Our Crossroads Favourites: Tommy "Bomber" Lancaster

Ah, what might have been if Crossroads King's Oak had become King's Oak and Tommy "Bomber" Lancaster's reign as hotel owner had continued!

But it was not to be.

I thoroughly enjoyed Terence Rigby's portrayal of Mr Lancaster.

Bomber was the owner of the Red Ox chain of eateries, a rich, self-made Brummie, living at posh Lady Byron Lodge.

And he was a pal of former motel char Amy Turtle.

Seeing her again rather freaked poor old Jill Chance out.

Bomber bought Crossroads in early 1987, and set about stamping his mark on the place. Of course, this was the late 1980s, so it had to have a theme - Bomber tied it into the history of King's Oak and its connections to the English Civil War, naming the bar "The Merry Monarch" (complete with flame stitched seating), and wondering if he could get away with telling guests that the big oak tree out the back by the bins was the one King Charles had (reputedly) hidden in.

Bomber had a wife - Mary - and two daughters, Debbie (called by some at Crossroads "Debbie Dreadful") and  Lisa. Debbie was down-to-earth, like her father; Lisa, the complete opposite - a globe trotting good time girl, mixing happily with the yuppie set.

Bomber was a great student of human nature. He was aware that Adam Chance was sneering at him and that Jill was looking down her nose at him, but he sorted them both out. When Adam ended up drinking the naff plonk he had bought for Bomber's dinner party, it was no more than he deserved. 

Bomber also spotted that Barry the barman was fiddling the till.

Mary Lancaster died in 1987, leaving Bomber devastated.

But he persevered.

He decided to change the name of the dear old motel. Crossroads Motel? That was so old hat, so down market - so 1960s. King's Oak Country Hotel was surely more like it...

Jill Chance was initially against it, but she was jollied along by John Maddingham, Bomber's "ideas man". 

Bomber also decided that Charlie Mycroft added a touch of class to the place, and took him on to the permanent staff. 

Christmas 1987 found Bomber coping with his grief as he faced his first festive season without his beloved wife, and then the bombshell news that his steady, down-to-earth daughter Debbie was pregnant, with no father on the scene.

At first, he was furious - and thought that he had failed as a father. But after Lisa intervened, Bomber held his hands up and told Debbie that he wanted her to stay at Lady Byron Lodge, and that he would welcome and love his grandchild.

In 1988, Bomber sold the newly-renamed King's Oak Country Hotel.

"And that's an end to it," he said.

I thought it was a great shame because I liked the Lancasters and I thought there were endless possibilities with Tommy at the helm at the hotel. There were even rumours that Nicola Freeman was to have returned permanently if the show had continued, as a possible chalk and cheese romantic interest.

The Lancasters had great potential - gruff old Tommy, with his head for business and knowledge of what made people tick, and his beautifully contrasting daughters - shaggy permed yuppie puppy Lisa and Brummie sounding Debbie, who shared her dad's "from-the-ground-up" approach to business, if not his knowledge of human nature. "Deadly Dave", father of Debbie's sprog, safely back in Spalding with his wife and kiddies, would vouch for that. Debbie had been sure he was a good bloke.

Tragically lost potential, but still very worthy of a place in our favourites listing...

Our Crossroads Favourites: Iris Scott

Oooh, Iris!

Played by Angela Webb, Iris was nice Kath Brownlow's 'orrible niece, who landed herself on the Brownlow family in 1980.

And then the trouble began...

Iris, to put it simply, was bad news.

In November 1980, she bedded cousin Glenda's boyfriend, Kevin, in his Auntie Marian's house.

The hussy!

She also came across some audio casettes belonging to American psychiatrist Lloyd Munroe. To be fair, Iris initially thought they were music cassettes, but when she discovered they were actually taped therapy sessions of Lloyd with Rosemary Hunter... well! And the revelation that Chris Hunter wasn't David's biological son...  that information was too good for a girl not to use, wasn't it?

