CHARACTER PROFILE: DEIRDRE FISHER

68 year old Deirdre Fisher is an alcoholic and a misery. She loves all the gossip that goes on around Thatch Close and resents her Tanya who lives with her. Rumour has it that Tanya’s mother abandoned Tanya on Deirdre’s doorstep as a baby for Deirdre to look after her. To punish Tanya, Deirdre often locks Tanya in the attic for days on end. It’s not long before poor Tanya finds out the horrible truth behind Deirdre’s big secret and the lies she’s kept hidden for years.

Back in the forties Derrick Malcolm Fisher decided that after all his school days of being bullied, he wanted to become a woman. He hoped it would put the past as Derrick behind him. He started by changing his name to Deirdre Margaret Fisher and grew his hair long. Deirdre came across a surgeon that offered Deirdre his own back street fake boob surgery. It wasn’t heard of back then and Deirdre thought it was the perfect opportunity to really say goodbye to the awful life she once had. She planned to one day get her penis chopped off and complete the job.

Ten miserable years drifted on. Deirdre realised she still was no happier in her bitter and sad existence. She felt the boob job she had all those years back had not got rid of her demons. She felt uncomfortable and disgusted in her self, having the top part completed but still no change downstairs. Deirdre had been living in Thatch Close for over ten years and she was one of the first to move into the close, when the new houses were originally built on old farm land. Over the years Deirdre had invested in a dozen different styled wigs, in an attempt to create what she thought resembled a pretty woman. However the neighbours would laugh and make fun of her. She would often not come out of the house and have her curtains drawn everyday.

One day she found a young girl hiding in her garden shed for shelter. Her name was May and Deirdre took her under her wing. She put her up in the house and as time went on although May tried to find work and a flat, she had a drug addiction and couldn’t cope. Deirdre had taken a shine to her. For the first time Deirdre was able to open up about her terrible past. The neighbours took offence as Deidre at the time, was far too old to be seen in a relationship with May who was 18. They made fun of Deirdre, calling her a pervert. May was soon pregnant and after numerous rows with Deirdre, over the mistake they had made over a drunken intimate evening. The day after the birth, May left her baby girl on the doorstep for Deidre to look after. May felt she had failed as a mother and run away. Deirdre has always resented the child. She named her Tanya, a name Deirdre’s friend Dot had come up with one afternoon.