He resurfaced some years later to cause her even more trouble. Her on-off relationship with business rival Hugh Mortimer was beset with obstacles, not least when after propsing to her he went to Australia and came back with a young wife! It turned out he knew Jane, his wife, had not long to live and eventually after she was dispensed of with a brain tumour, Meg and Hugh married. This was followed by a blessing in Birmingham Cathedral, with thousands of well-wishers standing outside the building. It never was explained why just so many people had lined the streets to watch a small motel owner have her marriage blessed! Sadly, the marriage was dooomed; Hugh died of a heart attack after being kidnapped by terrorists.

Other dramas Meg had to contend with included a wartime bomb destroying the motel kitchen, having to deliver a baby, and going to jail. Then, after falling out with her business partners she left the motel that had been her home for so long and sailed away to a new life on the QE2. King's Oak would never be the same again.

The Trials of Jill

Poor Jill. Over the years Meg's hapless daughter frequently showed that whatever she had inherited from her mother it certainly wasn't her common sense! However, one thing they did share was bad judgement when it came to men. Although Meg only picked one "bad 'un", her murderous second husband Malcolm, Jill had a penchant for going for the wrong man.

After making a fool of herself over army deserter Phillip Winter, Jill had a bigamous marriage and lost a baby. She married Stan Harvey but that didn't stop her having a child with her step-brother. With her second marriage over she was sweet talked by Adam Chance and then fell for alcoholic loser Mickey Doyle. All this reckless romance led her at one point or another to rely on pills or booze and to have a breakdown. But through all this we faithful viewers loved Jill and cheered when she ditched Adam and rode off into the sunset with John Maddingham to start a new life and a new Crossroads hotel.

The Young Doctors Connection

Reg Watson and Alan Coleman went from Crossroads to Australia, to help Reg Grundy launch a daily soap for Aussie viewers. Little wonder then that viewers will find some similarities between the two shows:

Meg's young son Sandy was confined to a wheelchair after a car accident, while in The Young Doctors Helen Gordon's young son Roger was confined to a wheelchair after jumping into an empty swimming pool

A pop group called Georgie Saint and the Dragons featured in both shows

In early episodes of Crossroads Jill fell for an army deserter called Philip Winter, while in early episodes of The Young Doctors Philip Winter was a tennis star at the centre of a murder investigation