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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 120546" data-attributes="member: 22">1994Alan Jackson, speaking in 1994: Gran lives over at Crown Towers. Lives by herself since the old fella died.Blossom Jackson: It's not been the same since Bill died. There was a woman raped three doors away. She was seventy-two.Jamie Mitchell: I saw a bloke once. He got done over outside the flats. They kicked his ribs in. He was spitting blood. He was dead the next day.Billy Mitchell: You want to see what [drug dealing] did to the old estate I used to live on. They shake a lot, you know, druggies. And they sweat a lot too. I used to see it on my old estate all the time.Stan Carter on prostitution: Saw a lot of that down the estate. Some days, couldn’t hardly get out the door without being propositioned. Mind you, I never partook.Billy: I knew this geezer once, right, topped his old lady. The judge said it was provocation. He only got three years.Stan: Couple from my old estate, nice as pie they were. One day, he comes back and starts spraying petrol all over the place. Turns out she was having an affair. They [the fire investigation team] worked it all out. Amazing what you can find out from a couple of pieces of charcoal. Alan on Blossom: She's been burgled three times.Blossom: I don't know what I'd have done if Alan hadn't been there.Alan: Did they get a lot, the burglars?Blossom: Me pension book, a radio and some rings. They weren't worth anything - only to me.Alan: Didn't make too much of a mess then?Blossom: Turned out a few drawers, that's all.Cora Cross: I was mugged once, outside the co-op. That kid needed eleven stitches in his head by the time I finished with him.Andy Hunter to Dennis Rickman: You always have been a soft touch. I'm not saying you don't give it the front, but you are — you're soft inside. 1994, that pub down by the Docks, The Two Brewers. You get told to sort the landlord and pick up what's owed. You come back with a sob story about some grandma and an IOU in your hand! Dalton's face, I tell you.Dennis: I was young. It was my first job on my own.Andy: You were gullible, son.Derek Branning: I ain’t been no saint in the past.Derek: Back in the nineties, we used to run the green down from Scotland. I had this system. We'd follow the lorry down from Manchester and write down all the number plates of the cars behind it. Next day, we’d go to Leeds. If a licence plate came up more than once, bang — we knew we were being followed. The last day, this licence plate came up twice so I told the driver to park up at the lorry, kiss goodbye to the lot.Patrick Trueman: You walked?Derek: I did, Patrick, but the others ... See, there was a couple of hundred grand on that lorry. Know when to walk. That’s the difference between your liberty and prison.Derek: I lost sight of the most important thing. I lost sight of family. We had some good times though, before it all went to pieces. Do you remember your seventh birthday?Joey Branning: Our last one together.Derek: I got hold of them dodgy fireworks and we went down that carpark in Stratford and let them off. Me and your mother dancing on the carpark roof.Joey: Yeah, I remember the fireworks.Joey to Derek: I remember my birthday, but not quite like you do. I remember you blind drunk on the car park roof, holding me mum by the hair. She’s crying, begging you to let go. There’s you laughing, threatening to push her off. And you know what? That ain’t even the worst of it.Joey on Derek: How about him throwing all the jam sandwiches at the only birthday party he ever bothered rolling up to in the washing up bowl in front of my mates? I mean, that’s what makes a man, eh? That’s what paints a man. Seven years old, I was. Seven years old.Joey: You should have seen me mum’s face sometimes. I was seven years old and I was mopping up blood off the floor. He once hit her so hard, he left his ring printed in her face. You can still see it now if you look hard enough.Derek: The last time I saw you ...Joey: I was seven.Derek: A year later, I was banged up in a prison cell.Derek: Joe, listen. The day I walked out on you, I broke my heart. You won’t remember this, but when I said goodbye, I kissed your little cheek and I said, “You’ll always