(Brenda Fricker)
Megan Roach was working in Holby City when "Casualty" first opened it's doors in 1986 as a SEN (State Enrolled Nurse) and was the most experienced member of staff - even though her low grade meant that she did a lot of the dirty work. At home we saw her as a busy house-wife, running after her husband Ted, a taxi driver, and her three sons. During series one we saw Megan discover she had cervical cancer, which she had treated through a hysterectomy. However it was she who acted as the shoulder-to-cry-on when her close friend Duffy told her all about her rape - something she did not do with any of the other members of staff. This incident was typical of Megan; everyone in the team seemed to love her and depend on her.
Series 2 saw Megan struggling to make ends meet and moonlighting at a nursing home to earn extra cash. Also, despite her 25th wedding anniversary passing, her relationship with Ted was coming under strain; he wanted to move to Cheltenham but she wanted to stay in Holby with her friends and rejected his plans. It was perhaps this crisis at home which made Megan leave the safety bar down on a trolley - a mistake which cost the life of a patient. This left Megan with a negligence case to cope with, but on the last episode of the series, we learned that she had been cleared.
By series 3 her home life was collapsing. Ted had decided to go to Cheltenham regardless of her feelings and she saw only him once a fortnight. Megan became reliant on tranquilisers which she stole from the hospital and when she snapped at a complaining patient, Ewart Plimmer, the consultant at the time, knew there was something wrong and had a sympathising word with her. After this, he visited the newly opened observation ward where he had a heart attack. Megan's attempts at mouth-to-mouth resuscitation failed and he was pronounced dead in the closing scenes of the episode. Later in the series Megan became a grandmother, but was almost sacked due to budget cuts.
Budget cuts were again the issue in series 4 when Megan talked to newspaper reporters about the staff shortages and faced a disciplinary hearing. She was quite lucky that it was Charlie Fairhead who discovered her stealing Valium earlier on in the series and made her flush her supply away, because if it had been management she would have surely been sacked.
Series 5 was Megan's last and perhaps her most dramatic. In the first episode we saw her burying her husband Ted, although she soon had other problems to contend with such as her viscious neighbour who had been neglecting her small son; it was only social worker Tony Walker who stopped Megan from being attacked. We also saw Megan dishing out words of wisdom to Charlie, telling him his heavy drinking had to be stopped. She began an affair with Tony Walker, even though she knew he was married and was a lot younger than her. He tempted her with trips abroad and when he got a job in Manchester he asked her to join him. After being held hostage and watching Charlie get shot, she gave in to his demands and left Holby.
We last heard from Megan in series 12 when she returned for Charlie and Baz's wedding. She had left nursing and was managing a fitness centre. It was planned that within a year she was to become a senior partner in the business and she described herself as "very happy." She did not mention Tony, and so I'm not sure if things worked out between them.
