Our Crossroads Favourites: Tish Hope

Mrs Hope - actress, motel director. receptionist, antiques shop owner, mother, grandmother, long suffering wife...

If Meg Richardson/Ryder/Mortimer was the motel's marvellous matriarch, then Tish Hope was a sort of lovable aunty figure.

Tish, played by Joy Andrews, spent a lot of time at the motel. She became a director in the late 1960s, and from then on was often found, as Joy Andrews once said "glued to the reception desk".

Tish was a former actress - going by the name of Venetia Dawn - and was often recognised by guests at the motel. An attempt to revive her career in 1969 did not end happily.

The mother of the Reverend Peter Hope, vicar of the parish of King's Oak, Tish was keen for him to marry motel waitress Marilyn Gates, working class Brummie though she was. No snob, our Tish.

With a little intervention from her goodself, the match was successfully made.

Although she was a widow, there was hope for Mrs Hope in the marital stakes - another Mr Hope, in fact - or rather Captain Ted Hope of the Merchant Navy.

The pair married in 1970.

Tish had become a grandmother, and waved farewell to her son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter as they went abroad so that Peter and Marilyn could do missionary work in the early 1970s.

Tish was held at gunpoint by the awful Harry Silver (who looked rather like that 1980s charmer Sid Hooper) as the 1970s got underway, and suffered the loss of her home in a disastrous fire. 

But life goes on.

When Ted retired from the Navy, he and Tish were kept occupied running their own antiques shop in the village, the Hope Chest, and Tish's work at Crossroads.

And Ted's regrettable tendency to commit adultery.

All the nice girls love a sailor...

Although a charming man who clearly loved his wife, Ted also fancied himself as something of a carefree romantic, and this caused a rift in his marriage and a separation in the mid-1970s.

The Hopes were reconciled, but, at the end of the decade, Ted was tempted again - this time by Lloyd Munroe's daughter, Kathryn Fischer, who sported a severe 1920s bobbed hairstyle and was given to  wearing a 1920s/30s gangster style suit. 

This striking woman appealed to Ted and once again his marriage sailed close to the choppy waters of divorce.

But it all came out in the wash. In soap, men must be naughty and women must suffer, and poor old Tish forgave Ted in the end.

Again.

Tish was last seen behind the reception desk at the motel in 1980.

She was mentioned a few times afterwards, but I've no idea what became of her and Ted.

She was a true Crossroads legend, surviving much, but always kind, dependable and gracious.

Soaps simply don't make 'em like her anymore.

Which is a bit of a swizz, if you ask me.