be my best boy.”Alice Branning on Derek: Two kids, did a runner. Not a penny, not a word.Derek: I didn’t know how to be a dad. I’m not of them men who could do a weekend here and a weekend there. Besides, [Alice’s] mother wouldn’t have let me.Alice on Derek: I didn’t even know him. I didn’t even know what he looked like.Alice on Derek: I never got to spend one single birthday with him.Tanya Branning, speaking about Derek in 2012: The man has spent the last eighteen years not even thinking about his daughter.Cora to Alice: Don’t think because [Derek] hasn’t been there, he didn’t feel your loss. He did, every day.Derek to Alice: The thing I’m most sorry about is not being a part of your life, not seeing you as a baby, not seeing you growing up.Alice: I grew up without my dad and I thought about him every single day. Alice: I did grow up without my dad and it was horrible. My mum was all right, but I still spent years wondering why he wasn’t around and why I wasn’t good enough for him, why he didn’t come looking for me, why he didn’t love me. I used to cry myself to sleep.Alice: I was always the other one, the one who doesn’t exist.Alice on Derek: I thought that he didn’t care about me, that he didn’t love me. I hated him for it.Lorraine Wicks to David: Did you think I was going to live in that dump [their marital home] forever?Joe Wicks, speaking in 1996: We moved a couple of years ago.Tanya: We never [chose private healthcare] with the girls. Never bothered [Max], going on the NHS. He used to run a mile from antenatal classes.Max: How it used to be at the start — little Lauren, me dozing with her on my lap, two hours old — it was a perfect, perfect time. I mucked it all up.Tanya to Max: I remember you singing [“Rock-a-bye Baby”] to Lauren.Max on Lauren: That beautiful baby I brought home from the hospital.Max on a baby’s mobile with elephants on it: Used to hang over Lauren’s cot, remember? I put that up the day we brought her back from the hospital. She used to look at it for hours.Tanya: It’s all a bit of a blur.Tanya: I remember what it was like when you have your first baby. [Your] head’s all over the place.Tanya: I’ve had kids. No one wrapped me in cotton wool.Andy Jones, Danielle’s father: You spend all those years when they’re little wrapping them in cotton wool, seeing danger round every corner.Tanya on Lauren: I remember when I had this one. I was a right old panicky parent. I couldn’t take my eyes off you for a second.Tanya on Lauren: She was back-chatting from her changing mat.Tanya to Lauren: Abi slept right through [as a baby] — no trouble — whereas you, you weren’t having any of it. Three o’clock every morning sharp, there you’d be — wide awake, all sparky-eyed, wriggling around in your cot, waiting for me to pick you up. I used to sneak you into our bed, all quiet so I wouldn’t wake your dad. We’d have a cuddle — your little starfish hands reaching up touching my face, and your eyes all big in the dark. You’d fall asleep in my arms and I’d just lie there till it got light, looking at you, thinking how perfect you were — my first, my baby. And all the other mothers used to look at the bags under my eyes and they’d be bragging how their little angels slept from eight till eight, but you know what? They’re the ones who should have been jealous because while they were getting their beauty sleep, those middle of the night moments with you were the most precious, the most magical time of my life.Tanya: Lauren used to just cry and cry and cry. The only way I could get her to sleep was to walk her in her pram. I mean, I used to walk for miles, miles and miles, and then Max used to come home from work and she’d be there all sort of cuddly and tired in her baby grow. Yeah, piece of cake for him. Worse bit for me — not being able to work.Mick Carter: I remember when L was pregnant with Johnny and I took a picture of her. She was akip, massive — one of my favourite smudges of all time, that is.Tanya on Max: After I had Lauren, he didn’t come near me for months. It’s like once you’ve been in labour, they’ve seen all that blood and that, they can’t look at you the same way. Not for a while, anyway.Carl White: Do you remember 1994? Wet Wet Wet had been Number One for five weeks.Kirsty Branning: Yeah, and you got two tickets to