<Picture of Joan Ferguson>

JOAN 'THE FREAK' FERGUSON, played by Maggie Kirkpatrick, arrived after Vera Bennett left.  'The Freak' became as popular as Franky Doyle in the early days.  This warder was supremely vindictive and a lesbian molester of the feebler prisoners.  Unlike Vinegar-Vera, she was truly corrupt and sexually rampant.  Always behind the worst drugs-rackets and other inside fiddles, the nights were her best times.  When the audience saw her wearing black gloves they knew she was about to conduct a 'body search' on an unsuspecting inmate, usually a new, young one.

During her reign of terror the storylines became more and more bizarre.  A high spot was the fight between the Freak and Bea, who had vowed to kill her.  Bea tried to strangle the Freak and hit her over the head with an iron bar.  The Freak recovered strength enough to bang Bea's head on the ground and almost kill her.  But later, when the Freak was about to be burnt to death in the fire she had Chrissie Latham start in the library, Bea saved her at the last minute.  The Freak had planned the fire as part of her strategy to have the already reprimanded governor Anne Reynolds (Gerda Nicholson) sacked and to get the governor's job herself.  An inmate called Mouse (Jentah Sobott) - so called because she was always quivering in fear - died in the fire.

MONICA FERGUSON, played by Lesley Baker, was the Gangster's Wife in Wentworth.  A rather small gangster.  'Big Monnie' was kept at arm's length by Bea Smith.  They did once have a fight, in the course of which Bea was stabbed, but they had a grudging respect for each other and were united in their contempt for Noelene Bourke.

Monnie's greatest misfortune was to be married to miserable little Fred (Gary Files), who had sought consolation with a bosomy tart called Blossom Crabtree (Linda Keane) while Monnie was away.  It turned out that Blossom was only hanging around with Fred because of Monnie's loot, which was stashed away somewhere and which Fred was determined to get his hands on.  In due course Monnie was paroled, and she returned home to reclaim her loot.  Fred stole it and ran off with Blossom.  Unfortunately for Fred, Blossom's boyfriend and accomplice, Bruce Starr, turned up, and he and Blossom stole Monnie's stolen money from Fred.  Fred crawled back to Monnie, who beat him up in one of the most memorable scenes in the entire series.  Assailed from all sides, Fred sought police protection.  Monnie was arrested - as were Blossom and Bruce.

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It so happened that deputy governor Fletcher was in need of money at the time, and when Crabtree found herself in Wentworth he made a deal with her.  When the time came, he double-crossed her, returned the money to the authorities and pocketed the reward.

JIM FLETCHER, played by Gerard Maguire, was a former army sergeant who had volunteered for service in Vietnam, had later entered the prison service and eventually become deputy governor of Wentworth.  Dour Jim was a male chauvinist who would appear to have been the natural ally of Vera Bennett, but even he found some of her more extreme attitudes disquieting.

Fletch was transferred from a men's prison, and made no secret of the fact that he regarded being deputy governor of a women's prison as definitely a bad career move.  He was horrified by lesbian relationships such as that between Doreen and Lyn Warner, although it was completely innocent.  He also thumped Monica Ferguson soon after his arrival.  Fletch was married to Leila (Penny Ramsay) with a couple of sons, but was separated at the time of entering the series.  It turned out that his ideas about a woman's place (at the sink) caused the split.  However, he and his wife got back together again soon after.

Fletch was dogged by his experiences in Vietnam, and would become momentarily immobilised if something caused him to recall those times.  The problem turned out to be haemophobia, and when the women found out about it - it was leaked by twisted psychologist Peter Clements they laid plans to exploit the situation.  They organised a first-aid session, with fake blood.  Jim went to pieces and was reprimanded by Davo.  The women planned to follow up this success by organising a blood-donor session, but this came to nothing.

Fletch double-crossed the double crossing Blossom Crabtree and claimed the reward for returning the stolen money. This helped to get him back in his wife's good books (she complained he didn't earn enough).  But he fell prey to the charms of one of the inmates, and this brought nothing but trouble.

Fletch was fiercely loyal to his mates.  One of these from Nam days, Geoff Butler (Ray Meagher), 'a bit of a character', turned up - he was actually trying to recruit Jim to his band of mercenaries and they became very chummy again.  Unknown to Jim, Geoff was a head case, given to bashing gays in pub toilets; and, to make matters even worse, he took a shine to Meg Jackson.  Eventually the truth came out, the police were called to Meg's flat.  Cornered, Geoff thumped Meg, but was captured by the cops.

