Tricia Armstrong

Tricia Armstrong was played by Tracy Brabin and appeared on Coronation Street from 7th March 1994 until 2nd May 1997.

Biography
Tricia was first introduced to the Street when her wayward son Jamie was suspected of shoplifting at Bettabuys. Tricia befriended the hapless Curly Watts primarily to get Jamie off the hook, and also because she thought that an assistant manager would make good boyfriend material. However, the relationship did not last, and when Tricia's aggressive husband Carl arrived home, he beat up Jack Duckworth - who had been babysitting Jamie - while Tricia and Curly were out on a date.

In January 1995, Tricia moved into the Street, occupying No. 1, then owned by Mike Baldwin, and befriended Vera Duckworth, although they had their fair share of arguments. Tricia picked fights with everybody, especially "do-gooders" who tried to help her. She was eventually evicted from No. 1 by Mike in July, but not before she had emptied a chamber pot over him. She still managed to end up in one of the Crimea Street flats that he owned, supervised by Deirdre Rachid who befriended her and Jamie.

However, money was always short for Tricia, and she had trouble keeping a job down. She tried to get money from Mike by offering to have sex with him, but he wasn't interested. In January 1996, she was sent to prison for a week for not paying a TV licence fine. On release, she was overjoyed to see Jamie, and confided to Deirdre that she wanted to have a nice bubble bath so that she could "feel like a woman again".

Things looked bleak again for Tricia the following May, as the DSS stopped her benefit when she was caught working as a cleaner for Mike Baldwin. Fortunately, he came to the rescue again and took her on as a machinist in his new factory.

In June 1996, Terry Duckworth stormed back to the Street, and Tricia immediately began throwing herself at him. On 21st June, with Jamie staying over at Deirdre's, Tricia got drunk in the Rovers and had to be escorted home by Terry. Tricia had lost her keys - which was no obstacle for Terry, who broke in with a credit card. This resulted in the pair kissing, and eventually to Tricia becoming pregnant.

With this, Tricia got her feet under the Duckworths table and moved into the Rovers. Baby Brad arrived very unexpectedly on 14th February 1997 in the back room of the Rovers, delivered by Betty Turpin and Jamie. Jack was mildly tolerant of them all - though he suspected that Tricia may have been taking them all for a ride.

Soon after Brad was born, Tricia met up with decorator Ray Thorpe, though it wasn't clear whether she had met him before. Ray and Tricia soon became close, but all this was destroyed when Terry Duckworth suddenly reappeared in April. It only took a week for Tricia to realise that Terry would never be a father to her childrenm and after some bridge rebuilding by Jack Duckworth, Tricia finally left the Rovers and the Street for a new life with Ray.