Iris didn't get on very well with her grumpy uncle-in-law, Arthur Brownlow, and so decided to accuse him of... er... molesting her. The case went to court, but Iris ended up in prison for lying.

When she came out, she found Arthur's son, her cousin Ron, waiting for her. And the couple fell in love. This was brave fare for an early evening soap because, while first cousins can and do marry, such things were not really subject matter for soap drama back then.

Iris had a phantom pregnancy. Ron went off to work on an oil rig.

Iris formed a close friendship with her landlady, Mavis Hooper when she moved into her boarding house in 1981. Iris's genuine concern for "Mave" showed a different side to her nature and some of us began to warm to her. By Crossroads standards, Iris was rather a complex character - and actually a bit of a groundbreaker in an era when soap characters tended to be simply good or bad. Previously, a "nice" character might be capable of weakness, stupidity, bad behaviour through some kind of illness or a flash of temper, but the show had never invited us to care about a character who had behaved as badly as Iris.

Just before Christmas 1981, we met the cause of a lot of Iris's behavioural problems - her tarty mother Rose, who breezed into King's Oak wanting to mend fences, believing that Iris was expecting Ron's baby.

It was all very difficult. At first, Iris didn't want to know, but gradually she thawed, particularly after her mother moved into Mave's boarding house too, and decided not to go dashing off with daft dreamer Sid Hooper, Mavis's husband, who had taken a great shine to her.

Iris finally set off with her mother to London, but soon returned, stating that her mother's new feller had been making overtures to her. On this occasion, her primary reason for visiting was to aid Kevin and Glenda in their reconciliation after Glenda had walked out when Kevin had refused to "go in for" a test tube baby.

So, once again, Iris wasn't all bad.

She was also a great pal to Benny Hawkins.

That was the thing with our Iris. When she was good she was very, very good. But when she was bad...

Iris still had feelings for her cousin Ron, and when a pal of his visited King's Oak, Iris saw a chance to press her case, although Ron was now romantically involved elsewhere. This caused more aggro when Iris engineered it so that Ron's pal was caught in a delicate situation with another man's wife.

Iris became attracted to Gary Corbett, a young man who had attempted to burgle Jill and Adam Chance's house, Chimneys. She blackmailed Jill and Adam into taking him on as an odd-job man, threatening to reveal to David Hunter that he actually wasn't Chris's biological father. "You really are a bitch, Iris!" said the usually mild mannered Jill.

Iris's scheme was derailed when Adam called "Time" on the situation. David revealed that he already knew about Chris, and Iris departed.

Soon, Iris found an unlikely ally in J Henry Pollard, millionaire businessman, who was suffering ill health. He wanted to antagonise his fellow directors at the motel by having her around, but developed sympathy for her when she became his personal assistant and he got to know her. He later secured her a job in the motel bar.

Iris's on-off tenure in the King's Oak saga came to an end in 1985 when she became involved with a young drug addict called Pete Maguire. The lad died, and Iris soon left the area - this time never to return.

But she was genuinely a groundbreaking character - one never to be forgotten.

"I ain't done nuffink, Auntie Kaff!"

Come off it, Iris!

Our Crossroads Favourites: Mrs Tardebigge

A brand new character introduced in late 1986 - new broom (or hoover) sweeps clean. Mrs Tardebigge, created by William Smethurst, wasn't really a great char. But she was funny.

Mrs Eileen Tardebigge, played by Elsie Kelly, was probably the first major sign of the changes that were to be introduced by new producer William Smethurst. She arrived at the motel in late 1986, a brand new character, to take on the job of cleaner, and, having met Benny Hawkins, she decided there were some very funny people working at Crossroads (funny peculiar, not "ha, ha!").

She was rather peculiar/"funny" herself, but in the grand tradition of such characters was blissfully unaware of the fact.

I'm a great fan of Crossroads from start to finish, I embraced each new era, which sets me apart from some other fans, and I found Mrs T to be a delight. She had a beehive hairdo (before it caught fire when she was cooking fish fingers); she called men "lover"; she was the secretary of the Pat Boone Fan Club (West Midlands Branch); she smoked like a trouper; she read out the obituaries in the local paper in the staffroom during her breaks; and she was a bit of a gossip.

