Bill Fielding was a vulgar man who picked up a drunken Elsie Tanner at the Lord Nelson pub in April 1981. Elsie was at a low after being rejected by Wally Randle and Bet Lynch had suggested they go on a girls' night out, only for Elsie to take off with a man Bet described as someone who "put women on par with egg and chips".
Elsie took Bill to No.11 and they slept together. Bill was in no hurry to leave the next morning as Elsie hurriedly got ready for work - shabby, unshaven and hungry, he refused to budge until he'd had his breakfast, adding that he only worked when he had nothing better on. Noticing Elsie's look of disgust and regret, Bill quipped that having seen her in broad daylight, he must have been drunk the night before. Elsie called him a "pig" and left him to make his own breakfast.
A short time later, a (slightly) tidier-looking Bill was about to leave the house when his wife Muriel appeared at the door, having been tipped off by a barmaid at the Nelson that he had gone off with Elsie. Well aware of Elsie's reputation as a tart, Muriel assumed Elsie was his regular "fancy piece" and called him an "animal"; Bill replied that Muriel was a "dried-up old bitch" and left her in the house on her own. Muriel vented her fury on Elsie, then wrecked her house and possessions.
Sacked soon afterwards by Jim Sedgewick, Elsie reached a low ebb. Helped by her old friend Len Fairclough, he persuaded her to get away from it all and go and stay with daughter Linda Cheveski in Birmingham for a while.