Ibiza because you said they were going to stay at Number One for weeks and we had to leave now or die.Carl: That night on the beach under the stars ...Kirsty: Yeah, and we swore we would stay there until somebody else was Number One.Carl: Yeah. We’d still be there if it weren’t for Whigfield.Nancy Carter on Linda: It has been “Johnny, Johnny, Johnny” since the day he was born.Linda to Johnny: When they put you in that glass box, tubes running into your tiny little body, I sat there feeling so helpless, wanting to hold you so much my arms were physically aching.Mick: Johnny, we was in and out of that neonatal for weeks. Never knew if he was going to make it.Mick: I spent the longest week of my life on that ward. Bad enough him [Johnny] being in an incubator, but you having that infection … I couldn’t go through that ever again, just sitting there, watching the monitor, just praying for the tiniest little thing in the world to just … his little heartbeat.Linda: The worst thing that’s ever happened to us.Linda on Johnny: He nearly died. I’ve never known pain like that — seeing his little body, just still, just so still. Linda on Johnny: He nearly died. I gave him my dad’s name, but this time I stopped it happening. I held his hand and I knew. I thought, “This time, I’m not letting this person go. This time, I’m going to watch his every breath and he won’t die, he won’t leave me.”Linda to Johnny: I made you a promise that if you pulled through, I’d never let anything bad happen to you again.Linda on Johnny: And then he came back, screaming, and that’s when I knew, I knew I’d never let anything happen to him. I’d keep him so close, I’d never let anything hurt him. I protected him his whole life.Linda to Nancy: We have given you everything.Nancy: No, you give him everything — golden sausage boy Johnny who never does anything wrong. Johnny on having Linda as a mother: I reckon I won the lottery.Shirley to Linda: I think you smothered Johnny a little bit.Johnny, looking his old baby booties: I was tiny, weren’t I? Hard to believe an actual human foot fit in these.Linda: You were only two pound, but you were strong even then. I held up my little finger and …Johnny: I gripped it back.Tina: Shirl turned up drunk with fat hair to Johnny’s christening and groped the vicar.Nancy on herself and Johnny: We have done everything together. I don’t think we’ve ever, like, been apart for more than, like, a week.Linda on raising children: We were young and we struggled for years. If I hadn’t had my Mick to help me, I’d have gone insane. Linda on children: We always said we wanted four. Johnny: I’ve been pulling pints since before I could walk.Fatboy: Nancy reckons her mum used to do a bit of topless modelling.Nancy on Linda: Back in the day, she was flopping them out in the papers.Linda: I was young and the photographer conned me into it.Sharon: That’s low.Linda: Mick made sure he’d never do it again.Linda: I was young and naive.Tina Carter: And cold by the looks of it!Nancy on Linda: Her only triumph was as a Page 3 stunner.Newspaper caption next to Linda’s picture: “This is Linda Carter, 17. Linda is from Watford and one day dreams of running her own pub. We bet there’s no shortage of men wanting her to pull their pint!”Pam Coker: I’ve always wanted to strip off in front of a camera.Les Coker: I’m not sure how I feel about all manner of men seeing you in the nuddy.Pam: You didn’t mind when we were on that nudist beach in Formentera.Les: We found that place by accident.Pam: But we didn’t leave, did we? No — you soon got into the spirit when everyone was walking around with their doodahs and their wotsits out.Tanya: All those pre-wedding butterflies — I was counting down the days with Max.Tanya on Max: He’s fun. That’s why I married him.Tanya: All those years with Max never felt relaxed.Tanya: I felt like [Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman”, when all the shop assistants look down their noses at her] when I married Max.Tanya: I didn’t have all that [a fancy wedding] with Max.Tanya: I’ll never forget my wedding day.Rachel Branning: Me neither. It was just after my divorce came through, I seem to remember.Cora to Max: If I could go back in time, I’d beg her [Tanya] not to marry you. You bring nothing but misery to any woman