Jim McDonald Jim McDonald
Children:
Played by: Charles
Lawson
Appeared: 27 October 1989 - 2 December 2000
Jim was in the army. He loved it there, but it was very hard on
Liz, and he'd left by the time they moved into The Street. He
took a job as a security guard, but got a fright when he surprised
a couple of intruders at the yard he was minding. He started beating
them up and was concerned that his violent temper could result
in him killing someone if that situation arose again. He left
that job.
He was also a mechanic and tried running his own garage for a
while but that didn't work out. From there, he joined Kevin at
MVB Motors. They got on very well, but Jim kept having run-ins
with Mike Baldwin. As well as being a mechanic, Jim got the job
of chauffeur when Mike started to hire out his Jag for businessmen.
Jim and Liz had quite a rocky marriage. They'd got married when
they discovered she was pregnant, so their early life together
had also been with the twins, which was difficult. Liz had also
found life as an army-wife quite lonely, and eventually, Jim had
given it up for her. This was one of many causes of resentment
between them. Despite it all though, they had deep feelings for
each other which kept them together.
However, Liz finally left Jim when he hit Steve during one of
his outbursts. She said she couldn't take it any more. She'd been
working as a barmaid at the Rovers and had been offered her own
pub, the Queens, by Newton and Ridley. She moved into the flat
above the pub, and took up with Des brother Colin, who also worked
there. Hed recently left the navy and was making a new life on
land.
Jim kept turning up at the Queens and eventually hit Colin and
was barred by the brewery. He and Liz made it up and she moved
back in with him.
When the Rovers came up for sale, Liz persuaded Jim to try and
buy it. The brewery wanted the place off their hands, and would
sell it to the first person who could come up with the money.
Bet couldn't raise the funds, so it was left to the Duckworths
and the McDonalds, both of whom had to find a buyer for their
house to get the cash.
The Mallets looked at both houses, finally settling on the Duckworths.
But Liz called Jim during a chauffeuring job, and said that if
they could get somewhere at a certain time, they could still be
in the running. Jim abandoned the clients and went back, but it
was too late. They'd lost the Rovers and then Jim lost his job
when Mike fired him.
They were both very disappointed not to get the Rovers, as this
had seemed like a new start for them. Shortly after this, they
went to one of Jim's army reunions. His old friend was there,
and Jim got a bit suspicious of the way he was acting with Liz.
On the way home, under his continual badgering, she confessed
that hed seen her a lot when Jim was away in the army and she
had slept with him one night because she was so lonely.
Jim called her a whore, beat her up and abandoned her at a service-station.
Later, full of remorse for what he'd done, he wanted to speak
to her. But Liz was now in deadly fear of his temper and wouldn't
see him. This got him angry again and he tried to break into their
house, smashing the back window. He was only stopped from getting
in by Curly Watts and Kevin Webster, who dragged him out and the
police took over from there.
Liz took out a restraining order on him, and called the police
again when he followed her into the Rovers trying to talk to her.
This time he was calm and back to normal, but Liz was still very
frightened and couldn't trust him. Jim was sent to prison for
a few weeks for breaking the restraining order and he was very
bitter about this.
By now he was working with Bill Websters building firm. Bill had
had a bad experience in his marriage, and was more than ready
to give Jim his pearls of wisdom about the badness of women.
Jim's very proud of his son Andy, who is now at University. He
despairs at his other son Steve, who's a petty criminal. Jim is
unable to talk to him and his attempts to put him straight invariably
end up as a slanging match. However, Jim does love Steve too,
and now that he's in prison, has given up drink in sympathy (as
Steve can't drink in prison), and is putting all his effort into
building up a good business with Bill so Steve will have a place
to work when he gets out.
Jims mother recently died and left him £4000. Bill is hoping
he'll put this into the business, but Jim wants to use it as a
deposit on their old house. Liz was refused a mortgage so can't
buy it herself. She's adamant that Jim won't get it, as "he'll
have won". She wants strangers to buy it. Jim says she's
being ridiculous. It was OK for her to buy it but not him. Anyway,
he's had enough, and won't be contributing to the mortgage any
more.
In 2000, Jim was sent into the slammer after he murdered gangster bad boy Jez Quigley after Jez and his gang beat up Steve very badly. He beat Jez and Jez started bleeding internally in hospital and subsequently died. Jim confessed and was sentenced to 8 years in the nick. He remarried Liz before he was sent up. He broke out at one point in 2003 because he thought Liz was having an affair with her boss in a pub in Blackpool. They tried to escape to Ireland, unsuccessfully, because they stopped to rescue Ashley and Claire who were adrift in a boat. Recently, after he lost it over a tube of toothpaste and battered his cellmate, his parole license was cancelled and, as a result, Liz divorced him.
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