When Davo resigned in protest at the pressure put upon her to go easy on Toni McNally, Jim stepped in as acting governor.  He had always considered Davo too liberal in her approach, and a disastrous period followed in which Jim imposed so strict a regime that it alienated staff as well as prisoners and provoked a strike.  Davo was brought back, and Jim was relegated to deputy once more.

Fletch's attitude softened when mother

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and daughter Vivienne and Caroline Simpson were remanded to Wentworth on a charge of murdering Vivienne's brutish husband.  Vivienne couldn't take prison life and was eventually released on bail (put up by Fletch through Paul Reed).  After a while daughter Caroline also agreed to be bailed in the same fashion by Fletch, who was by this time thoroughly smitten.  Although the rules strictly forbade it, Jim made secret visits to Caroline at the halfway house, and a cosy romance blossomed.  Needless to say, wife Leila chucked Fletch out when she learnt of the affair, and he went to live in a dingy bedsitter where Caroline visited him for afternoons of passion.

In the mean time, Caroline's estranged husband resurfaced and objected to her affair with Jim.  He chanced to meet Jim's pal Geoff Butler, who had received a suspended sentence and bore a grudge because Jim gave evidence at the trial.  Between them they hatched a plot to get back at all concerned, though Caroline's husband didn't realise his new accomplice was mad and planned to kill his old buddy Fletch.  The outcome was that Caroline's husband unwittingly delivered Geoff Butler's bomb to Fletch's apartment-block, Jim's wife and sons arrived on a surprise visit, collected the parcel from the lobby and took it up to his room.  It exploded just outside his door, killing all three of them.

Fletch went on leave.  A replacement, the vicious and corrupt Jock Mackay, arrived, enjoyed a brief romantic interlude with Vera, beat and blackmailed Doreen and killed Sharon Gilmore.  Even Davo had to accept that he had gone too far, and she suspended him.  Fletch returned.

The chief problem in Fletch's life remained Vera.  She was relieved of the deputy governorship because the Department felt that only a man could toughen up the staff.  Davo's wishy-washy rule was deemed a disaster, and she was close to being relieved of her post.  When Fletch applied for the job of governor of Barnhurst, Vera could scarcely conceal her delight.

AGNES FORSTER, played by Lois Ramsay, was Paul Reed's successor as Wentworth social worker.  'One year off retirement', Agnes was clearly based on the dotty old English spinster best typified by Margaret Rutherford's Miss Marple.  She had a roomful of pot-plants, a cat called Butchy, a passion for tea-drinking and a habit of addressing everyone as 'dear' ('My name is Miss Bennett,' Vera corrected her firmly.  'Yes, dear,' came the reply).

Somewhat taken aback by Agnes's habit of drinking tea all day and leaving work early, while showing no interest in the women's files, Davo tartly suggested that she start doing some work.  When she forgot to organise compassionate leave for Lizzie Birdsworth, Lizzie called her a lazy bitch and went berserk, scattering pot plants and kitty litter all over her office.  Later Vera discovered Agnes slumped across her desk; she raised the alarm, but Agnes was not dead - she had simply nodded off!.

MARGO GAFFNEY, played by Jane Clifton, was the prison bookie.  Her 'stash'

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<Picture> Margo Gaffney (Jane Clifton), rather the worse for wear. is supported by Chrissie Latham (Amanda Muggleton) and Bea Smith (Val Lehman)

was much coveted.  Noelene, strapped for cash because her family were having a hard time, kept trying to get her hands on it - without success.  Margo and Bea Smith were essentially soulmates, despite Margo's resentment when Bea attempted to control where and when Margo could take bets.  Bea placed an embargo on bookmaking at the factory lest it compromise the work programme and interfere with her plan to deal with randy foreman Vince Talbot.  Margo became Bea's accomplice in this scheme, and even pulled the switch when Bea rigged her machine to electrocute him.  The betting embargo had unfortunately come too late to stop Margo from becoming locked in battle with factory overseer Kay White, who fancied herself as a backer of horses but did not do terribly well with her bets with Margo.  For a while it looked as if these gambling debts might prove irrecoverable; but when Kay found herself in Wentworth she faced having to settle her debts - with bruises if not with money.  Margo - working in the kitchen under the

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less than keen eye of kitchen supervisor Mrs O'Reagan - put detergent in Kay's food, but was prevented from drenching the next meal with Tabasco by the arrival Davidson. (Kay's complaint that the food tasted terrible met with no real response from either staff or inmates, who knew already.)

