One of these talents, who portrays Bob Powell, the once-blind neuro-surgeon who is one of David Hunter's closest friends, is actor Maurice Kaufmann.  This is his second appearance on the show, and there's no doubt that of the many characters that have appeared on Crossroads over the years, Bob Powell has left a very solid mark on the story of the King's Oak Motel.

 

It will be two years this month that Maurice Kaufmann first arrived at the Motel.  "I first appeared," he explains, "because I was playing Anne Taylor's husband.  You remember that she was very friendly with David Hunter some years ago, long before I appeared on the scene.  I was a neuro-surgeon working in the area, and what with one thing and another she and David met up again through me.  I was going blind at this stage and I was determined to bring the two of them together.  Of course the way I went about it came over absolutely horribly.  I actually got spat on in one of the big stores in Birmingham.  This woman came up to me and said 'How dare you be rude to our David!' and spat in my face!!

 

"Of course it was meant to be pretty ghastly.  Everyone thought, how rude he is, how nasty he is to his wife.  I was always getting drunk and falling about and shouting at everyone, especially my wife Anne.  So then I went away, to leave them alone, but then I came back and caught them together one New Year's Eve.  It was all rather snide and cynical, which is Bob's character anyway.  Then I actually went blind and naturally I was in a terrible state.  So I admitted all my fears and miseries to Anne and she just said she loved me and would look after me for ever and we drove off to London and out of the programme.  What with going blind and also having a possible brain tumour - I knew that because I was a surgeon - I really didn't expect that Bob would be back in the programme."