Gerald Lickley

Gerald Lickley was the owner of Weatherfield Vale, a retirement home where Martin Platt went for a job after resigning from the NHS in January 1999 following allegations of mis-treatment by Les Battersby.

Prior to his interview, Martin was shown round by home attendant Mark Stranks and Martin commented that all of the residents seemed happy. When Lickley turned to the CV, Martin told him his side of the story of his resignation which caused Lickley to go into a rant about NHS managers and that their loss was the Vale's gain. Asking Martin if he was happy to undertake additional administrative duties, he offered him the post of assistant manager which Martin was happy to undertake.

Problems began the next day though when one of the first tasks that Gerald gave Martin was to unblock a toilet and later asked him to clear the tables for lunch. Martin was expecting to sort through the resident's files on such matters as the doctor's regular visits and was surprised that he was being given such menial work. It was obvious that Lickley was attempting to run the home on the minimal staff possible and Martin's hours were far in excess of what he thought they would be.

Martin spotted that one of the residents, Walter Byford, was profoundly depressed and found the reason was that his sister Mable Byford was resident in Greenside House on the other side of town and he was unable to even visit her. Martin used his initiative and got Walter swapped with a lady in the same home who wanted to move to the Vale to be near relatives. Before the resolution of the matter, Lickley kicked off about the waste of an empty bed and he was none too pleased to find that his replacement would have relatives nearby, foreseeing problems with that fact. Before Walter could be told about the move, he quietly passed away in his room. It was several hours before Martin found him, the few staff being too busy to find him in the interim.

The matter angered Martin who felt that the mismanagement of the home should be exposed and asked Audrey Roberts, in her role as a councillor, to ask the relevant person to order an inspection. She mentioned this to Fred Elliott who knew Lickley as one of his masonic-like Square Dealers and warned him what was happening. He read the riot act to a meeting of his staff threatening instant dismissal and court action for libel of the culprit.

A week later, Inspector Todd and an assessor arrived at the home for an impromptu inspection. Martin watched gleefully from a distance as Todd told Lickley that there were a number of areas where things weren’t what they ought to be. They left and Lickley took Martin to his office where he accused him of being the one who alerted the authorities and sacked him on the spot.

List of appearances
1999
 * Wed 27th Jan
 * Fri 29th Jan
 * Sun 31st Jan
 * Sun 7th Feb
 * Fri 12th Feb
 * Sun 21st Feb