Margo did not have things all her own way: her first face-to-face confrontation with Kay ended with Kay punching her in the stomach.  But Margo was not long in taking revenge.  At the prison barbi she served Kay a hotdog with glass in it.  Blood spouted from Kay's mouth.

SHARON GILMORE, played by Margot Knight, was Wentworth's lesbian drug dealer.  She had been delivering drugs to a party at which Paul Reed's son, Tony, was a guest when the police raided the joint.  Tony was sent away for a few months, but Sharon received six years.  A nasty piece of work, she tried to worm her way into.Doreen's affections by reviving the poor girl's lesbian tendencies.  She enjoyed brief popularity by arranging to have exotic substances smuggled in by her doting lover Judith Bryant.  Bryant was so distraught at being separated from her beloved that she arranged to have herself caught smuggling and was herself imprisoned.  Once Bryant was inside, however, Sharon played fast and loose with her affections.

Sadistic warder Jock Mackay eventually bumped Sharon off.  Sharon had overheard him threaten and then assault Doreen, so she tried to blackmail him.  He threw her down some stairs to shut her up.

<Picture of Meg>

MEG JACKSON, played by Elspeth Ballantyne, is the Mrs Nice of Wentworth.  The reason she is caring and humane with the women is that she was the daughter of a crim and was actually born in prison.  Her husband, Bill (Don Barker), was the social worker at Wentworth, but was stabbed to death by Chrissie Latham during a prison riot early in the series, leaving Meg a widow with a teenaged son called Marty.  Meg subsequently tried to find a fresh love-interest first with Dr Greg Miller and then with Geoff Butler, Fletch's nutty Nam pal who beat her up.  She eventually married Bob Morris (Anthony Hawkins).

Meg's caring nature threw her together with the social workers: first, she befriend-

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ed Jean Vemon, who came to share her flat and misguidedly invited larcenous Lianne Bourke to stay there, too; and, second, she warmed to Paul Reed, who was out of step with the other members of staff and enjoyed an uneasy relationship with Davo.  Meg took a motherly interest in his troublesome son, Tony.  She was constantly at odds with Vera and was not afraid to stand up to Davo when she thought she was being unreasonable.  Relations with Davo were rather difficult when the governor believed that Meg and Paul were plotting to undermine her authority by taking an interest in the women's welfare.

Not surprisingly, Meg was seen as a pushover by the women - though, to their credit, they respected her compassion and didn't try to exploit it.  But when Lizzie was required to have a tactical 'coronary' Meg was the one person before whom she had to be sure to have it.  Vera and Fletch would simply have walked away.

When tarty Chrissie Latham, who'd stabbed Meg's husband, returned to Wentworth to complete her sentence, Meg was not pleased.  But she coped.  The other prisoners seemed more concerned by this crass departmental decision than the other members of staff. Determined to make a fresh start in her life, she moved to a new flat.  Before very long she was taking an interest in the next-door neighbours, whose nocturnal rumpuses were keeping her awake.  The husband was a drunken bum, and the wife, Gail Summers, inadequate and oppressed.  Meg noticed bruises on one of the children's arms, and soon felt obliged to call in the authorities, believing that the husband was walloping the kids.  In fact it was the wife who was doing the walloping, and soon she found herself in Wentworth.  Meg felt guilty at having reported the wretched creature - the act which put her behind bars and exposed her to the anger of the other prisoners and took a deep interest in her, aided by Paul Reed and Captain Barton of the Salvation Army.  Happily, Gail got off with a two-year suspended sentence, which eased Meg's conscience considerably. (Meg was later to experience life on the other side for herself when she was convicted of perjury.)

When the women rioted to protest at the Sharon Gilmore murder cover-up, Meg was held hostage (with a garden fork held to her throat).

CHRISSIE LATHAM, played by Amanda Muggleton, was an unappetising cockney tart. unloved by anyone.  She was removed from Wentworth early in the series after she had stabbed Meg Jackson’s husband to death with a pair of scissors during a prison riot.  Eddie the Electrician identified her as the culprit.

