For many years it has been said by numerous people, and even the BFI, have said that Crossroads was ahead of it's time. It dared to be a daily serial in the UK when other ITV companies and the BBC said it would never work. It wasn't just its format that was new to these shores - It covered taboos, it covered many social issues. Here you'll find some of those firsts, and a few other facts about the soap too.
© Crossroads Appreciation Society 1987-2011
Research by Douglas Edward Lambert, Peter Kingsman, Mike Garrett and Ian Armitage.
Quick Facts

Reg Watson, the series' producer, created the name Crossroads. He had suggested several names including simply "Motel", "On The Road" and "Highway" after a newspaper competition for public suggestions for a name drew a blank. The original name devised for the series by Peter Ling and Hazel Adair was, "The Midland Road" but ATV didn't like the sound of it.

While the name 'Motel' was rejected by ATV the Seven Network in Australia used the title for their remake of Crossroads in the late 1960s.

Storylines were planned three months in advance, and although during the 1980s only three episodes aired a week four per week were still produced giving the crew long summer and Christmas breaks.
1979 figures concluded that Crossroads had employed thus far 5,000 actors and issued over 20,000 ATV contracts. The stats men had also concluded that 52 tons of script paper had been used and over half a million words written.

When actors first joined Crossroads they were on weekly contracts. These progressed to three-month and then finally key players would be issued yearly contracts. This enabled the show to make sure the actors who became regulars could cope with producing two and a half hours of drama a week - which at that time was an hour and a half more than any other serial.

Between November 1964 and November 1986 over 1,230 characters had been created for the series.

Landmark dates: Episode 500 was celebrated with a cast party on 30th September 1966, episode 1500 aired on May 25th 1971 and the 3000th edition was broadcast on August 18th 1978. Edition 4000 was transmitted on November 20th 1984.

By the end of the 1970s over 3200 episodes had been recorded - although less than half that number had been kept in the archives. Every Central Television produced episode, made between 1982 and 1988, remains in the archives. The ATV Network editions, made between 1964 and 1981, suffer missing editions in every year up to Central taking over the serial. These losses render it impossible to repeat its most popular era.

Up to 1984 when the original format of the series came to an end, there had been six babies born in the series. Sheila Harvey's illegitimate daughter, Jill Harvey's son and daughter, Diane Lawton's love child, Joe and Trina MacDonald's son and Kevin and Glenda Bank's test tube baby.

In the first 20 years of the Birmingham production there had been 25 Crossroads deaths. The first on-screen death was that of Victor Amos, businessman and part owner of the Night and Day Car-Hire service in the village.

Some characters have been written out due to the unexpected death of the actor. The first Crossroads star to die while still active in storylines was Beryl Johnstone. Beryl played one of the leading roles in the saga as Kitty Jarvis - Meg Richardson's sister. She fell ill during the night, and died at home in the small hours. The cast only discovered her fate when she didn't turn up for filming later in the day. Kitty was killed off some weeks later with a heart attack. Alan Coleman recalls they gave the character a grand funeral, which was also a tribute to the actress.  The loss of Kitty saw Joy Andrews' role of Tish Hope expand. Tish, as Meg's best friend, took over Kitty's future storylines.
The last actor to die while in the series was Roger Tonge who played Meg's son, Sandy Richardson. He had been suffering from Cancer since 1975, but continued to work on Crossroads right up until the week before he died in 1981. Jane Rossington told us that you can see in those final weeks how ill Roger looks, but he carried on. Roger would work Monday to Friday on Crossroads, then spend the weekend in a hospice where he was issued treatment, before driving himself back up the motorway to Birmingham on the Monday morning. Having fallen ill with Chickenpox his immune system couldn't cope and he died only hours after speaking with Jane Rossington on the phone. He told her how much better he was feeling.

Meg had three adopted children: Stevie Harris played by Wendy Padbury, Melanie Harper played by Cleo Sylvestre and Bruce Sorbell-Richardson played by Paul Aston.


Between 1964 and 1988 there had been 29 weddings in the series. In 1965 the first was that of Tom Yorke to Joyce Hepworth swiftly followed by waitress Christine Fuller and village Milkman Ralf Palmer in the same year. The first to mark an off-screen celebration was the marriage of Andy Frazer - Meg and Kitty's brother - in 1966 to motel secretary Ruth Bailey. It was to mark 500 episodes.

