Matt Crawford. Remember him? How could we forget!
Hannah Ratcliffe
Assistant Producer, The Archers
"Hello, Pusscat. Have you missed me?"
Matt. Is. Back.
In early 2015 he disappeared from Ambridge with only a scrawled note of “Sorry, Pusscat” as a means of goodbye to his long-term partner Lilian. While she was on holiday he cleaned out their bank accounts and took anything of value from their home, the Dower House.
After a few days he sent her a text to say he was in Costa Rica and he wasn’t coming back. Lilian was heartbroken – as well as broke!
Read more about when Matt left Lilian
But now the cigar-smoking, Sun Tzu-reading, brought-up-the-hard-way, Londoner that is Mr Matt Crawford is back – no doubt with wide smile set off by a fresh Costa Rican tan.
How listeners reacted to Matt's return
Matt and Lilian first came into contact with one another when Matt was pushing through Borchester Land’s Grange Spinney housing development. Lilian owned a ransom strip of land which Matt had to buy from her to get the houses built.
In fact, Matt goes back further with Brian than he does with Lilian. Matt was part of the original consortium which approached Brian to set-up Borchester Land in 1997. It wasn’t until 2004 that he and Lilian became an item.
Tiger and Pusscat
At the time Matt was a married man. Jennifer was hugely disapproving but that didn’t stop Lilian bringing him round for supper at Home Farm. In the first flush of their relationship, Matt bought Lilian a bouquet of tiger lilies which prompted Lilian to call him her “big, fierce tiger” and in return he called her his “naughty, little pussycat”.
The nicknames Tiger and Pusscat stuck but their relationship was tempestuous. Nevertheless, they remained with one another – even when Matt went to prison for fraud.
The straw that broke the back of the Bellamy-Crawford camel was an affair of Lilian’s. It wasn't just any old affair but a liaison with Matt’s half-brother, Paul. The couple grew apart; with Matt keeping quiet that he knew about the affair, and Lilian trying to hide her grief after Paul’s sudden death. Eventually, it all came out in a blazing row while they were on holiday in Montenegro. Soon after that Matt took himself off to Russia for business and then later high-tailed it to Central America.