After a while she was returned to Wentworth, with scant regard for Meg's feelings.  She was by then pregnant though the precise sequence of events was unclear.  It appeared that she had been offering herself to male inmates and members of staff of the adjacent men's prison - at one point it was suggested that even the governor might be the father and in time, after a difficult premature labour following a prison brawl, she

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<Picture> Chrissie Latham (Amanda Muggleton) helping the police with their enquiries

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brought forth a scrawny child, considered unlikely to live.  But all turned out well.  Chrissie became a doting mum, and was last seen in the maternity wing.

TONI MCNALLY, played by Pat Bishop, was the wife of the Godfather of the Melbourne underworld.  She shot the woman who had been having an affair with her husband.  On remand she took over the prison during one of Bea's regular trips to the pound, and kept the women sweet with smuggled booze and funny cigarettes.  Martha Eves was her bodyguard.  Her husband clearly had influence in the higher reaches of the prison service, because pressure was brought to bear on Davo to go easy on McNally.  Frustrated beyond endurance, Davo tendered her resignation.

In time McNally had her day in court and was acquitted - well, her husband had bought off all the witnesses - but as she left the court she was shot dead by Rosalind Coulson, daughter of the woman McNally had murdered.

MARILYN MASON, played by Margaret Laurence, was the pretty whore who is chiefly memorable for her long-running affair with Eddie the Electrician.  He had been given the run of Wentworth in order to rewire it, found Marilyn and then found excuses to prolong his presence.  They were lucky enough to discover a quiet corner of the prison roof in which to consumate [sic in HK's original] their union, and eventually, touchingly, Eddie proposed.  But their antics were discovered by the authorities, the electrical firm lost the contract and Eddie was sacked.

On her release, Marilyn set up home in a dreary bedsit with Eddie.  She struggled to find honest employment; but, demoralised by her failure, turned once more to her ponce, who returned her to her old ways.  She broke Eddie's heart and ended up in Wentworth again.  This time she was given a hard time by motherly Bea, who was disgusted at the way in which she had thrown away her chance of happiness.

DR GREG MILLER, played by Barry Quinn, was the Wentworth doctor until the wider world of medicine called him.  The women regularly helped themselves to drugs and surgical alcohol while his back was turned.  He eventually bought a run-down practice in a deprived area from an old doctor, but later settled into a country practice - though he did pop into Wentworth to tell the pre-pacemaker Judith Bryant that the chances of her dying on the operating-table were not really so great.

His later career was rather complicated.  One of the Wentworth inmates, Pat O'Connell, who was eventually paroled, had a criminal son, David - among whose friends was a car thief called Shayne (Stefan Dennis) - who escaped from prison.  To help her Greg rushed off to the house to warn them that the police were about to raid it.  He turned up at the same time as the cops, and the bad guys assumed that he had tipped them off.
 

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They determined to seek revenge.  One night they crept up to Greg's downtown surgery, waited until his head was silhouetted in the lighted window and shot him - or thought they had.  In truth they had missed the Doc completely and hit Karen Travers, with whom Greg was involved at the time.  Brain surgery followed, then convalescence, and eventually Greg and Karen married.

'MUM', played by Mary Ward, was imprisoned for helping to speed the death of her sick husband.  She was everyone's 'Mum', offering sound common sense when it was needed.  The garden was regarded as her special domain; and those

<Picture of Mum>

who remembered her couldn't plant a bulb without fond memories flooding to mind.

She was released on parole, but her nice middle-class family were embarrassed by her and she moved into a seedy bedsit.  She couldn't cope with life on the outside and contrived to get herself arrested again.  However, once she was back inside she was visited by her grand-daughter, and when 'Mum' was released again the two of them set up home together.  The girl became pregnant, and the strain of coping with all this, together with having to shelter Bea when she was on the run and have Karen Travers back in her life, eventually told.  'Mum' collapsed and died.

PAT O'CONNELL, played by Monica Maughan, was one of a family of misfits who landed in prison through inadequacy. at s son, David, who was in the neighbouring men's prison, was being beaten by the warders.  He couldn't take any more and escaped.  His mother was on parole at the time, and Dr Miller feared she would be implicated and returned to prison because of the escape.  He rushed round to the house to warn her, but it was too late.  Thus the train of events that led to Karen being shot in the head was innocently started.  Pat was a decent sort, much liked by Bea.

KEN PEARCE, played by Tom Oliver, was a reformed hard man.  After having served a long sentence for a violent crime he discovered the therapeutic power of Dramatic Art and set up a prisoners'
 

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drama organisation, touring prisons and encouraging prisoners to act out their frustrations, resentments and so on.

Paul Reed persuaded Davo to encourage Ken's efforts, but no one reckoned on hard man Pearce taking a shine to hard woman Bea Smith.  To cut a long story short, one day, while the women were engaged in cultural pursuits, Ken and Bea retired to the recreation-room broom cupboard.  They were only talking, of course; but Sharon Gilmore betrayed them, the pair were hauled out of their love-nest, and Pearce was sent packing.

At one point Pearce's daughter fell in with a fast set and showed signs of going off the rails, so he arranged for her to spend twenty-four hours in Wentworth to make her realise what lay in store for her if she persisted on her wayward course.  Bea did her Concerned Parent act, and impressed upon the girl that life behind bars was not fun.

PAUL REED, played by George Mallaby, was the Wentworth social worker, succeeding Jean Vemon (Christine Amor).  He single-handedly brought up a son, Tony, who was something of a trial to his father.  Tony became involved with a bad crowd, and was eventually imprisoned on drugs charges.  Paul Reed and Meg Jackson were soulmates, frequently united in their compassion against the hanging-is-too-good-for-these-women attitude of Vera Bennett and Jim Fletcher.  Davo once reacted sarcastically against Paul and Meg's chumminess, believing, as she always did, that they were seeking to undermine her authority.

Reed decided to go into partnership with his son in a car-repair workshop, and went off to Adelaide without letting anyone know.  Captain Barton of the Salvation Army sat in for him for a while - but when Paul finally sent in his resignation from Adelaide, a successor was appointed: Agnes Forster.

ANDREW REYNOLDS, played by John Lee, was Wentworth's answer to Mike Baldwin.  He owned a clothing factory which landed an Important Government Contract, and if he failed to meet the deadline the company would go under.  To avoid this Reynolds approached the Prison Department for some cheap labour, and Wentworth duly obliged.  Only a limited number of places were available on the 'work programme', so competition among the women was fierce and the pressure on the lucky women to behave themselves was considerable.

Reynolds seemed quite unaware that he was sitting on top of a small mound of corruption.  His supervisor, Vince Talbot, had taken a shine to Doreen.  He blackmailed her into obliging him in the storeroom.  Bea found out about it and planned revenge.  The first stage was to electrocute him by rigging one of the sewing machines; later she led an attack on him in the prison grounds.

The work programme - and Reynolds's future livelihood - were jeopardised when Noelene Bourke pushed her luck too far.  She guessed that Kay White, Reynolds's assistant, was stealing bolts of cloth from the factory and asked for a piece of the action as the price of her silence.  White
 

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agreed, then betrayed her; and the outcome was that Vera Bennett ordered all the women back to the prison.  There were hasty phone-calls between the factory and Wentworth. and the work programme was saved.

Davo's judgement was no doubt clouded by the fact that she was being wined and dined by Reynolds.  Reynolds asked the women to do unauthorised work (for ten dollars a week) on garments that were not part of the government contract.  The union representative, Hazel Crow, discovered what was going on, protested to Vera and threatened a strike.  Armed with this information - and heartened by the promise of a strike that could only serve to kill off the work programme - Vera confronted Davo with the news that her boyfriend was a crook.

Strong words were exchanged between Davo and Reynolds, but the project was allowed to continue because Davo knew how much it meant to the women.  Reynolds then discovered that his assistant., Kay White, had scarpered with the payroll.  It transpired that she was a compulsive gambler, and had 'borrowed' the payroll to back a horse.  The horse actually won, and Kay returned to the factory with her win nings, intending to put the money back into the safe.  But she did not know that her 'borrowing' had been discovered, and she was arrested.  She protested that. as a compulsive gambler, she should be treated as a psychiatric case and not as a criminal.  But it was all too late for Reynolds: his company was falling apart, Davo had finally rejected him, and his wife - returning suddenly to find Davo too close to Andrew for comfort and the company in ruins - had decided to divorce him.

BEATRICE ('BEA') ALICE SMITH, played by Val Lehman, was the Mrs Big (in every sense) of Wentworth.  Big in size, voice and brainpower.  There were occasional challenges to her authority - anyone who could offer the women booze and funny cigarettes smuggled in from outside could usually lure their allegiance away from Bea for a little while, especially when she was paying one of her regular visits to the pound.  But, strictly speaking, Queen Bea ran the place, and did so from the beginning of the series. Paul Reed grasped very quickly that if he wanted to get any scheme working in the prison he had to sell it to Bea first.

