"Skinny" Williams was Jed Stone's man with a van who dropped his friend off at 5 Coronation Street in January 1966 when Jed returned to the area after a three-year absence, much to the surprise and delight of his former landlady Minnie Caldwell.
More a lackey than a mate of Jed's, Skinny had driven his friend to Weatherfield and even carried Jed's cases into Minnie's lobby - though not without complaint. Adopting his usual patter, Jed introduced Skinny to Minnie as "the ginge scrimpton of Sefton Park" and Minnie to Skinny as the next best thing to the Queen Mother. Once Jed's belongings were inside, Skinny went along with him to the Rovers Return for a "wet", at Jed's insistence, on the proviso that they got to Belle Vue before it shut, with Jed explaining to Minnie that Skinny wanted to visit the dog track due to him being banned from all of them in Liverpool.
At the pub, Jed's return prompted questions about what he was doing for a living, leading him to send Skinny outside with orders to bring one in from the van. Getting help from Jim Mount, Skinny came back with a one-armed bandit and set it on one of the tables, thereby revealing that Jed was now selling fruit machines to local businesses.