There was no catch-up service, or repeats, however regardless of – Park Avenue supplied synopses of current storylines, and likewise listed an tackle the place you would ship a stamped-addressed envelope to obtain a leaflet giving “a listing of the characters and their birthdays and many others”. 

Generally episodes additionally started with a listing of character profiles detailing essential info about them. No, not their motivations or previous actions – who cares about that stuff? Park Avenue advised us their ages, occupation and infrequently whether or not they had been “overseas”.

So what occurred? Effectively, there have been the standard scandals involving affairs, dodgy enterprise dealings, household feuds, habit, the occasional love baby and automobile explosion. However Park Avenue appreciated to maintain it present, so one character – Ivy, a grumpy retired woman married to Sid – refused to purchase beef throughout the 1990 BSE scare, and across the time of the 1990 Strangeways Jail Riots, Park Avenue featured a copycat riot at Parkfield Jail, and Parkfield Instances editor Dave one way or the other ended up appearing because the hostage negotiator.

Generally, the Park Avenue workforce would even let the viewers vote by way of phone-in on the outcomes to sure storylines, as an illustration whether or not Angela, the native wine bar proprietor, ought to settle for a wedding proposal from the youthful man she’d solely been relationship for 4 weeks, hopeful actor Don. (Fortunately for Don, the viewers voted 63% in favour of Angela saying sure!)

It wasn’t all textual content, although. Often Park Avenue launched teletext graphics of what they thought the characters ought to appear like. This traumatising demon, as an illustration, was Cathall Murphy, whose storylines included stealing cash to feed his playing downside:

Listed below are a couple of extra examples of the dead-eyed horrors that handed for character sketches in Teletext know-how: