Carmel Jackson

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EastEnders character
Carmel Jackson
Portrayed by Judith Jacob
Duration 1986–1989
Date of birth October 1959
Marital status Separated
Occupation Health Visitor
Family Matthew, Darren, Maxine, Junior, Aisha

Carmel Jackson (née Roberts) was a fictional character in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. She was played by Judith Jacob.

Carmel, a Health Visitor, was forever getting everyone's problems dumped on her. She married the man of her dreams in 1989, but he turned out to be violent and abusive. After six months of suffering, she wisely left him. She eventually left Walford to help someone else - her newly widowed mother.

Contents

[edit] History

Carmel was first seen in Walford in June 1986 when she was assigned as Michelle Fowler's health visitor. West Indian by origin, British by education, Carmel was unmistakable with her long dreadlocks and colourful clothing.

Carmel was kept extremely busy in Walford. She was landed with all the long-term losers - Mary Smith, the prostitute, who had had her baby, Annie taken away from her; Sue Osman, the mentally unstable mother, who became obesessed with her baby, Ali's welfare; Donna Ludlow, the self-destructing heroin addict and Arthur Fowler among others.

In December 1986 Carmel started dating the much younger student Kelvin Carpenter, much to his parents' dismay. Carmel later moved into the ground floor flat at number 3 Albert Square and she and Kelvin lived with each other for a while. However, their age difference soon began to take its toll on Carmel, who quickly grew tired of Kelvin's immature behaviour and she ended up throwing her toyboy out, right after she'd publicly dumped him in The Queen Vic.

[edit] Family problems

No sooner had Carmel moved into the Square, when her brother Darren arrived and managed to convince her to house him and his two young children, Junior and Aisha, in her one bedroom flat. Darren and Carmel were the complete opposites of each other; Darren was incosiderate and often dabbled on the wrong side of the law. He was regularly involved in dodgy scams, such as porn video laundering and instigating a counterfeit money ring. Carmel would despair over his thoughtless behaviour and criminal antics, but her rants usually fell on deaf ears.

Carmel was often left accountable for her brother's actions and she was also regularly left with the responsibility of caring for his two young children. Junior proved to be extremely troublesome and after Carmel discovered that he'd been playing truant from school for several weeks, she shopped her brother to the truancy officer - showing him up as an irresponsble parent. This didn't go down well with Darren, and he was even more annoyed when Carmel refused flatly to put up with his deviancy any longer. Animosity between the two increased when Carmel started dating Matthew Jackson later in the year. Darren was furious and couldn't condone his sister dating a white man. Carmel defended Matthew against her brother's inverted racism and after he got into yet more trouble for conning Ian Beale, she decided enough was enough and booted him and his children out of her flat. After this Darren then mysteriously disappeared abandoning his two children in the process. The children were initially left in the care of Carmel and Darren's parents away from Walford.

[edit] Domestic Violence

Over the following months Carmel and Matthew began to grow closer. In September 1988, Matthew moved into Carmel's flat and the two were soon engaged. Matthew was loved by everyone; he even managed to convince Carmel's racist father that he was genuine and it became clear that Carmel was quite bessotted with him.

Carmel began planning for their iminent wedding. She wanted to invite Matthew's estranged mother to their wedding, but Matthew was totally opposed to the idea. His mother had abandoned him at 15 and he had had no subsequent contact wth her. His ire raised at her mere mention, but Carmel pursued it, which caused Matthew to blow his top and viscously scream at her. Carmel was left dumbstruck at the sudden outburst, but this was only a small taster of what was to come in the following months.

The two married in January 1989, but the day was ruined when Matthew saw his mother was in attendance. Carmel had got in contact with her, thinking that Matthew would be pleased to have her at the wedding. She was wrong and Matthew was furious. After shunning their reception party, he threatened to pack his things and leave. Carmel could not understand his reaction and when she attempted to stop him leaving he grabbed her by the throat, held her up against a wall and berrated her for her interferrance. Carmel was petrified, and upon seeing her fear Matthew immediately released her and began apologising profusely for his violent outburst. Carmel was shaken, but was convinced that his apology was sincere, so she dropped the matter.

Things did not go much better for the newly weds in the following months. Carmel's selfish sister Maxine had gotten in touch and informed Carmel that her parents could no longer cope with caring for Junior and Aisha. She stated that if Carmel didn't take the children in, then they would be put into care. Matthew was strongly opposed to this and refused to have them in his life. However, the following month, Carmel's father suffered from a stroke and so Maxine turned up with both the children and told Carmel she had no choice but to take them on. Matthew resented the fact that Carmel's time was being diverted from him and he found it increasingly difficult to put up with Junior's presence in partiular. The two would regularly clash and this in turn caused major animosity between him and Carmel. This eventually evoked Matthew back into violence and he punched Carmel in the face one night during an argument about Junior. Carmel was left with a heavily bruised face, but yet again a tearful Matthew managed to convince her to forgive him. Matthew's behaviour continued to alternate from contrite and caring to hot-tempered and violent, for seemingly no reason. Nevertheless, Carmel remained with him as she believed she could help him combat and contain his rage. Despite his despicable behaviour, she still deeply loved him.

It wasn't long before Junior had worked out why his aunt was constantly covered in bruises. He tried to put a stop to it by informing various people about the abuse, which didn't impress Matthew and only made his temper worse. Matthew began to grow irrationally jealous of Carmel's friendship with Dr. David Samuels, and during a family meal one night, he began to get violent towards her in front of Junior. In a desperate bid to protect his petrified aunt, Junior ended up stabbing Matthew with a kitchen knife. Matthew spent time in hospital, but once again he managed to convinvce Carmel that he'd changed and she allowed him to come home when he had recovered. She tried to get Matthew to seek professional help, but Matthew was appauled by the idea, and true to form, he began smashing up the house and threatening her with more violence. This was the last straw for Carmel and she wisely decided to end their relationship. She threw Matthew out and he left Walford in July 1989.

The following month Carmel's father died, so she left Walford with Junior and Aisha to tend to her grieving mother. Her last appearance was in August 1989.

[edit] Family

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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