Crossroads

Crossroads was a famous British TV soap opera that ran from 1964 until 1988. It centered around the family of Meg Mortimer, her son Sandy and her daughter Jayne. It was set in a hotel near Birmingham, which is a big town near London, England. The series focused on the trials and tribulations of running the eponymous hotel.

## Early days[edit]

The early plots of the soap featured many semi-comic situations that might have occurred during the everyday running of a hotel. Chief characters of this time included Gordon Honeycombe, the guest who believed he was reading the news from the hotel elevators, Manuel, the semi-incompetent waiter from Portugal whose interpretations of guest food orders often led to hilarious results and funny goings-on in the kitchen, led by the irrepressible Mr. Pastry.

## Latter days[edit]

Crossroads went color in 1969, but with color came a darkening of the program's mood. Sandy's character changed from that of a cheerful happy-go-lucky teenager to that of a sharp businessman who was determined to wrest control of Crossroads Hotel from his mother with the help of his right-hand man, the evil Benny. Together Sandy and Benny quickly became the men Britain loved to hate.

### The Final days[edit]

By 1982 Crossroads was struggling in the ratings so the BBC decided to give them a boost. Meg Mortimer, the central character in the soap was to be burnt out of the hotel in a bonfire set by Benny but luckily for her she was rescued by Sandy who had a last minute change of heart and sent her off on a cross-channel ferry, The Herald of Free Enterprise for a day trip to Zeebrugge. After Meg left the ratings dropped further and the BBC replaced the series with more repeats of Are you being Served?.