Gordon Clegg Gordon Clegg
Appeared: April 1968 - March 1969; and intermittently since
then - 11 - 13 January 1982; October 1995; 10 June 2002
The Clegg family (Les, Maggie
and their son Gordon) moved into the Corner Shop in April 1968,
but Gordon's 'father', the alcoholic Les only lasted until June,
when he was moved into a hospital to dry out, and he never came
back to the family.
Soon after he arrived, Gordon became friendly with Lucille
Hewitt, and by the end of the year they planned to elope to
Gretna Green to marry. Although Annie
Walker (Lucille's guardian) and his 'mother' both opposed
their courtship, it was only a delayed train at Preston that stopped
them becoming man and wife.
After they returned to The Street, they continued their engagement
until a week before their wedding when Gordon got cold feet and
called it off. Ashamed of his actions, Gordon fled to London to
take up a career in accountancy.
By 1971, he had made a sufficient success of accountancy that
he could lend Maggie Clegg the money to buy out Irma
Barlow, her partner in the Corner Shop. Gordon returned to
The Street in July 1974 when Maggie Clegg married draughtsman
Ron Cooke and emigrated to Zaire;
Gordon was left in charge of the shop, living at his Auntie Betty's
(Betty Turpin). Lucille Hewitt
was so upset at his return that she fled to her step-mothers in
Ireland. Gordon wasn't so upset and was literally caught with
his trousers round his ankles with a local girl by his Auntie
Betty in her house. Gordon returned to London, and he rented out
the shop on a weekly basis to the Hopkins.
At the end of 1974, Megan Hopkins
was moving some furniture in the flat when she came across a birth
certificate - Gordon Clegg's. He was born Gordon Preston; his
mother was Elizabeth Preston, his father unknown. After a little
research she found that Elizabeth Preston was now Betty Turpin.
When Maggie and Betty found out, they told Gordon his dark secret.
Betty, his real mother, had an affair with a married sailor during
the war, and the resulting baby was adopted by Betty's sister
Maggie and her husband Les Clegg. In February 1975 Megan
Hopkins tried to blackmail Gordon with the information, in
an attempt to buy the shop at a reduced price, but they were summarily
evicted. Gordon persuaded Blanche
Hunt to run the shop after that, and in May 1976 the Corner
Shop was sold to Renee Bradshaw.
Although now settled in leafy Wimbledon with his wife Caroline
and son Peter, Gordon and Betty
see each other regularly. Gordon has only appeared on screen twice
since then - in 1982 when his mother was mugged, and in 1995 when
she married (another !) wartime sweetheart Billy
Williams.
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