Monday 21 April 2014

Our Crossroads Favourites: Vince Parker


Vince Parker, friend of village postmistress Miss Tatum and many others, briefly husband of Diane Lawton and step-father of her son Nicky, and cheerful postman of King's Oak in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

A first class choice for a Crossroads favourite character is King's Oak village postman and part-time motel barman Vince Parker, played by Peter Brookes. Vince arrived in King's Oak in 1968 and soon palled up with Miss Tatum, who ran the post office and village store. He was a cheerful bloke with an eye for the ladies, but narrowly survived tragedy shortly after his arrival when he was knocked off his bike by Meg Richardson, who had swerved to avoid a cat on the road whilst driving. Vince suffered temporary blindness, but recovered and was soon participating in King's Oak village life again.

When motel waitress Diane Lawton became pregnant, it was at first thought by local gossips that Vince was the father, but he wasn't. The man responsible was actually American film star Frank Adam. Despite this, Vince married Diane in 1971 and was very fond of her son, Nicky. However, cracks soon appeared in the fledgling marriage - Vince was particularly unhappy that Frank Adam was sending money to help support Nicky.

Vince and Di filed for divorce.

Vince left the village in 1973, returning only once and very  briefly for the wedding of Meg Richardson to Hugh Mortimer in 1975.

Vince, despite his dramas, was a very positive and likeable character, and provided a lot of fun moments during his stay in the series. The character was also believable, even if some of the situations he found himself in were rather out of the ordinary.

The sort of bloke I'd be happy to have a pint with down the local.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Peter Brookes who played Vince was my drama teacher at secondary school. I've been watching episodes on britbox but unfortunately haven't found any with him in

Crossroads Motel Blog said...

There are some still existing, but not that many. Sadly, most of the Reg Watson produced episodes of the 1960s and early 1970s have been wiped. It was a wonderful era for the show, and it's very sad that so little exists.

Ian Bracey said...

Used to work with Peter on the Crossroads Road show which toured around the local clubs along with Anne George, Morris Parsons
And Alice Lomas. Peter would sing the theme Tune We’ll Meet at The Crossroads to open the show.