Like all closely-knit communities, King's Oak and the Crossroads Motel
have had their share of joy and sadness. Babies have been born and folk have died and there has been the happy sound
of wedding bells for several couples.
Brian Jarvis, Meg's nephew, married his father's secretary, Janice, and all seemed set fair for the
young couple when they were married in the parish church. But later Brian began to drink heavily. He went away
for a 'cure' only to find himself divorced on his return.
Another wedding at the village church was that of waitress Christine Fuller to milkman Ralph Palmer.
The couple later started a smallholding and everyone hoped that it would be a great success.
One wedding which caused much surprise was that of the handsome young vicar Peter Hope to Marilyn
Gates, who at first refused Peter's proposal because she felt that she was not cut out to be a clergyman's wife. But
Peter finally persuaded her, with a little help from his bishop, and now the young couple are doing missionary work in Africa,
where Peter finds Marilyn an ideal helpmate.
There was a delightful real-life postscript to this wedding when the dress worn by Marilyn
was given to a young orphaned hospital patient named Irene who was suffering from a hereditary disease. Irene was a
keen Crossroads fan and was shortly to marry her carpenter sweetheart.
After recovering from the traumas of discovering that she had bigamously
married John Crane, Jill Richardson is now happily married to Stan Harvey, with an adorable small daughter, Sarah-Jane, who
is the apple of Meg's eye. Sarah-Jane is doubly precious because of Jill's previous miscarriage, and the disappointment
of giving up their 'adopted' baby to Sheila. Although many people were surprised at Jill's choice of husband, the Harvey's
are very happy and Meg is sure that, despite their different backgrounds, Stan and Jill can face the future confidently together.
Romance has no age barrier and some time ago Wilf, Stan's plain-spoken
father, found himself a new wife in Myrtle Cavendish, which pleased everyone at Crossroads very much. Myrtle,
who worked in a pub, and Wilf, moved into a flat above Stan's shop.
But babies can cause unhappiness as well as bring joy, as Jill and Stan
found to their sorrow. They unofficially adopted his sister Sheila's baby but when Sheila married the baby's father,
Roy Mollison, later on, she took the baby back. Jill was very upset but soon she had a daughter of her own to make up
for her loss.
But another baby was responsible in an innocent way for the breakup of
Vince Parker's marriage. Vince, the friendly King's Oak postman, married Diane Lawton, fully prepared to accept her
baby by film star Frank Adam as his own. But when Diane accepted financial help from Frank Adam the marriage began to
crumble; now the couple are separated and Vince lives in London, a sad loss to King's Oak.
Two of the managers of the Motel have also found romance which ended in wedding bells. Paul
Stevens and waitress Sandra Gould are now running a hotel in Guernsey, while Tessa Wyvern and her husband Nick Van Doren moved
into their own hotel soon after their marriage.
And what of Meg herself? An on-off romance with Hugh Mortimer for some ten years resulted in
a marriage to Malcolm Ryder with disastrous results. Malcolm tried to poison her for the insurance money he would collect
on her death. When this attempt failed he fled and he was reported dead abroad.
