Debbie Wilkins


Debbie "Debs" Wilkins is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Shirley Cheriton, from 21 March 1985 to 14 May 1987.
Debbie is Walford's first upwardly mobile character. She has an on/off relationship with her ill-fated boyfriend Andy O'Brien and she tends to be a bit too pretentious for the working class locals of Albert Square.

Storylines

Debbie moves to Albert Square with her boyfriend, nurse Andy O'Brien in March 1985. At the time of their arrival, they are the only upwardly mobile residents. They throw cocktail parties, get involved in campaigns and protests, and jog in matching track suits, much to the bemusement of the locals. Many of Debbie’s working class neighbours find her stuck-up; none of them know that Debbie had actually been raised in a Walford council estate, not far from Albert Square. Debbie and Andy have a rocky relationship. Ambitious and determined, Debbie's interests focus upon success, whilst Andy wants to settle down and start a family. When Debbie leaves a steady job as a bank clerk in order to start her own business and make fast money, Andy is furious as they then have insufficient funds to repay their mortgage. Various rows erupt, and Debbie soon discovers that starting her own business is not as easy as she had expected. Without regular work, Debbie begins to struggle financially.
Andy asks Debbie to marry him and for Christmas 1985, he buys her an engagement ring; however, she is mugged on New Year's Eve and it is stolen. Andy subsequently becomes over-protective, which infuriates Debbie as it goes against her ideals of female equality. The situation between Debbie and Andy is complicated further by local policeman Roy Quick, who begins wooing Debbie early in 1986. This leads to Debbie and Andy having an open relationship; dating other people, but living together. The situation is not ideal however, as Andy gets jealous seeing Debbie pursued. Roy is infatuated with Debbie and asks her to marry him several times, but Debbie declines when she realises she wants to marry Andy after all. Debbie and Andy's happiness does not to last as in August 1986 Andy runs in front of a truck to save a toddler from being hit and is killed. Debbie’s grief is compounded with guilt as her last words to Andy during a row are "drop dead". Debbie is unable to pay her mortgage after Andy dies so she moves in with her friend Naima Jeffery.
In 1987 the women of Walford are targeted by a man known as the "Walford attacker". Sharon Watts, Sue Osman and Pat Wicks all have encounters with the attacker and in April that year, Debbie is attacked too. While she is alone in the launderette, the "Walford attacker" attempts to assault her. Debbie manages to ward him off using self-defence, which leads to his eventual capture. Debbie's heroic act leads to her meeting Detective Terry Rich, who is investigating the case. He asks Debbie to act as his girlfriend in an under-cover stake-out being held in a restaurant, and after getting to know each other they begin dating. When Terry is transferred to another division in Crawley, Debbie decides to leave with him. They get engaged and throw a celebratory leaving party in The Queen Vic, departing in May 1987. Debbie's last words to her friends and neighbours are a paraphrasing of Rhett Butler's famous line in the 1939 film Gone With The Wind, when she says "You know love, quite frankly I don't give a damn"! Two months after leaving Walford, Debbie writes to Naima to tell her that she is pregnant; Debbie and Terry marry off-screen.

Character creation and development

Debbie Wilkins was one of the original twenty-three characters invented by the creators of EastEnders, Tony Holland and Julia Smith. The character of Debbie along with her boyfriend Andy O'Brien were an attempt by Holland and Smith to represent the influx of upwardly mobile people that were opting to move to the usually working-class areas of the East End of London. Gentrification of the East End was on the increase in the 1980s, and in Holland's experience, the new, wealthier residents were never welcomed or truly accepted within the community, and this was what he hoped to convey on-screen with these two characters.
Debbie's original character outline as written by Smith and Holland appeared in an abridged form in their book, EastEnders: The Inside Story.
Holland and Smith required the character of Debbie to be bossy, interfering and a definite outsider. They had both worked with the actress Shirley Cheriton on their previous television series about nurses, entitled Angels. Cheriton had proved an extremely popular addition to the cast of Angels and had secured herself a large number of fans. Both Holland and Smith perceived Cheriton to be a "rung or two up from her working-class origins", but she was not posh either, which was perfect for the part of Debbie. They initially worried that Cheriton would have reservations about playing a person who was not immediately liked by everyone, but Cheriton liked the role so she was instantly hired.
The characters of Andy and Debbie were created to represent a young couple with upwardly mobile pretensions, but it was decided that the formula did not work and both characters were eventually written out of the show. Andy ended up being the first main character to be killed off in 1986, just over a year after the show began. During this time, rumours began to circulate in the British press that Ross Davidson was axed because Julia Smith disapproved of the off-screen relationship he was having with Shirley Cheriton. This was subsequently denied in EastEnders: The Inside Story. Debbie remained in the show for another year as the writers tried unsuccessfully to reintegrate the character after Andy's departure. Debbie eventually departed after being married off to a policeman played by Gary Whelan, which coincidentally happened to her character Katy in Angels years earlier; marrying a policeman also played by Gary Whelan.