My Crossroads Years - By Jane Rossington Monday 4 April 1988 sees the final episodes of Crossroads, the ITV serial that critics voted a turn-off but viewers watched in their millions. Jane Rossington, who has played Jill since the programme began on 2 November 1964, takes Christopher Kenworthy down memory lane as she opens her secret diary.
1965 Brian Jarvis (David Fennell) married Janice Gifford (Carolyn Lyster). Brian, who was my screen cousin, had previously become entangled with a lovely widow, Ruth Bailey (Pamela Greenhall), but she gently rebuffed him.
Quickly recovering, he fell in love with his father’s secretary, Janice, and married her in November. The marriage survived her adultery but not his alcoholism. He emerged from a drying-out clinic to find himself divorced. We missed him. The other big event of the year was my screen mother Meg’s engagement to Hugh Mortimer (John Bentley), man of her dreams.
Every now and again, I had to say “Somebody has to stay behind to run the motel!” They will never know how often I very nearly added, “But now I’m off to join them!” 1968 The Rev Peter Hope (Neville Hughes) married Marilyn Gates (Sue Nicholls). Thames Television, in London, dropped Crossroads and almost caused a revolution. Even the Prime Minister’s wife Mary Wilson, begged for its return. Eventually, it was, but ran six months behind for years.
Hugh Mortimer broke off his engagement to Meg that year and married Jane Templeton (Rosalie Ashley), who later died from a brain tumour.
1969 The motel’s Spanish chef Carlos Raphael – played by Anthony Morton – went to Spain and died in a fire there. Meg married Malcolm Ryder (David Davenport) who tried to poison her to get the insurance money. In real life, I was married to my first husband, Tim Jones, a director at ATV.
You could always tell if people were going to fit in if they got on well in the ‘green room’, where we all went to relax. It was also the year of Diane Lawton’s marriage to Vince Parker (Peter Brookes) – and Jill’s wedding to Stan Harvey (Edward Clayton.) 1972 Roger Tonge, who played my screen brother Sandy, was in a car crash and quite badly hurt. He broke his arm and needed 80 stitches in his face. While in hospital, the producer, Reg Watson, arrived with a new script in his hand, saying “Right, here’s the rewrite to account for your awful appearance.” In the script, he bumped into a plate-glass door.
Roger’s accident was to provide inspiration for a storyline later, when Sandy became paralysed and confined to a wheelchair. Other unhappy events included two divorces – David and Rosemary Hunter, and Diane and Vince Parker.
Blow me if I didn’t get pregnant again! The result was something like an 11-month screen pregnancy. Sorrel was born just as they were recording the episode in which I was supposed to give birth. Ed Clayton, as my screen husband Stan, was able to announce, “Jill’s had a baby and it’s a girl.” She was called Sarah Jane in the story – and played by Sorrel. 1975 The year of the big wedding, of Meg and Hugh Mortimer (John Bentley) – in Birmingham Cathedral. Even the cast couldn’t get through the crowd. People kept telling me to stop pushing, and I was saying “Unless I push, there won’t be any scene – I’m in it!”
As a joke Larry Grayson turned up as a chauffeur in his own white Rolls-Royce. Meg and Hugh were supposed to go to Majorca for the honeymoon, but John Bentley couldn’t stand flying, so they didn’t go. Noele never really forgave him. She rather fancied going to Majorca.
 TV Times 1988: Copyright ITV Publications. Material and article compilation by Steve F. Note some of the details published in the articles at the time have since proved to be factually incorrect. See fact files and 'Year by Year' for the right information.
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