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. 

Our Favourites: Kitty Jarvis

Mrs Kitty Jarvis, wife of Dick, mother of Brian and sister of Meg.

It's often forgotten these days, but part of the original concept of Crossroads was the tale of two sisters and their families - the sisters concerned were Meg Richardson, who was of course played by Noele Gordon, and Kitty Jarvis, played by Beryl Johnstone.

Noele Gordon in her autobiography, My Life At Crossroads, stated that the two sisters were originally envisaged as not having a very happy relationship - Kitty's jealousy of Meg and Meg's reactions to it being a pivotal part of the story. But, once on-screen, this was forgotten as Noele and Beryl got on well and it was felt that a clash of temperaments between the two characters would have been difficult to make believable on-screen.

The original opening theme music arrangements differed - depending on which of the two sisters' families were first seen on screen in individual episodes. There was an arrangement for the Jarvis family and an arrangement for the Richardson family/motel.

Kitty lived with her husband Dick at their newsagent's and tobacconist's shop some distance from King's Oak. They had a son, Brian. Kitty was revealed to be a kind and caring woman, not as unflappable as Meg, but definitely a good sort. She was a good wife and mother - and sister to Meg and brother Andy Fraser, and also a kind daughter-in-law to Dick's father, Enoch.

Kitty endured numerous crises, including her husband being cheated by his business associates, Victor Amos and Charlie Forward, and son Brian being accused of manslaughter.

When Beryl Johnstone died in 1969, the character had to die too. In Crossroads, when the unexpected death of a cast member necessitated the death of the character they played, the demise of the character was only briefly mentioned on-screen and there were no funeral or mourning story-lines. Such was the case with Kitty Jarvis.

Kitty seems largely forgotten when Crossroads is discussed these days. But the character and her family were a central ingredient of the original show, and the character was very popular. Nowadays she is largely forgotten but surely no celebration of Crossroads favourites would be complete without Meg's sister!