Homeandawayfan.

Bobby Simpson was my fave female character and still is. Here in the UK her death episodes aired in Feb 1994, I was almost 12 then and remember them like yesterday. Also she was the long lost daughter of Detention Don and the already established niece of Flamin Alf. To me Bobby was more iconic than Pippa and Ailsa even if them two were my faves after Bobby.

Fisher was a local JR type figure when the show began. It was only in the late 1990s that he was more chilled out.

I have some 1988 episodes on VHS with Gary Samuels in it and Flathead told Tom and Gary off for arguing in the corridor. And Floss cheating by pretending she had gone for a long run when she had got the bus. Fisher was quite fearsome when the show began. More fearsome than later.

He could return for a guest stint and admonish the Braxtons then reminisce with Maz and says he now has a new woman in his life. Him and Alf could go fishing and maybe for once Alf may catch something.

Maz, Irene and Alf all need a decent storyline.

I dont know how Don makes his money now but he must be getting a good pension from his headmaster days as well as a state pension. He may have met someone else in the almost 6 years he has been away as hardly anything has been mentioned of him since his latest departure. Norman Coburn still does some theatre on occasions so is semi retired. I think he is married so lives with his wife. Don could come back and bang the Braxtons heads together.

Maz is not an original character but is almost one as she first appeared just over a year into the serial's run so has been in the show on and off for 24 years now.

I have been watching Emmerdale for years and personally I find the show is in a mess at the moment and thanks to Stuart Blackburn. Now he has just left lets hope things will improve under Kate Oates as Stuart has tried to turn the show into a Northern EastEnders with endless doom and gloom and urbane characters like the hideous Spencers and Robbie. There is too much emphasis on the characters that are under 40 years of age and great ones like Alan Turner, Betty and Edna seem to be in the background. There is too much emphasis on certain characters such as Chas, Debbie, Cameron, Priya, Cain, Rachel and Jai. It does feel like Debbiedale now or Chasdale. Emmerdale has had some great characters in the past like the Sugden brothers, Annie, Amos and Henry and Seth. Besides Turner, Pollard and Betty I dont see any of the other current characters as legendary as they were.

I am not sure they should have had them split up so soon after they wed but then again the problems they had would be enough to test any marriage, Byron being ill and that was after Marilyn's post natal depression. Marilyn likes older men though, her recent interest in John shows that. Her and Don did make a good couple age gap aside as they knew each other for years before and he used to be her headmaster.

Norman will be 76 in March, Don being 8 years younger. I dont think Flathead would fit in now with all the youngsters dominating the show, and he is probably happy living in the Whitsundays with June and goin travelling away from the dangers of Sumemr Bay lol. Alf is a glorified extra so I dont think Don would do much apart from maybe have a yarn with Alf about the old days. The days of Flathead being the Summer Bay High uncouth Principal turned nicer Principal are long gone.

I know H&A began filming in July 1987, 6 months before the first episode broadcast but I did hear the show was concieved as early as 1986. If so would anyone know when in 1986 Alan Bateman thought of a new show for Channel 7 which would turn out to be H&A? I have googled but nothing. Just a month would do. Talking of Alan Bateman he would have been 77 on 2nd January.

H&A has become too dark and destructive in the past couple of years, too many killings, fires and stalkers. 20 years ago if someone found out their girlfriend was cheating they'd just either punch the third party a few times or play a revenge prank on them by slashing their car tyres and maybe then decking them. In modern day H&A it seems to be someone getting killed in a revenge plot.

I feel that 1995 and 1996 were transitional years with many classic characters going including Roxy, Shane, Angel, Damien, Tug, Adam, Finlay, Sarah and Nathan. When Angel left for British shores I went off the show a bit and enjoyed Jack Wilson but after Angel left I feel he had run his course and was just a glorified extra. Also Sam seemed to have run his course. 1996 saw replacement youngsters such as Steph, Joey, Casey, Justine and that other girl who hung out with Joey and to me they did not cut the mustard like their predecessors Angel, Shane, Damien, Tug etc. I sort of have a like and dislike of Fisher and Marilyn. I think once their marriage ended Fisher became a more positive person and was a total pussycat in 2000 compared to 1990.

I saw Kevin Kennedy (who used to play curly watts from 1983 to 2003) in We Will rock You at the Dominion Theatre on Thursday night and stood at the stage door at the back and met him and he posed for a photo with me. My first face to face encounter with a Corrie star.

Donald Fisher is 67 now, 68 in Feb 2013. I wonder what the character himself is up to nowadays, probably travelling or mowing the lawn every day lol. I hope Norman Coburn is up for a return to the Bay but I suppose he does not want to now. Fisher and Alf are my 2 fave characters ever in H&A.

Sunny but cold. I visited Australia in 2007 and it was cold but sunny. Came to Sydney, the city of Home And Away. I should have gone to Palm Beach.

I know that Fisher is supposed to be younger than the actor who was playing him, but it's can be that only a few years later, that the writers decided so. So it means that Fisher was 25 when he started teaching so it's normal. I am trying to find out any more refs to Fishers age other than his 50th in 1995, however I dont think there was any. If he was 50 in early 1995 he was born in early 1945 (just before the end of the war) so started teaching in 1963 when he was 18 which is the age you could start teaching. He must have left school at 15 then began teaching at 18 in 1963. Fisher said in 1994 that he had been teaching for 30 years and he would have been 49 by then and that ties in with his 1963 date he gave for teaching. In 2015 Don and Alf will both turn 70.