Crossroads was created by Lew Grade’s ATV company and was only scheduled to run for 13 weeks.
It began life as a late afternoon series (we didn’t call them soap operas in the sixties) set in the fictitious King’s Oak Crossroads Motel, somewhere in the West Midlands.
The series originally centred around the character of flame-haired widow, Meg Richardson, the Motel owner (played by Noele Gordon).
The other main characters were Meg’s daughter Jill and son Sandy, their cousin Brian Jarvis, Meg’s sister Kitty Jarvis and her husband Dick, the motel’s Spanish chef Carlos, waitress Marilyn Gates and receptionist Diane Lawton.
The show was pretty standard fare about life in a halfway-house motel (ATV originally titled the show The Midland Road) and was written by Hazel Adair and Peter Ling, the team behind the previous BBC soapie Compact. It became the Midlands rival to Coronation Street.
The immortal first words (which rank up there with “to be or not to be” in terms of literary importance) were “Crossroads Motel. Can I help you?”. They were spoken by Meg’s daughter, Jill, and was just about the only sensible thing she ever said!
Jill was married three times (once bigamously), had two miscarriages, had a child by her stepbrother, became a drug addict, an alcoholic, and for good measure, suffered a couple of nervous breakdowns.
Not that Meg fared much better – Her first husband, Malcolm Ryder, tried to poison her, she was imprisoned for dangerous driving, suffered amnesia, and when she thought she’d found happiness by marrying businessman Hugh Mortimer, he was kidnapped by a gang of international terrorists, with whom her partner’s son was involved, and died of a heart attack.
When the motel burnt down, everyone assumed that Meg had gone up in flames with it, but she’d actually booked a luxury berth on the QE2 and was sailing off to start a new life Down Under . . . and so founding character Meg Richardson was written out of the show in 1981.
The motel then went through a succession of new owners – David Hunter, Nicola Freeman – played by the scrumptious Gabrielle Drake – and Tommy Lancaster, until finally, the motel was taken over by Nicola’s stepson, Daniel Freeman leaving the last original character, Jill, to zoom off in a sports car to new horizons with John Maddingham.
Over the duration of the 4,510 30-minute episodes, the motel sheltered the likes of quirky characters like motel cleaner Amy Turtle, pompous chef Mr Lovejoy, gardener Archie Gibbs, oily restaurant manager Paul Ross, hairstylist Vera Downend (who lived on a houseboat), Scots chef Shughie McFee, receptionist Anne-Marie Wade, gruff night watchman Carney, and the personable Barbara Brady.
At the Crossroads garage worked Jim Baines, Sid Hooper and Joe McDonald, and the good folk of King’s Oak also had a look-in, especially miserable old Wilf Harvey (whose electrician son, Stan, married Jill), postmistress Miss Tatum, antique dealers Tish and Ted Hope and shopkeeper Roy Lambert.
Probably the best-loved of all Crossroads characters, though, was the slow-witted, woolly-hatted Benny Hawkins, first seen as a labourer at Diane’s uncle’s farm.
He followed “Miss Diane” back to King’s Oak but continued to suffer more than his fair share of misfortune, including the death of his gypsy girlfriend, Maureen Flynn, on their wedding day.
The cosy antics of the characters, along with the rather hurried production, became the butt of endless jokes, with comedians in the 1970s cracking jokes about Crossroads actors who were sacked for remembering their lines!
Critics poked fun at its low-cost production and melodramatic storylines. Characters would vanish without trace, and no one would notice. In 1967, the coffee bar manager went to get some sugar and was never seen again. Later, odd-job man Benny Hawkins nipped out to fetch a spanner, and he failed to return for over a year.
The mockery culminated in comedienne Victoria Woods’ parody Acorn Antiques which mercilessly parodied the wobbly scenery, fluffed lines and transparent scripts.
For all the criticism over the years, it would be unfair to say Crossroads failed – it ran for 24 years. In that time, it tackled many difficult subjects: alcoholism (regularly), test-tube pregnancies, bigamy, rape, abortion, Downs syndrome, mental handicap, physical handicap (Sandy Richardson was soap’s first paraplegic), adopted children and racism (Joe McDonald was one of the first black characters to become a soap regular).
So why did it finish? There is no doubt that the axing of Meg was the beginning of the end. Her exit alienated its loyal fans.
The famous theme music (probably second only to the Coronation Street theme for recognition value in England) was provided by Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent, and a smashing rearranged version of it was recorded by Paul McCartney and Wings on their Venus and Mars album. Criminally, a new theme tune was introduced in 1987 under producer William Smethurst.
After 4,510 episodes, the plug was pulled in April 1988 when Jill and Adam Chance sold up and drove off to start a new life in the West Country.
Crossroads was revived as a daily serial (which bears no resemblance to the original) by ITV in 2001.
Meg Richardson (Mortimer) Noele Gordon
Jill Richardson
Jane Rossington
Sandy Richardson
Roger Tonge
Jim Baines
John Forgeham
Kath Brownlow
Pamela Vezey
Carney
Jack Woolgar
Vera Downend
Zeph Gladstone
Mickey Doyle
Martin Smith
Daniel Freeman
Philip Goodhew
Nicola Freeman
Gabrielle Drake
Marilyn Gates
Sue Nicholls (1)
Nadine Hanwell (2) Archie Gibbs
Jack Haig
Stan Harvey
Edward Clayton
Wilf Harvey
Morris Parsons
Benny Hawkins
Paul Henry
Sid Hooper
Stan Stennett
Ted Hope
Charles Stapley
Tish Hope
Joy Andrews
Barbara Hunter/Brady
Sue Lloyd
David Hunter
Ronald Allen
Brian Jarvis
David Fennell
Janice Jarvis
Carolyn Lyster
Dick Jarvis
Brian Kent
Kitty Jarvis
Beryl Johnstone
Roy Lambert
Steven Pinder
Tommy ‘Bomber ‘ Lancaster
Terence Rigby
Diane Lawton/Hunter
Susan Hanson
Mr Lovejoy
William Avenell
John Maddingham
Jeremy Nicholas
Joe McDonald
Carl Andrews
Shughie McFee
Angus Lennie
Hugh Mortimer
John Bentley
Valerie Pollard
Heather Chasen
Carlos Rafael
Anthony Morton
Paul Ross
Sandor Elès
Malcolm Ryder
David Davenport
Miss Edith Tatum
Elisabeth Croft
Mrs Tardebigge
Elsie Kelly
Amy Turtle
Ann George
Anne-Marie Wade
Dee Hepburn