Bea's greatest asset was her patience.  She was prepared to bide her time, find exactly the right moment at which to strike, and then act fast and hard.  The others were frequently bewildered by Bea's apparent indifference when someone was attempting to usurp her authority or acting in such a way as to risk making life hell for everyone.  But Bea's willingness to wait and watch always paid off.

Bea was inside for double murder: she killed her husband's mistress and (as soon as she was released on parole) she killed her husband, who had, she felt neglected their daughter and was therefore responsible for the youngster's dalliance with drugs.  But Bea had her hair done and

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<Picture> Bea Smith (Val Lehman) as defiant as ever.  Gentle 'Mum' (Mary Ward) can only watch

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bought new clothes first.  Because of this background, everyone knew that kids and drugs were likely always to arouse an immediate and deep response from Bea.  She was ruthless with drug-pushers in Wentworth, befriended imprisoned mums, and was foremost in the persecution of child-beater Gail Summers (though she softened after Gail's impassioned speech on the sheer hell of being a mum).

Her motherly instincts were never far below the surface: she was ever ready to protect the weak against the bully - and exacted revenge for factory supervisor Vince Talbot's rape of Doreen by electrocuting him at the factory and then leading an assault on him in the prison grounds (for which all the women lost a week's remission).

Life in Wentworth consisted largely of trials of strength between Davo and Bea.  Even when Bea was sent to the pound and (in theory) cut off from all contact with the rest of the prison she managed to control the women.  Meg Jackson, like Paul Reed, believed in collaborating with Bea to keep the women in line; Vera and Fletch saw her as the root of all evil and never missed an opportunity to put her in solitary.  At the factory Reynolds annoyed Meg and Vera by calling Bea 'the boss' and treating her as such.

Bea was once involved in a fight with Monica Ferguson, in the course of which she was stabbed.  Once in hospital, she lost no time in escaping, and had fun for a few weeks before being recaptured.  The police were eventually told of her whereabouts by the girl next door - played by Val Lehman's daughter - who resented Bea's attempts to mother her.)

Bea also discovered true love in the shape of Ken Pearce.  Paul Reed sold her the idea of drama classes, about which she became very enthusiastic once she had met the organiser. (Previous schemes, for a prison newspaper and the manufacture of fluffy toy had not fared well.) Soon romance was in the air, and the other women were obliged to improvise plays and wade through A Midsummer Night's Dream simply to provide scope for love to blossom.  In the course of this strange affair Bea put Ken's wayward daughter on the straight and narrow for him.  Of course, this affair could not last; one day Bea and Ken used the women's cultural efforts - on this occasion an art class by Kerry Vincent - as a diversion while they sneaked into the recreation-room broom cupboard for some stolen intimate moments.  Sharon Gilmore betrayed them, and Ken was banished from the prison for ever.

GAIL SUMMERS, played by Susanne Howarth, was the pathetic mother driven to child abuse.  Meg Jackson moved next door to the Summers family and soon discovered that the husband was a drunken bum and the wife, Gail, clearly inadequate, unable to keep the home tidy and look after her kids.  The frequent rows kept Meg awake on many a night, until she eventually decided to investigate.  She spotted bruises on one of the children, and concluded that his father was beating him.  She notified the authorities, who arrived at the Summerses' flat to confront

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the brute of a father - only to discover the kid was being beaten by his mother.  Gail was arrested and remanded to Wentworth.

At the prison, in view of the sensitive nature of the offence and the fact that crims take a very dim view of child abusers, Davo decided that the truth should be kept quiet.  She had not reckoned on miserable childless Vera, who took the earliest opportunity to let the women know precisely what Gail had done.  They began to persecute her though a long and heartfelt speech on the misery of motherhood did soften them somewhat.  Jim Fletcher, whose own children were killed in an explosion, was not very sympathetic, but Meg, having caused the woman to be arrested in the first place, worked off her guilt by being very solicitous for the girl's welfare.  When Gail was given a two-year suspended sentence, Meg could scarcely conceal her relief.

KAREN TRAVERS, played by Peita Toppano, was the well-educated, caring, decent, intelligent woman who really ought to have been governor.  Unfortunately, she was a prisoner.  Her sophistication (compared with the others) and her readiness to stand up for herself made for an uneasy relationship with Davo; while Vera deeply resented the privileges accorded to Karen simply because she could read and write, and gloated whenever Karen's plans were thwarted.