Of course, Mrs Tardebigge's interests stretched beyond gossip and Pat Boone. She revealed in 1987 that she'd written to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher protesting about the right to buy council houses in the early 1980s. That was before she'd bought hers, of course.

A great example of Smethurst-era social comedy, and very true to the times.

Mrs Tardebigge tended to get up posh Mr Darby's nose, and their feud over smoking in the motel staffroom reached epic proportions.

Her husband Ron's health became a concern (very nasty, that hernia), but Mrs T wasn't really about drama.

Her main purpose as a character was to amuse.

She thought that thrusting yuppie dude Daniel Freeman was divine - and was not shy about letting him know the fact.

She said that the motel had been a "laughing stock" in the village back in the days of high drama.

She was thrilled when she found fifty pee up the hoover nozzle. It was, of course, "finders, keepers".

She nearly got the sack for ham pilfering.

And she once imitated Jill Chance to perfection. 

The first appearances of Mrs Tardebigge coincided with what I thought was a rather sudden closure to the story-line about Nicola Freeman and her long-lost daughter, Tracey Hobbs.

On rewatching the episodes, I could almost feel Philip Bowman bowing out and William Smethurst taking the reins.

However...

Love ya, MrsT!

Our Crossroads Favourites: Glenda Brownlow/Banks

Happiness for Glenda and Kath as the news arrives that Glenda can begin her IVF treatment.

Glenda Brownlow, played by Lynette McMorrough, arrived at the Crossroads Motel in 1976 and was a bit of a wild child until the early 1980s. Waitress Glenda ran off to London in 1976, and got raped by a lorry driver. This was a powerful story-line for early evening Crossroads, and quite powerfully depicted - with poor Glenda being discovered unconscious by the side of the road.

It was revealed that Glenda's home life hadn't been happy - she'd arrived in King's Oak to escape her parents up north.

Glen's troubles weren't over after the traumas of 1976 as she was attracted to horrible Gerry Hurst in '77, which also meant problems for dear Vera Downend, as Glenda was staying on her boat.

She was young and headstrong, our Glen.

Glenda finally began to settle down when she met painter and decorator Kevin Banks in 1980. Her parents, Kath and Arthur, had moved to King's Oak in late 1979 and, although initially unhappy at the prospect, it seemed that Glenda was about to find happiness with the man of her dreams, and that all rifts with her parents had been healed.

Enter Glenda's wicked cousin Iris Scott, who burst onto the scene in 1980 with all the drama of a force ten gale, and wasted no time in bedding Kevin.

Poor old Glen!

But, despite Evil Iris, love found a way, and Glenda and Kevin were married in 1981.

Glenda was increasingly unhappy about her inability to have children. In 1982, she latched on to the idea of having a test tube baby. This was a new and startling concept at the time, expensive and likely to arouse fear and suspicion amongst some people. Kath, Glenda's mother, thought it highly unnatural, but Glenda's grumpy dad Arthur backed the idea. Kevin was initially reluctant, and Glenda had to leave and move to London, staying with her Auntie Rose and the aforementioned Evil Iris (now a lot less evil, thankfully), before Kevin capitulated.

Then, grumpy old Arthur was killed in a hit-and-run accident, turning life in the Brownlow/Banks household upside down. But finally, in early 1983, Glenda's IVF treatment began and she was lucky first time.

She and Kev soon had a baby daughter, Katy-Louise, and all seemed set fair, until Percy Dobson, Kev's business partner, died suddenly. The business was in dire financial straits and Glenda and Kevin lost everything.

The couple emigrated to Canada in 1985. Things were going well, Glenda reported when she flew back for Kath's wedding to Stephen Fellowes later that year.

After that, we never saw Glenda in King's Oak again.

