Hazel Adair, who has died aged 95, was a pioneer of soap opera on British television. She was the co-creator of Sixpenny Corner, Britain’s first daily soap; Compact, the first serial to feature a regular black character; and, most famously, Crossroads.
In 1964, she and Peter Ling devised Crossroads based on an idea he had after driving past a board advertising the opening of a motel, an American phenomenon then new to Britain. Reg Watson, a producer at the ITV company ATV, which had studios in Birmingham, had been trying to persuade his boss, Lew Grade, to let him make a soap like the US daytime serials for five years and was finally given the green light. Adair and Ling presented them with The Midland Road, following the lives of staff and guests at a motel in the fictional village of King’s Oak, outside Birmingham, run by its widowed owner with her son and daughter.
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