Lydia Radcliffe

Lydia Radcliffe was an attractive, smart woman who escort-conman Lewis Archer met in the bar at Manchester Airport while waiting for his flight to Barbados. Lewis had walked out of his relationship with a hopeful but unsuspecting Audrey Roberts at the last minute as they supposedly prepared for their new life together in Greece. In a genuine show of contrition, he cancelled a bank transfer from Audrey’s account for £100,000 having already pulled off a classic sting on Peter Barlow’s bookies which netted him several thousand pounds.

At the airport, Lewis’s eye immediately drifted to Lydia and his opening conversational gambit was when she ordered the same drink as him - a Martini. Introducing himself, he smoothly commented that his mother’s favourite book was H.E. Bates’s Love for Lydia when the lady gave her name. She confessed that she was a bad flyer and realising that they were on the same flight, he suggested they sit next to each other. She was quite taken with the smooth charmer but whether he was genuinely attracted to her or whether he saw her as another financial conquest to be milked was left up unanswered as they left for the boarding gate.