A terrific character, powered by that magical everyday quality some Crossroads performers managed to bring to their roles, Glenda was utterly believable. She talked about that last minute coach party arriving at the motel restaurant from Stratford-On-Avon, her aching feet - and Mr  Paul's moods. She wondered if there was enough hot water for a bath when she got home. She liked to watch telly. Like most Crossroads characters, she lacked the glittering repartee of the Coronation Street characters (fabulous, but often rather too witty to be real) and had I met Lynette McMorrough at a bus stop, it would have been hard not to say: 'Oh, hello, Glen! How's things? Mr Paul still being a pain?' or something similar.

Great natural acting from Lynette McMorrough. Glenda, particularly during the era of her marriage to Kevin (1981-1985), was one of my top favourite Crossroads characters, and now ranks as one of my all-time favourites.

Now, put the kettle on, Mum, I'm dyin' for a cup of tea. Ooh, you should've 'eard Mr Paul today! Oh, and Mrs Chance has been on  to the laundry about them table napkins...

Our Crossroads Favourites: Daniel Freeman

Yuppie Daniel endured much at the motel - Growler and Mrs Tardebigge included.

Daniel, played with great skill by Philip Goodhew, was basically a selfish little swine.

He was the son of the late Herbie Freeman and the step-son of Nicola. He had a twin sister, Joanna.

And he had obviously been spoilt rotten.

What mattered to Daniel was Daniel.

He first turned up at the motel after the sell-out to MIH in 1985, and caused Nicola much angst - by calling her "Queen of the Bunny Girls" one night in the Rally Bar whilst in a drunken rage - and by telling Jill Chance that Nicola and Adam were having an affair.

What a ratbag!

But Daniel had been denied access to his heritage - a very large sum of money indeed - as one of the dying acts of his father, who loved the boy dearly, but knew him well. Daniel was not very mature for his age. And he wouldn't get the dosh until he was thirty. 

And because of this, Daniel was not a happy bunny.

He fell for Tracey Hobbs whilst he was working at the new motel leisure centre, and was shattered to discover that she was Nicola's long lost daughter.

He told Nicola exactly what he thought of her. And, judging by what he said, it seemed that a fair amount of jealousy went into the mix when it came to his feelings towards his stepmother. When Nicola had originally entered Herbie Freeman's life, Daniel had obviously sensed competition for his father's affection - and resented it.

And, even after his father's death, he still resented her. He told Nicola that Herbie had always loved his own mother much more than he had loved her.

Not that Daniel had it all his own way.

For a start, working at the leisure centre and clashing with Adam Chance were not exactly what Daniel was used to. And then there was sharing a staff chalet - first with barman Barry Hart and then with chumpish Charlie Mycroft.

Charlie was particularly difficult. Daniel thought he should have carte blanche to "entertain" ladies in the chalet whenever he chose - all night if he wanted. Surely, Charlie should make himself absent on such occasions? But with Charlie's toy dog, "Growler", guarding Charlie's pillow and Charlie being a clean living "early to bed early to rise" type of chappie, Daniel grew increasingly fed up. At one point, he plotted with his girlfriend, Fiona, and deposited "Growler" in the leisure centre swimming pool. Of course, Charlie was horrified, but fortunately "Growler" recovered.

Daniel later left Crossroads, but returned in April 1988 - a yuppie in the making. "Even my car phone's got its own Filofax!" he chortled.

And he definitely had the last smirk over Adam when it turned out he was representing the Three Crowns company, Jill and Adam's competition for buying Crossroads.

A joy to dislike - that was Daniel. But his story wasn't without some depth and he didn't have all the luck with the ladies. Mrs Tardebigge, the cleaner, who first appeared at the motel in late 1986, thought Daniel adorable and wasted no opportunity to demonstrate that fact.

Poor lad...

Our Crossroads Favourites: Carlos Rafael

Carlos often landed in the soup in the 1960s...

Carlos Rafael, played by Anthony Morton, arrived at the Crossroads Motel as chef soon after the series began, prompting Vi  Blundell, acting cook, to walk out in a huff. Meg Richardson had ordered an English chef from an agency, but there was some mix-up, and in walked fiery, Spanish Carlos.

