Peter Shields was an old boyhood friend of Gordon Clegg's and therefore had been known by Maggie Clegg for many years. Knowing that after schooling, he had gone on to train as an architect, she asked his advice for her plans to extend the Corner Shop by knocking into the storeroom and making it a self-service establishment. Maggie hadn't seen him for some four or five years when he first called and she remarked that she wouldn't have recognised him as he'd lost a lot of weight. Although still a trainee, expecting to qualify the year after, he took on the commission and his initial work was to draw some sketches of how the shop would look in its new guise. This attracted the attention of Hilda Ogden who "interrogated" him in her typical manner as to what he was doing. Peter then turned out a full set of architectural drawings for which Maggie paid £50 only to find out that the cost of the conversion would be over £1,000 which she thought a little steep. She nevertheless asked Len Fairclough to take on the building job but he advised against it, causing Maggie to realise that the council were considering redevelopment plans for the overall area and that might include her shop. Maggie was angry that Alf Roberts hadn't taken a chance to tell her before when he could and stop her spending the £50 on Peter's fee.
Peter bumped into Hilda on several occasions while carrying out his commission and found himself fascinated, in a somewhat horrified manner, at her character. Bet Lynch took the opportunity to kid Hilda on that Peter fancied her which, for once, silenced her completely.