Gold Tops of Wrath- October in Ambridge

OCTOBER SAW woe, woe and thrice woe heaped on the most junior house of Grundy. Ed and Emma, plus baby Keira and tug of love child, George, are plunged into a state of poverty that even John Steinbeck's hard pressed sharecroppers would consider most unfortunate.

Remarkably Ed has seen it as unnecessary to discuss his current plight with either Mike Tucker, who delivers the milk he produces, or Oliver Stirling, who helped set up the original enterprise and was so supportive

when Ed had his brief flirtation with hard drugs and alcohol, something he  recovered from at a truly remarkable rate.

The Grundy dining table is as sparse as old Mother Hubbard's cupboard despite Ed's dad being the most prolific poacher in Ambridge. And it is not illegal to shoot to snare rabbits or even recruit some of Eddy's ferrets assuming Gran'pa Jo has not run amok with the claw hammer again. Yet all there is to eat is fish paste sandwiches and sometimes not enough bread to make a sandwich. Then it is just fish paste.

This chronic food shortage is even odder given the number of people in Ambridge who keep hens. Presumably not all the eggs are eaten as some must be left over to replenish the flock and, as any poultry keeper worth their salt will tell you, the bulk of the hatchlings are invariably cockerels so there is another cheap meal available just around the corner.

And to make matters worse, first Grundy husband and father of George, the arrogant, overbearing and comparatively well off William has been treating George to Hallowe'en outfits and days out that his mother and step father can only dream of. Having bought George a pet Guinea pig Ed and Emma are concerned they will not have enough money to afford to feed it. Mind you, if Ed has much more fish paste, the hapless Guinea pig could well end up as Sunday lunch.

Poor Emma has been transformed into a moaning, sad young woman who is incapable of securing anything but the most casual of casual work. Yet while she struggles to earn enough for the next jar of fish paste her father is willing to pay £20 a week for Josh Archer to look after his hens, subject to a three month probationary period.

Quite why it will take three months to ascertain if Josh has what it takes to collect eggs each morning, feed the hens and water them before locking them all up again at night is entirely unclear. But not nearly as unclear as why he did not offer the job to Emma who would have been able to splurge on fish paste with that amount coming in each week. It seems that in order to have any chance of making a successful career for yourself in Ambridge you have to be, or at least marry, someone named Archer.