He was the very first of the temperamental Crossroads chefs, and started a trend.

Carlos was basically a kind hearted man, but his temper could be explosive - and he could be very impulsive and not terribly clever at times. But, as the saying goes, every pan has its lid, and Carlos was soon followed to England by his lovely, gentle wife, Josefina, who also worked in the kitchen, and as a waitress. She served as a calming influence - to some extent, anyway!

Carlos was fiery, no doubt about that, and threw a terrific strop at the drop of a hat (remember Sandy Richardson embedding a biro in the wedding cake Carlos was preparing?!), but his boss, Meg Richardson, could quell him at times, and on one memorable occasion chased him from reception into the kitchen!

Carlos was noted for his comic story-lines, being chased by a bull was one of them, and so it came as a shock when he returned to Spain - I can't remember why but seem to recall him becoming a bit spiritual after a story about a haunted tree in the motel grounds. He was killed trying to rescue some children from a fire whilst in his homeland.

His was a sad loss - what a character! 

The death of Carlos also marked the beginning of a regrettable trend which peppered Crossroads' history in the 1970s and 1980s: the writing out of popular long-term characters when the actors who played them did not actually want to leave. Think Zeph Gladstone. Think John Bentley. Think Edward Clayton. Think Sue Lloyd. Think Ronald Allen. 

Noele Gordon in her autobiography, My Life At Crossroads, stated that staff in a motel were always changing and viewers would get bored always seeing the same faces on-screen.

She did not adopt this view in 1981, however, when Meg Mortimer sailed away on the QE2...

Our Crossroads Favourites: Sid Hooper

I didn't much care for Sid Hooper when he first arrived in 1982. But he soon became an all-time favourite character.

Good old Sid Hooper, played by Stan Stennett, started off in 1982 as possibly bad old Sid Hooper. He arrived in King's Oak, landed on estranged wife Mavis's doorstep, and also landed himself a job at the Crossroads Garage as foreman. Sid was a funny mechanic - obviously a bit on the vain side, he used barrier cream to protect his hands. It quickly became evident that he was not a terribly nice geezer - he had a weakness for gambling on the gee gees, and for other women - including Rose Scott, Iris's tarty mother.

Rose, for once, put her daughter's interests first and did not succumb, and Sid was soon dispatched. His arrival as garage foreman had enraged Joe MacDonald, who had been promised the job. It was all a misunderstanding, but Joe threatened to bring in the Race Relations Board. It took some fancy footwork from new garage owner Reg Lamont to remove Sid and give Joe his rightful job. He bought off some of Sid's gambling debts on condition that Sid left the garage. Sid did - and skipped the district for a while.

He returned when Mavis went into hospital, got a job as a mechanic back at the garage, stopped using barrier cream on his hands, and promptly led Benny Hawkins into bad ways, introducing him to the evils of gambling. Diane, of course, quickly moved in to ensure that Sid paid Benny back the money he had lost on the nags.

But Sid had meant no harm - and was becoming likeable. He had a genuine soft spot for Benny, and we viewers really began to warm to Sid.

Sid was basically a bit of a dreamer, but his dreams of romance, sun-kissed beaches and untold wealth never came to anything. Sad, really. Taking up jogging in 1984 did not give him a more youthful and appealing physique. And when he sold used cars at the garage in 1985, the police soon came calling.

In 1984, Sid faced the prospect of losing Mavis to that bounder Cecil Beecher-Blount. Mavis was sick of Sid and, on reaching sixty, decided to divorce him. Then Cecil sunk his hooks into her. Sid helped to save Mave from a fate worse than himself and Mavis stayed with him, telling him on her deathbed in early 1986 that she had always loved him.

Sid was devastated by her loss. 

Later in 1986, the dreadful Ivy Meacher sunk her hooks into Sid. They married and left King's Oak.

Poor Sid!

It was a sad end for yet another of those Crossroads characters who had the tang of utter believability, and who would have made a good boozing company down at the Running Stag.

But definitely not for providing hot tips on the gee gees...