Sunday 27 April 2014

Our Crossroads Favourites: Sam Carne - "Carney"



 Carney - a much loved member of the Crossroads staff.

Sam Carne, known to all as "Carney" and played by actor Jack Woolgar, first appeared in Crossroads in 1975 and stayed until 1978, when Mr Woolgar died. Originally a rather grim man, employed as a lock keeper, Carney developed into a lovable old gent and part-time gardener and night watchman at the motel.

Carney loved the garden, was a good friend and confidante to many of the locals - including Benny Hawkins, and of a slightly forelock-tugging disposition when it came to the likes of his bosses, Meg Mortimer and David Hunter. His generation is no longer with us, and watching him in old episodes brings back happy memories of similar people I knew when I was a child, teenager and young man.

Fondly remembered, and a rare positive representation of an elderly man in the English soaps, in which they are usually depicted as comic, or mean, or gossipy or downright stupid - or a combination of some or all of those qualities!


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