that gets sucked into your orbit.Tanya to Max: “For richer for poorer, in sickness and in health.” That’s what we said, isn’t it? You don’t think, do you, at the time — you make all those promises, you don’t expect to have to call them in.Alice Lord to Tanya: I heard you’d married some flash git. Old enough to be your father, they told me.Rainie, speaking in 2010: Carol Jackson — didn’t recognise you without a string of kids hanging off your arm.Carol: Lorraine — funny, I thought you’d overdosed years ago.Max, speaking to Cora in 2013: You met my dad once, nineteen years ago at the wedding. You were so drunk I’m surprised you remember.Derek Branning: Cora, we met at the wedding.Rainie: Last time I saw you, Derek, I was seventeen.Derek: Skinny little legs. I remember you very well.Derek: I often think about our dalliance at Tanya’s wedding, how sweet that was.Rainie: I don’t remember.Tanya to her daughter Abi: Your Uncle Jack’s a good dancer. I’ve danced with him.Abi: When?Jack Branning: At a party when your mum and dad got married. Your mum was wearing a bright red dress and your dad was the happiest I’ve ever seen him.Rainie to Jack: I always thought Tanya married the wrong brother. I mean, why would you want someone like Max when they can have you?Jack to Max: I remember a time when she [Tanya] had you wrapped round her little finger.Tanya: You know what they say when a man marries his mistress? It creates a vacancy.Jack: Last time I saw [a vol-au-vent] must have been Lauren’s christening.Archie Mitchell to Danielle: You had a mother — that wonderful woman who adopted you, who brought you up, loved you, dried your tears.Andy Jones on Danielle: Her mother bathed her every night. Her mother sung her “Hushabye Mountain”, bandaged her knees when she slipped off the slide in the park.Danielle Jones: Mum and Dad told me I was adopted when I was five. It didn’t mean much to me then but when I got older I started to think about my birth mother more, but I never thought of trying to find her. I didn’t want to hurt my mum.Andy: Danielle was the light of her mother’s life.Danielle: You must have thought about [your daughter]. Did you, on her birthday?Ronnie: Sometimes.Andy: Gareth was a typical boy, noisy, but Dani, she was always the quiet one, gentle as you like. Mind you, if she got an idea in her head, she was determined, headstrong.Johnny Allen to Ruby: I can still remember your first day at school. You were so shy. You clung to me and your mum like your life depended on it.Ruby on Johnny: Every morning, he’d check my lunchbox and my school bag and straighten my hair — every morning. He’d never let me get on the bus after eight. He’d insist on picking me up. I used to hate it, but now I can see it’s just because he really cared.Owen Turner on his daughter Libby: She always was a bit of a bossy boots. I think she gets it from her mother.Libby “Squiggle” Fox: All our lives, all Mum’s ever said to us is, “If there’s a problem, face it, fix it, sort it out. Don’t just run away from it.”Qadim Shah to his daughter Amira: I have a picture of you. You must be seven or eight. Such a pretty little thing and you’re holding onto a doll. You wouldn’t be parted from that doll, remember? You called her Alice after your favourite book.Amira: No, I didn’t.Qadim: Yes you did. The one with the red hair, remember?Amira: She was called Pippi because my favourite book was Pippi Longstocking.Qadim: I bought you so many dolls. Perhaps one was called Alice, no?Amira: Perhaps.Amira: Growing up, I never really knew my dad. I mean, he was around, but he was never there. He used to buy me things. He was good at that. Gave me toys, gave me treats, gave me everything except the one thing I wanted. I know what it’s like to have a father and know inside, he doesn’t care.Jean Slater on her son Sean: Always the best at everything, wasn’t he, Stace? Football — thought he’d make a go of that at one point.Sean to Jean: You don’t know nothing about me. You never have.Terry Raymond, looking at a photograph of Tiffany: Eighteenth birthday. You can see she's in a bit of a strop because I wouldn't buy her a mobile phone. They cost a fortune in those days.Tiffany: I've always worked with people, abroad mostly. I used to work on the continent, Marbella. First I was a holiday