Neighbours. The Ramsay Retcon. 2009.

[CAEF]

Probably the worst storyline in the shows history, and peed all over the history.

Max Ramsay and Anne Robinson had a fling in about 1969 while Jim was in the army in Vietnam. A baby was born 9 months later and adopted ot.
And in a street such as Ramsay Street, how come no one noticed Max and Anne hanging out together?
In 1985 Max was disgusted that Maria had an affair 18 years earlier. Yet he supposedly had one.

The worst thing was, it destroyed Helen Daniels legacy. No way would she have kept Jim in the dark about his wifes affair when he was away, and she would be disgusted that Max Ramsay, Jim's best friend and neighbour was the father.

[kitkat1971]

Oddly, I've been talking about this over on DS the past few days.

I completely agree with you, it was a dreadful, dreadful thing to have done. I understand the logic, it was a way of bringing Kate, Harry and Sophie in with strong links to arguably the two most important families in the shows history but they did it by pissing over that very history.

For anybody that watched the early years, it was completely unbelievable as for all his fauults, Max was a very, very loyal man and no way would he have betrayed either Maria or Jim in such a way and as you mention, it makes a mockery of his hurt and indignation of the confirmation of Maria's ONS (resulting in Danny) which must have happened around the same time as he was 16/17 in 1985.

It also went completely against everything we were ever told about Anne's character and personality and the nature of her romance and relationship with Jim. Which was meant to have started when they were very young, childhood sweethearts and been pretty much idyllic until she died.

I thought the retcon of Jim having sired Glen in Vietnam and Julie being the product of an extra marital rape were bad enough but an affair and baby borne to Max just took it to a whole new level.

But i guess there was no other way to introduce nieces and nephews for Paul which they needed at that time. They could have done that without them being Max's though. I would have disliked the idea of an affair (especially agter the trauma of her rape resulting in Julie and so soon after Scotts birth - I'd forgotten it was meant to be when Jim was in Vietnam though I guess he had to be away to not have known she was pregnant and thrown her out) but iit wouldn't have been as bad if the man wasn't Jim's best friend and a character we, the audience knew so well.

[CAEF]

It would be like a storyline in Emmerdale that Henry Wilks and Annie Sugden had an illegitimate child in the 1950s and gave it up for adoption, that would be just like the Rasay Retcon Henry never set foot in Beckindale until 1972 and Anne would never cheat on Jacob. Well the Ramsay Retcon is just as bad as something lie that in Emmerdale.

Or in Corrie that Albert Tatlock and Ena Sharples had a illegitimate child in 1919 and the child was called Stan, and he was adopted by an Ogden family.