Our Crossroads Favourites: Amy Turtle

Hippies on the telly? Mr Booth's fancy cooking? Amy wasn't impressed. It was juicy gossip she craved.

Ah, Amy Turtle! Some people will snigger, but it's worth remembering that Amy was a hugely popular Crossroads character - in my family she was more popular than Meg Richardson - and from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, many working class folk would have frowned at criticism of the character or of the actress's performance.

And, as Ann George, who played Amy, pointed out, she did become a bit of a scapegoat when other cast members fumbled their lines.

Diminutive Amy was immensely popular not just with the tongue-in-cheek detractors of the show, but with its loyal and loving audience - who took the character seriously and cared for her.

So, Amy lived in the village of King's Oak and was first seen as a Brummie customer at Kitty Jarvis's shop, where she soon went to work. Amy then transferred to the motel as a kitchen hand and char. Gossip was Amy's great love and she wasn't very clever. The character's biography at ATV described her as an 'English peasant' - as were many of us viewers, of course. She dabbled in spiritualism and maintained contact with her deceased husband Fred that way. She was suspicious of big city living and hippies.

Amy Turtle was happy in her own little pond.

Much was made by mockers of the show in later years of an old story-line in which Amy had apparently been accused of being a Russian spy - Amelia Turtlovski. The episode/s no longer exist, and I don't recall the plot from my viewing years, but it has since been suggested that the whole thing was just a jokey comment made by another character, and not a story-line at all. Amy, of course, would have made an excellent spy. If anybody has any further information on this, I'd be fascinated to hear.

After the death of her son in 1975, Amy was caught shoplifting and we were all horrified when she was put in a police cell. She shamefacedly slipped into Meg and Hugh's wedding, and sat at the back. Things didn't improve when a wage packet went missing, and some uncharitable souls suspected Amy was the thief. She fled from the motel, briefly taking a job elsewhere under an assumed name to cover her shame, but was finally found by Jane Smith and brought safely back into the motel fold.

In early 1976, Amy went away to visit a relative abroad, and wasn't seen again until early 1987. Apparently, she'd been quietly living in the village and had come to visit the motel as a friend of its new owner, down-to-earth Brummie cove Tommy 'Bomber' Lancaster.

And she'd hardly aged a day.

Her presence seemed to rather freak out poor Jill Chance, and Amy made a few dark comments about Meg - who apparently would 'bawl like a fish wife' if the chalets weren't spotless, but 'had a heart of gold'. 

Ann George made a few appearances as Amy at this point, and I loved them.

Her disappearance in the mid-1970s had left a huge hole in the show. Apparently there had been problems behind the scenes, and so the viewers lost a cherished character.

Oh well. 

Still, it was great to see Amy again in 1987, brief though her appearances were.

Another Crossroads legend, never to be forgotten. 

Cast Axings In The 1960s And 1970s...

Much has been written about the axing of cast members and popular characters from Crossroads in the 1980s.

It's not surprising.

But what does surprise me is the fact that so little is written about the axings of cast members and popular characters in the 1960s and 1970s.

Of course, there were not nearly so many, but still it is odd that Crossroads was chopping popular characters well before the 1980s began.

Sometimes there seemed to be reasons. Sometimes not.

Noele Gordon took the view that in a real motel staff and guests were always changing, and I suppose she was right, but with some of the characters it didn't quite wash. One, for instance, was the motel's chef, happy in a sought-after senior position. Another ran the motel's hairdressing salon.

And anyway Crossroads was not a real motel. I have heard of no other soap with the tendency to write out the viewers' favourite characters in this way.

The first popular character to be axed was Anthony Morton, who played the motel's original temperamental chef Carlos Rafael in the 1960s.

Carlos was killed off, and Anthony Morton sent Crossroads producer Reg Watson a mourning card, with "Wish you were here" written on it.

Other less high profile Crossroads folk got the chop before and after Carlos, but the next biggie to go was Amy Turtle, motel cleaner, kitchen hand and gossip, played by Ann George.

I have to say that Amy, on-screen from 1965 to early 1976, was more popular with my mother and aunts, and many other women in my neighbourhood, than Meg Richardson!

Her axing came after reported difficulties between herself and leading lady Noele Gordon.

Ann was invited back to make a few guest appearances as Amy in 1987.

In 1977, "tart with a heart" Vera Downend, played by Zeph Gladstone, was chopped.

Introduced by the (then) producer Reg Watson in the early 1970s, Vera was a charming character and a great favourite of mine. Her love-life was a disaster, but she was always around to provide sympathy and a listening ear to those in trouble. At the time, her leaving was a puzzle - did she decide to go, or was she dropped? In her 1988 book, Soap Box, TV journalist Hilary Kingsley revealed that Zeph had been dropped.

A year long 'sabbatical' resulted in Zeph not being asked back.

In 1975, Meg married her long-term suitor Hugh Mortimer (John Bentley). After a short period of married bliss, the character was dispatched to Australia on a "big business deal" and then, in 1978, killed off - dying of a heart attack whilst in the custody of international terrorists.

Hugh was very popular with viewers, and his wedding to Meg had been a tremendous spectacle, greatly enjoyed.

As if his departure wasn't enough, we suddenly learned that Hugh was not such a great businessman. He was in serious debt at the time of his death. Meg had to sell off motel shares, thus ceasing to be a majority shareholder, to pay off those debts.

Edward Clayton as Stan Harvey was part of the family at the Motel - he'd married Meg's daughter, Jill, and was one of the show's dependable and likeable characters - part of its stability. He was dispatched around the same time as Hugh Mortimer.

And like Hugh, the character was presented in rather an unsympathetic light upon his departure.

It was all a great shame.

And I still find it a puzzle.

As for me personally, I particularly missed Zeph Gladstone as Vera Downend.

Vera had become like an old pal through many evenings of me munching my dinner, whilst watching her endure the ups and downs of life on her boat and at the motel salon.

To end on, we'll look at the strange case of Miss Tatum of the King's Oak Post Office. A highly popular character and setting, both Miss T and the Post Office were chopped in the mid-1970s. Elisabeth Croft, who played Miss Tatum, asked new producer Jack Barton, who made the decision, if Miss Tatum could have a retirement storyline, but Mr Barton said that was the last thing he wanted. Miss Tatum would still be at the Post Office in the storyline, but unseen onscreen the vast majority of the time. Elisabeth Croft was from then on only asked back to make occasional appearances, the last in 1983.

A vast diminishing of the input of a highly popular character and the disappearance of a popular setting.

I'm sure Mr Barton had his reasons and a 'new broom' producer will always have new ideas and want to make changes, but, and no disrespect to Mr B, this is one I simply could not understand.

So, when next you are reading about the Crossroads cast axings of the 1980s, spare a little thought for those who were given the chop years before.

The axings I've outlined here did absolutely nothing for the show, and were as puzzling and downright distressing as any made later.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JUNE 2010 - UPDATED JULY 2014