Cindy Cunningham
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Cindy Cunningham was a fictional character on the Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks. She was played by actress Laura Crossley from 1995 and then by Stephanie Waring from 1996-2001.
[edit] Character History
Life was going quite smoothly for Cindy until the night of her sixteenth birthday, when she succumbed to Lee 'Stan' Stanley’s advances and unwittingly became pregnant. Cindy concealed the pregnancy from her parents and, when she finally gave birth, abandoned her child and tried to carry on as normal. Her parents reunited mother and child forcibly, but a desperate Cindy tried to suffocate baby Holly. The shock of this made her realise that she did in fact genuinely love her baby.
Just as Cindy’s life was finally going well again, she got together with the decorator Sean Tate, who proceeded to mistreat Holly, which came to a head when Holly burnt herself on a firework. The incident was brought to the attention of Social Services, who would continue to hound Cindy until she was force to leave Hollyoaks in November 2000.
A devastated Cindy was abandoned at the airport by Sean, losing all hope of a life aboard when Holly was prevented from leaving because she did not have a passport. Instead, Cindy returned to Hollyoaks and tried once again to adapt to the role of a single mother. As Cindy settled into her new business venture, "Steam Team", she met and fell head over heels for Ben Davies, a trainee fire-fighter who had recently moved to the area.
Still juggling work and motherhood, Cindy was working at The Loft and unable to find a babysitter, so she had to take Holly to work with her. She left Holly sleeping in the club’s cloakroom and, unbeknown to Cindy, Holly found an ecstasy tablet and swallowed it. As Holly was rushed to hospital, Cindy realised that it would only be a matter of time before Social Services would try and to take Holly away from her.
A desperate Cindy concluded that she had no choice but to flee the country, as she could not bear to lose her child. She managed to persuade Ben to pick her up from the hospital and, as they made a mad dash to the airport, Cindy knocked Anna Green over. Desperate to get away, Cindy left Anna for dead, drove to the airport and left with Holly.
Ultimately, Cindy was a girl who was forced to grow up before her time, but the child she had resented more than anything was eventually the person for whom she gave up everything.