The next milestone marked with a wedding was that of Motel Housekeeper Kath Brownlow to Stephen Fellows in November 1985. That celebrated 21 years of the soap. The last Crossroads marriage in the original series was Sid Hooper's marriage to Ivy Meacher in 1987.

Ground Breaking Moments

Crossroads was the first television drama serial to put a telephone help line on the end of the programme for viewers in similar situations as the characters to be offered help and advice.

Unlike other soaps where 'ethnic' actors were added for simple race, or racist, storylines Crossroads added all kinds of actors of all creeds and colours to play everyday regular characters. Race was not the principal reason for casting them. This made Crossroads one of the first soaps to employ many Asian and African actors in the UK.  These include the long-term coloured actors; Cleo Sylvestre, Salmaan Peer and Daphne Foreman in the 1960s, Carl Andrews and Merdelle Jordan in the 1970s and Dorothy Brown in the 1980s.

Crossroads was the first British serial to introduce a regular leading black family to soap. The Jamaica-born 'James' family arrived in 1974 after Equity complained about the lack of coloured families in television drama. It was noted other twice-weekly serials ignored these findings. (more details in the 1998 book: Black In The British Frame, which lists all of Crossroads various ethnic characters.)
ATV soaps were the first to regularly use Outside Broadcast Videotape units on UK serials. Although film would also be used on the Crossroads production until the late-1970s when OB vans were un-available. In the early years Crossroads had to share the three ATV film cameras located in Birmingham with ATV News. Production notes reveal that Crossroads from as early as 1965 were using ATV's pioneering mobile video recording equipment for the majority of location work. The OB Trucks had been launched in 1959 as a co-production with ATV, CBS and Radiodiffusion France. They were the best OB facility of their day.

The saga covered the taboo issue of a teacher and pupil affair in 1977 when teacher Richard Lord seduced his pupil, Lucy Hamilton.
ATV note that Crossroads was one of the first, if not the first, to record episodes abroad. In 1965 the team flew to Paris in France and Torremolinos in Spain. Firstly for a school trip storyline with Sandy Richardson. The episodes set in France saw the teenager enjoying the nightlife of Paris including a visit to Moulin Rouge and the Eiffel Tower. Later in the same year Meg Richardson holidayed in Torremolinos where she met Australian Kevin Macarthur - who returned to the motel with Meg to take on the role of motel manager. Crossroads would venture abroad once more in the 1960s. In 1967 ATV spent a couple of weeks recording sequences in Tunisia, North Africa, for a storyline in which Meg Richardson oversaw the opening of the Desert Coral Hotel in the City.

Crossroads covered illegal immigration in 1970 when Melanie Harper tried to help smuggle her French boyfriend into Britain.

The show introduced a lesbian to the proceedings in 1983. Gloria Tilling, neice of Doris Luke, had a female lover in Greece much to mother Edna's disaproval. This is one story that didn't cross over to the 2001 series by which time Gloria had a son - motel handyman Bradley Clarke, who ironically was gay!

In 1984 the soap dealt with immigration issues, resulting in a Polish character being deported. She had married motel restaurant manager Paul Ross to stay in Britain, but the authorities exposed her con.

Interracial issues were introduced in the saga in 1965 when white waitress Marilyn Gates found a new boyfriend - Asian Jamil Ashruf. Crossroads also looked at racist abuse, but from a different angle. Certainly ground breaking for the 1970s when the show developed a storyline where an Asian family living in the village were very opinionated and greatly disapproved of their daughters relationship with a white man.

Crossroads bravely ventured into the world of unmarried mothers in 1964, this caused fury on the ATV switchboards. The show covered it again a number of times across the years including with the characters of Diane Lawton, Sheila Harvey and Debbie Lancaster.

Another storyline, which caused furious viewers, was the 1969 witchcraft storyline taking place in the village churchyard.

The show is credited as being the first saga to have a Welsh family where the entire ensemble of actors were really from Wales.

Union strikes and protests were covered several times, some in more detail than others. In 1981 tomboy car mechanic Carol Sands was injured during a Birmingham protest. Later Kevin Banks found himself unemployed at the hands of a building union.

