in science’ been a consistently debated topic and taken up a large chunk of government and industry spending. Research (Archer et al., 2013) suggests that although children enjoy their science experiences in school, too few pupils aspire to a STEM career. It reveals that the pupils most likely to aspire to careers in science are those whose families have high ‘science capital’ which ‘refers to the science-related qualifications, understanding, knowledge (about science and “how it works”), interest and social contacts (e.g. “knowing someone who works in a science-related job”)’ (Archer et al., 2016, p. 3).

Episodes of The Archers are full of scientific talk, from herbal leys to plate meters. This chapter looks at how the science capital in Ambridge is shared. Why is Alice Carter an engineer and not Emma Grundy? Will Kiera Grundy choose physics A level? Who are the female STEM role models? How can the concept of science capital help us to understand the career paths of Ambridge residents? Will the young girls of Ambridge remedy the gender imbalance in STEM careers?

In a village where the (audible) population is fairly evenly split between men and women, where most women of working age are employed or run their own business, where women are even (gasp!) in the cricket team, surely they have better things to talk about than the men in their lives? How often do the women of Ambridge talk about things that aren't the men of Ambridge? And when they do, how long does the conversation last? The Bechdel–Wallace Test was created by Alison Bechdel in her webcomic Dykes to Watch Out For (1985), in which a character says that she will only watch a film that has at least two women in it, who talk to each other, about something other than a man. It is sometimes used as a simplistic measure of the lack of representation (not only of women) in the media. This chapter reports on five months of eavesdropping in Ambridge, using the Bechdel–Wallace Test to investigate gender bias in the Borsetshire countryside. The data show that one-third of the episodes during this period passed the test, while another third did not contain any conversations between women at all. The results include how often individual women speak to other women, which pairs converse most frequently and the main topics of conversation during the analysis period.