Karen became the object of Franky Doyle's affections, but was repelled by the very idea of lesbian passion.

In time Karen was permitted to attend university on a day-release scheme though this privilege was suspended at the slightest hint of trouble inside the prison.  At 'uni' she had to lie about her background, and things became rather tricky whenever any of her fellow-students suggested that they might go back to her place.

Her tutor at 'uni' was twisted psychologist Peter Clements (Carrillo Gantner).  He knew all about her background, and this gave him the idea of applying for permission to conduct research within Wentworth - with disastrous results.

Eventually Karen was released on parole, and at first went to stay with an aunt.  In time she was taken up by a civil rights activist who was a notorious lesbian.  One of this woman's pet projects was a halfway house in which women released from prison could adjust to life in the outside world.  She recruited Karen to help her.  Karen moved into her house as her secretary.  When a property became available, Karen moved in as warden: her first charge was Doreen.

It was during this time that she renewed her friendship with Greg Miller. (They had been romantically attached before Karen actually went to prison, and when they were both in Wentworth they were very chummy.) Greg had also kept in touch with 'Mum', who at that time was sharing a flat with her very pregnant grand-daughter.  As the girl's time approached, Greg persuaded Karen to move in and take some of the strain off 'Mum'.

As his relationship with Karen deep-

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ened, Greg left the prison service and bought a run-down practice in a deprived area. but he was persuaded to make occasional calls at the prison.  He became caught up in the troubles of Pat O’Connell, whose son was on the run.  In attempting to protect Pat he innocently initiated the train of events which led to Karen being shot in the head instead of him.  She pulled through and he married her.

KERRY VINCENT, played by Penny Downie, was transferred to Wentworth with special privileges on account of her remarkable artistic talent, after staff and prisoners had been introduced to the delights of culture by Ken Pearce.  In fact Kerry Vincent was a mediocrity, but an unscrupulous agent had spotted an opportunity to do himself a lot of good.  In time Kerry discovered the truth about the agent, hit him with an ashtray and then tried to kill herself

One comic sidelight: Vera, grudgingly acknowledging the girl's talent, informed Kerry that she had herself been a bit of an artist in her youth, and Kerry presented her with one of her own works.  This canvas was eventually used as part of Davo's 'sting' to teach the agent a lesson.  Desperate to acquire all Kerry's work, he paid an inflated price for it.

LYN WARNER, played by Kerry Armstrong, was disaster-prone.  She drifted from one catastrophe to another, but she did not gain our sympathy in the way that Doreen did.

A country girl, she was the first

<Picture of Lynn>

Wentworth woman to obtain work outside the prison: she went to work at a local market-garden, but the boss's son took a shine to her, the father disapproved, and the whole scheme collapsed.

Her farmer father gradually rebuilt his relationship with her, and in time she was released to return to the family home.  She was not out for long.

When Doreen returned to prison after her time on the run, bitter about the death of Franky, she decided to try to be a hard case.  The only woman in the prison she could really terrorise was Lyn Warner, whom she called 'The Wonk' because ...

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well, Lyn Wamer was odd.  This couldn't last, of course: Doreen was essentially too good-natured to keep up this act.  On the eve of Warner's release, she slept with Doreen, who was feeling very lonely.  Next morning they were found in bed by Fletch, who clearly believed he had uncovered a mass of human degradation.  In fact it was completely innocent.

Lyn set up home with a crim from the neighbouring men's prison.  The boyfriend and his mate planned a wages snatch, and when the driver cried off at the last minute the boyfriend persuaded Lyn - who was well advanced in pregnancy - to drive the getaway car.  Everything went wrong, and Lyn found herself back in prison.

ANNE YATES, played by Kirsty Child, was a Wentworth warder who went bad and was sacked.  Vera later met up with her again and, at a party in Yates's flat, met her business associate, George Lucas, and thought she had at last found true love.  Unfortunatey, the business was drug-trafficking, but Vera didn't discover this until it was almost too late.  The whole racket fell apart, Yates was arrested, and Vera was deserted by her new boyfriend, who left her tied and gagged in her flat.
Now back at Wentworth as a prisoner, Yates was despised by the other women and one day, in an attempt to escape from them, she hid in a giant tumble-drier, accidentally locked herself in and suffocated.