The programme made UK history by having the most episodes for any programme.  It held the record for the UK serial with most episodes up until 1997 when finally Coronation Street caught up over-taking 4524.

In 1979 the nation went into a campaigning state for Benny in Crossroads when he was wrongly accused of murder. A "Benny is Innocent" campaign saw t-shirts, banners and petitions across the UK to get the character released. It was noted that Birmingham University's buildings (along with a number of others in the UK) were draped in Benny is Innocent banners.
EastEnders has been in recent years hyped up as the soap that went out of its way to play cat and mouse with the press. In 1981 Crossroads staged numerous fake recordings to put the press off up-and-coming plots. Notably the fake funeral of Meg Mortimer which was snapped by The Sun newspaper and both ATV News and ITN News recorded undertakers removing a body from the ashes of the Crossroads Motel. There was also scenes recorded with Anthony Morton - who had played Motel Chef Carlos in the 1960s - lurking in bushes near the motel, ready to murder Meg. (We believe he was reprising his role as Carlos' brother, as the chef had been killed off in 1969.)

Rape first featured in 1965 and sexual assault in 1967. Coronation Street covered sexual assault in 1977, but not rape. Crossroads tackled rape again in 1976 and 1985. It should be noted also that the end of episode one in 1964 sees Meg Richardson about to be sexually assaulted by a drunk workman from the nearby motorway roadworks!
Crossroads covered the issue of underage sex numerous times. In 1984 the show went as far as to look into whether it was right for doctors to give young teenagers contraception.

Drugs were never too far away from the motel. From being addicted to prescription drugs to the harder illegal habits, Crossroads looked into the UK's drug problem years before Brookside. In 1978 concerns were raised that one guest was taking illegal substances, while in 1984 a more detailed look at illegal drug use climaxed in the death of the character Pete Maguire when he overdosed on heroin.

It was the first serial to cover test tube pregnancies. While criticised for the character of Glenda Banks 'getting pregnant' quickly via a test tube process the show did feature another minor character that had tried for 'a long time' to get pregnant in this way, unsuccessfully.

The programme, just like witchcraft and ghosts in the 60s and 70s, also carried a storyline concerning Spiritualists. This 1983 story featured Ma Flood, local medium to Kings Oak.

Social Awareness

"Crossroads, unlike other soap operas, has a strong and active social conscience, illustrated by the topical and often controversial subjects it covers" - Central press release.

The Crossroads Caring For Carers Scheme, is now the world's biggest voluntary organisation. It all started in the soap opera, you can find out more about this in a special page, Caring for Carers in the main menu.
The Crossroads production team helped found a ward in a Birmingham hospital dealing with Kidney disease after a 1977 storyline featured the issue. How to avoid a heart attack and the after care having suffered one was weaved into the storylines between 1974 and 1977 when the businesman Hugh Mortimer suffered an attack.

1966 saw blood donation covered in the soap, which also tied in with a blind girl's storyline.

Anti-smoking may be a part of everyday life now, but back in the 1960s it was un-heard of pretty much on television. In 1968 Crossroads covered the issue of smoking related illnesses, although no character died - due to the IBA not allowing characters to smoke in Crossroads without special permission. Permission was granted only once in the 1970s when a character before jumping under a moving train was allowed to light up.
In 1981 Doris Luke was attacked in her own home after answering a door to a stranger, this lead to an awareness drive to get the elderly to fit chains on their doors and to always ask for ID from callers, such as gas and electric board officials.

In 1975 Diane Parker taught Benny Hawkins to read and write, this lead to a national literacy campaign.

Decimalisation was covered in the soap, which the Post Office praised in Parliament.

Crossroads won much praise for its handling of the Downs Syndrome story of Nina in 1983, the story became national news when it featured on ITV's News at Ten and many newspaper articles followed. Parents of downs children said the show gave an accurate portrayal of how life is for such families.

The work of the Samaritans was a long running storyline in the 1970s when Sandy Richardson decided to work for the helpline.

Crossroads also covered to name only a handful: Alcoholism, agoraphobia, gambling, squatters' rights, sexual harassment, adoption, bigamy, illegitimacy, abortion, handicaps - physical and mental, suicide, murder, blackmail, homelessness, strikes, terrorism, abductions, cults, ghost haunting and political issues.