Diane! Another legendary Crossroads character and another huge favourite of ours.
Poor old Di, played by Susan Hanson, had a terrible time, as do all soap heroines. She'd originally arrived to win a beauty contest in the mid-1960s, then got a job as a waitress and kitchen hand at the motel. By the end of that decade she'd had a nervous breakdown after the explosion of an old wartime bomb which had devastated the motel kitchen.
Di also braved temperamental chefs like Carlos Rafael, Mr Booth, Mr Lovejoy, and Shughie McFee (or Shughie McCradock as she once called him), and the nosiness of the likes of Amy Turtle and Mrs Witton. The kitchen was not a particularly harmonious place, even without a bomb.
If all that wasn't enough, Di had a terribly shifty brother, Terry, who turned up at odd intervals to cause her heartache.
The start of the 1970s saw Di dealing with a drunken landlord and enjoying a heady romance with American film star Frank Adam, which resulted in an out-of wedlock baby, Nicky. Kindly postman and motel barman Vince Parker came to the rescue and married her.
The marriage broke up when Vince discovered that Frank Adam was secretly sending Di money for Nicky, and then Nicky got kidnapped. Di was frantic, thinking that the toddler has suffocated in an old fridge dumped on wasteland at one point, before discovering his father was the kidnapper.
Nicky now lived in America, with Di visiting him regularly.
Di had a brief encounter with the demon drink, but Prince Charming certainly didn't arrive. Clifford Leyton (Johnny Briggs - later Mike Baldwin of Coronation Street) and PC Steve Cater certainly weren't him.
Midway through the decade, Di visited her aunt and uncle, Peggy and Ed Lawton, at Heywoods Farm. Aunt Peggy fell and broke her hip, so Diane stayed on to help. She returned to the farm after her Aunt Peggy died.
It was at the farm that Diane met a simple country lad called Benny Hawkins, who called her 'Miss Diane'. The two forged a lasting bond of friendship, Benny gave her a kid (which caused Vera Downend brief confusion and concern) - of the goat variety - and Diane taught him to read.
Back home, Di experienced another nervous breakdown, prowling around her flat at night committing acts of vandalism, and having no memory of it by daylight. Her flatmate at the time, Jane Smith, helped her to see what was happening.
As the decade ended, Di agreed to marry Chris Hunter so that Chris would receive some inheritance money. It was a marriage purely of convenience.
The 1980s saw Di sharing her flat with motel garage manageress Sharon Metcalfe. She developed an unrequited love for Dr James Wilcox, of the group practice in King's Oak, and her shifty brother, Terry, returned to wreak further havoc on a couple of occasions. On one of these, Benny came to Di's rescue, using his father's inheritance money to pay off Terry's shady money lenders, who were 'leaning on' Diane.
Poor old Benny, who was trying to make her happy, couldn't understand why she cried!
Di briefly tangled with oily restaurant manager Paul Ross - Mr Paul - and regretted it - although the man was supportive towards her later.
Di supported Sharon's efforts to help a local Down's Syndrome child in one of the show's best story-lines in 1983, and also became entangled in the war between J. Henry Pollard and Mr Paul, which ended up earning her demotion - from cold trolley waitress to simple waitress. She icily refused guilt-ridden J Henry's offer of financial compensation - she had her pride.
Various absences from the motel over the years, often seeing Nicky in America, had ended in Di simply walking back into her job, often after many months away. The 1983 demotion story-line came as something of a shock to us viewers, and reality caught up with her again in 1985 when, after a spell away, she returned to find no job available. Or at least not one suitable for her experience. Even her old pal Jill Chance couldn't help.
On this occasion, restaurant manager Mr Paul's misfortune was Diane's gain, as she walked into his job after he was injured in a wages snatch.
Di finally had the job she wanted, but Mr Right still proved elusive. She settled into a cottage in the village, and endured the tender ministrations of Benny (herbal tea made with dried mixed herbs) when she had the flu at Christmas 1986.
In 1987, Di was involved in a car accident, but was seemingly OK. However, not long afterwards, she suddenly collapsed in the office at work. She had had a brain hemorrhage and died in hospital a few days later.
The nation wept, including me, but although it was meant kindly, Benny naming a donkey 'Miss Diane' was not a very fitting tribute.
Di was magic. She'd been in our living rooms for so many years she was like an old friend or older sister. Once again, that magical quality some Crossroads performers had to make their characters seem real shone through in abundance.
I always wished she'd found true love - married and been whisked away to run a plush hotel in the Caribbean or something with her new hubby.
But poor old Di never was lucky.
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