rep and then I was a beautician. It was all right.Kim Fox: Cereal is a continental breakfast — I went to the continent and I had cereal.Tiffany: I met [Jose and Guillermo] when I was a beautician out there. These are the two wildest Spanish blokes I've ever known.Jose to Tiffany: But I only had eyes for you.Tiffany: We certainly had a riot, didn't we?Jose: You were the ringleader!Bianca: Here Tiff, have you never had anyone propose to you?Tiffany: Yeah, of course. I just like me freedom.Ruby Allen: Were you ever married?Tina Stewart: I nearly was. I caught him snogging my best mate, who was going to be the bridesmaid. It was only the morning of the wedding so I whacked her round the face with the bouquet and that was the end of that.Sarah Jane “SJ" Fletcher: Have you ever been married?Minty Petersen: Nearly, a long time ago.SJ: What happened?Minty: Oh, the usual. She ran off with someone else.SJ: Did you love her?Minty: Yeah.Stacey on Jean: She's never been well, not as far as I can remember.Sean on Jean: When has she ever dealt with anything? First sign of things getting messy, she’s hiding under the covers. She was a useless mum.Max on Jean: She had a hard life, spent some time in and out of hospitals.Dot: That’s because she’s manic depressive.Stacey on Jean: I didn't notice till school. All the other kids, their mums came to pick them up on time and they didn't have to be called by the teachers. That only made Mum worse so I stopped waiting. It's not worth the grief. It wasn't a long walk home.Charlie: Somebody should have noticed. What about the teachers?Stacey: I suppose some of them twigged, but I made sure no-one paid too much attention. I got by on most things.Charlie: Why didn't someone help you?Stacey: I suppose no-one wanted to.Stacey: You know what I used to think when I was a kid? "Why me — why has everyone got a normal mum except me?”Charlie: I don’t suppose that was true.Stacey on school: Who says I ever went?Jean on Snakes and Ladders: This always used to cheer you up.Stacey: I’m not six years old anymore.Sean on Stacey: My sister, she’s always had this terrible temper, even when she was a kid. Blows her fuse at the slightest opportunity. Takes her at least a week to calm down.Tanya: You the sensitive big brother, were you? Protective?Carly Wicks: At school, if anyone ever said they hated someone and they kept banging on about it, you could pretty much bet everything you had that they’d be at it like rabbits in a couple of weeks. Love and hate, you can barely get a [sheet of] paper between them.Tiffany to Bianca: Have you noticed that all the problems we've had since school have been because of men?Simon Raymond: Tiff decided she didn't like my choice of boyfriend. We had huge rows over it. We didn't speak for ages. She hated him. She didn't think Howard was any good for me. She was probably right.Tiffany to Howard, Simon's boyfriend: You used to give my brother a slap in the mouth.Simon on himself and Howard: We lived together for about two years. Howard cared about me. He only did everything that he did because he cared. Maybe it was my fault. Maybe I did something wrong.Max to Tanya: I don’t remember it being hard work with us, all that baby stuff. Never needed much encouragement in that department.Max on his daughter’s Abi conception: Left-field, unplanned.Tanya on being pregnant: I was ill, sick ill, with Abs.Tanya: I wasn't planning on settling down so early. Took me by surprise, to be honest. I was going to travel. Next thing I knew, I was married with twokids and a mortgage to sort out.Tanya to Max: I made a choice — you, my kids, love. I made an investment. I said no to all those other things and I went for you.Kevin Wicks: I gave up any hope of a life somewhere in the mid-nineties.Kevin, speaking in 2006: I spent the last twenty odd years working my knackers off trying to raise three kids. When the hell would I have time to be Jack the Lad?Carly on Kevin: He got lost at Alton Towers.Kevin, mid-anecdote: There was me as Dracula rolling on the ground with Einstein, with Mr Blobby cheering us on.Denise: All because Einstein was rude to Wonder Woman?Kevin: Yeah.Denise: I went dressed as a teabag once.Kevin: Oh yeah — trust you to top everyone, eh?</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?