On this Day 1975: 13-month pregnancy

OTD, March 25th, 1975…

In Crossroads Jane Rossington’s character of Jill Harvey was noted to have had an 11-month pregnancy and viewers were left baffled. This happened after Jane fell pregnant in real life, and then suffered a miscarriage – however, the pregnancy wasn’t written out for the character. Jane then fell pregnant again, so the soap just carried on with Jane’s real-birth timeline for Jill’s fictional baby. Sarah Jane Harvey was finally introduced in August 1974, 11 months after the original on-screen announcement. However, this baffling fiction a few months later became a reality – and in an ironic twist the real-life baby was also named Sarah-Jane!

The real-life event in March 1975 – just seven months on from the fictional situation – saw the record pregnancy, lasting over thirteen months, finally result in Jacqueline Haddock giving birth to a daughter in a Wolverhampton hospital.

ATV Today captures footage of baby Sarah Jane in hospital. David Eggleton interviews Jacqueline who is glad that her pregnancy is over and says that she won’t be having any more children.

As a footnote, Jane’s daughter Sorrel played the fictional Sarah Jane from birth until 1983 in Crossroads.