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DOUG COLLINS
Played by Roy Billing
The man Leslie married was an insurance salesman, working strictly on commission, highly successful due to the fact he had the 'gift of the gab'. Then, when things were starting to look comfortable for Douglas and an upwardly mobile Leslie, the bottom fell out of the insurance market. Douglas would say that he felt pressured to keep Leslie in the style to which she had become accustomed. In fact, he was too scared to tell his wife the truth, and even more scared of facing Melissa, whose affection for her father approached hero-worship. Instead, he looked for an easy way out of his financial pickle and this eventually took the form of a dodgy insurance scam cooked up with some brokers. The scam was so successful that Douglas got greedy while his family got even more comfortable without ever suspecting the source of their new wealth. Then the law started to catch up with Douglas and rather than face the music he did a runner to Australia, taking his secretary for company. Leslie's world imploded - Police on the doorstep, a husband declared bankrupt, the house and chattels forfeit and a distraught teenage daughter wondering where her hero had gone. Meanwhile for Douglas, with no assets other than his 'gift of the gab', scams became a way of life which, frankly, he began to enjoy. The Douglas we meet is a huckster, a charlatan, an import-exporter who fills people's hearts with hope as easily as he empties their bank accounts. Conning is like breathing - Douglas has to do it or he'll suffocate. But then maybe, for his darling Daughter, he'll turn over a new leaf.
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