Pipa Trench



Pippa Trench (née Croaker) (Janine Duvitski) is Patrick's wife sought friendly relations with the Meldrews and, after a while, became good friends with Margaret. The two women usually attempt to get the men to make peace with each other at least once per series.

Eventually Patrick proposes that the Trenches move house, but they soon realise that the Meldrew curse has followed them: Victor sent workmen to their home next door, thinking they were removal men who had come to the wrong house. They were in fact from a house clearance firm Margaret had employed to clear her late cousin Ursula's country mansion.

It turned out that the workmen had cleared Patrick and Pippa's house of their entire furniture and sold it for a mere four hundred and seventy five pounds. Pippa is slightly dim-witted, for example believing Victor had murdered an elderly blind man simply because the victim had been found clutching a double-one domino in his hand, and Victor had two pimples on his nose.

New neighbours Derek and Betty McVitie replaced the Trenches for the 1997 special "Endgame", however this turned out to be their only appearances in the series and they were said to have emigrated by the penultimate episode which caused Nick Swainey to leap straight in with the offer for their old house. Series six saw the Trenches return as prominent characters, albeit living in a house some distance from the Meldrews.