Stan Shaw was a footballer known informally as "Clogger". In 1971, Joyce Gilroy left her husband Alec for Stan, taking their thirteen-year-old daughter Sandra with her. Joyce got a divorce from Alec and eventually wed Stan, with Sandra also taking Stan's surname. The family lived at Chestnut Drive, Bamford for a time before moving to Whitby, where they were living when Alec tried to trace Sandra in 1990.
When he met Sandra's husband Tim Arden at Sandra's marital home in Handforth, Alec learned that "old Stan" was now crippled with arthritis. The following year, Stan was in the middle of shaving when he heard a thud on the landing: the sound of Joyce collapsing dead from a heart attack.