Peas going pale and dying

[ameno]

with plenty of compost underneath them to feed off.

This won't be the reason they are going downhill, but I feel I should mention that compost is not a fertiliser. Compost, whether purchased or homemade, will generally have no more nutrient content than your soil does.
Adding compost to soil is to increase its organic matter content, and thus improve its texture, not to fertilise it. You need a proper fertiliser for that.

[rary]

Marb I told you to add B. F. B. which is what I use, but if you don't mind using chemical fertiliser, growmore is a good one to use, reasonably priced, easy to get and has stood the test of time, I believe first introduced in the war years to make it easier for folk to grow their own food, its not a fertiliser I use nowadays but did in the past, basically organic fertilisers feed the soil, chemical fertilisers feed the plants

[Jungle Jane]

Peas provide their own nitrogen I don’t feed mine,just a bit of seaweed once or twice because it’s my compost from last year that had tomatoes in. Too much nitrogen can cause yellowing if you’ve been putting a lot of chicken manure & using seaweed & others. Too much can cause problems but too little doesn’t hurt them.

[Marb67]

Well it's gone right through the whole crop so another massive failure (surprise surprise). When you are going through a very dark depression believe me things constantly going wrong are magnified 100x. The runner beans are the only thing looking promising and as I type sparrows are pecking the flowers to bits. I just can't win and fee completely dejected. There are too many forces working against me it's exhausting. Not to mention having to give up part of my already limited soil for 2 inherited cats from my late mum for toileting. Love them to bits but its not easy.

[Plot70]

Sparrows will be taking aphids off the plants. Any flowers that fall will be about to fall anyway.

[Marb67]

Sparrows will be taking aphids off the plants. Any flowers that fall will be about to fall anyway.

Ok, well that would be great. Just seeing some of the flowers on the floor I assumed that was their doing.

[Marb67]

Well I had to pull them all. Absolutely devastating. I'm convinced the garden is jinxed (and I am not superstitious) because for so many things to go wrong, every year it's not normal. To quote Ameno "I always lose some 10-15% of my plants to it." and yet I had to lose 100%. It's just not fair.

I dug them up and here are the roots.

[ameno]

Yeah, that's definitely foot rot.
For next year, I would advise growing large numbers of plants close together (I do 50-60 in a 6 foot row), of a short (max 3 feet), early-cropping variety. With that approach you should find that enough of the plants survive long enough to give you a decent crop.
I should also point out that usually all of my pea plants succumb to foot rot eventually. It's just that most of them have already finished cropping by that point. The 10-15% is what I lose before they manage to produce a decent crop.

[Marb67]

Ok, well that would be great. Just seeing some of the flowers on the floor I assumed that was their doing.

Actually, they are not. I have just depressingly watched them through the window (after taking the net off the beans) ripping off the flowers and chewing them a little before dropping them to floor.

[ameno]

Yeah, sparrows will do that with red flowered runner beans (they seem to leave the rest alone, for some reason). I had real problems with it a few years ago, but haven't been bothered since.
They'll also sometimes attack emerging pea shoots and beetroot seedlings, so I usually cover mine until they are a half decent size, after which they seem to leave them alone.