What happened to Emmerdale's Tina Dingle?
And guess who she ended up marrying in Coronation Street?
One of the great forgotten family members of the Dingle clan, Tina (Jacqueline Pirie), has been showing what she was made of in ITV3's afternoon 90's Emmerdale re-runs. The only daughter of Zak's first wife Nellie (Sandra Gough) Tina could wrap men round her little finger but was a romantic at heart.
A firm believer in the Dingle code she faked a pregnancy and pretended to fall in love with local lad Luke McAllister to humiliate him after he accidentally killed her brother Ben Dingle (Steve Fury) in a fight (Ben actually had a heart defect). But as she revealed to Terry Woods in the 1996 episode she feared she was destined for more heartbreak.
"I'd love to fall in love with a bloke and live happily ever after," said Tina."Luke McAllister said that I'd never be able to fall in love. Never know if I was being lied to, conned, like I conned him."
The Wednesday May 13th re-run did show her having a laugh with cousin Mandy (Lisa Riley) as they tried to make some money out of Eric Pollard (Christopher Chittell) and a rich American antiques buyer.
Tina then made the mistake of getting involved with Kim Tate's ex husband Frank (Norman Bowler) and ending up in a love triangle with businessman Steve Marchant (Paul Opacic) who later also ended up married to Kim (Claire King). Deciding she was sick of being used Tina turned her back on all the chaos of Home Farm and headed for London on Christmas Eve 1996.
For actress Jacqueline Pirie (now Chadwick), who so memorably played Tina, it was a journey that actually took her to Granada Studios in Manchester as she joined Coronation Street as gobby machinist Linda Sykes at Underworld. Like Tina, Linda had an eye for the older man and it wasn't long before she got her claws into Mike Baldwin (Johnny Briggs).
Unfortunately neither Linda nor Tina could resist a good soap love triangle. Tina had an affair with Mike's son Mark Redman(Paul Fox). A drunken, spurned Mark revealed all to his furious dad in the couple's bridal suite just after Mike and Tina tied the knot.
In the end though what did for Linda was Mike's ex-wife Alma (Amanda Barrie). When Alma was diagnosed with terminal cancer Mike went to care for her and when he also called a truce with his son Mark after Alma's death Linda saw the writing on the wall, nicked Mike's car and headed for Dublin.
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