Crossroads
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
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 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
nightwatchman 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, antiques dealers Tish and
Ted Hope and shopkeeper Roy Lambert.
Probably the best-loved of all Crossroads characters
though, was the slow-witted, wooly-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 Flyn, 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.
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