Elisabeth Croft

Actress best known as Miss Tatum in 'Crossroads'

Elisabeth Croft, actress: born Windermere, Cumberland 22 September 1907; married (one son, one daughter); died London 13 January 2003.

The actress Elisabeth Croft was the oldest surviving cast member from the original Crossroads, which was loved by millions of viewers but scorned by television critics. She was fondly remembered as the postmistress Miss Tatum during the Midlands soap's heyday, in the 1960s and 1970s, although at 93 she was enjoying retirement when a racier revival was launched two years ago.

Crossroads (1966-76) provided Croft with her first television experience after more than 40 years on stage. "Miss Tatum didn't suffer fools gladly and was a bit sharp at times, but she was a wonderful character," she said.

Born in Windermere in 1907, Croft was extremely shy as a child but chose acting as a career, worked in repertory theatre and appeared alongside the stage comedy star Seymour Hicks in a long run of Vintage Wine in the West End (Daly's Theatre, 1934). She joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, in 1940 and acted with it on and off for quarter of a century, playing roles such as the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet and Mistress Quickly in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

On its launch in November 1964, Crossroads starred Noele Gordon as the widowed Meg Richardson, who turned her family home into a motel. The five-days-a-week serial also featured Meg's sister, Kitty Jarvis (Beryl Johnstone), who ran the King's Oak village shop. Following Johnstone's death, the post office became a new focal point for character interaction and the role of Miss Tatum was created specially for Croft by the producer, Reg Watson, based on his real-life aunt, after the actress had spent eight weeks in the programme as an eccentric spinster with a home full of animals.

"It was all very amateur when I went into it," said Croft three years ago. "We were doing five episodes a week and didn't get as much rehearsal time as we would have liked, so we had to be prepared for anything."

On screen, Croft forged a mother-son relationship with the actor Peter Brookes, who played the postman Vince Parker, and the pair continued to keep in touch off-screen for decades afterwards. It was perhaps this quality at the heart of Crossroads that explained its popularity with viewers while the programme had to contend with unending insults from critics for its "amateurish" nature – wobbly sets and equally creaky acting.

In its early days, many ITV companies refused to screen the serial and it was seen nationwide only by 1972. Three years later, Crossroads reached its peak, with 18 million people watching the wedding of Meg Richardson and Hugh Mortimer at Birmingham Cathedral. In an effort to improve quality, the number of weekly episodes was cut from five to four and, later, to three.

Croft left Crossroads in 1976, following a change of producer. "I suppose you would call it a quiet, humdrum show," she said just before the serial's 21st-century resurrections:

I heard it described as the programme where nothing happened. It probably wouldn't go down now. The critics slammed it because it wasn't sensational, but it was what the viewers liked.

Even in her seventies, Croft continued to act in television commercials, for products such as Spiller's Memory Lane Cakes and After Eight mints, took a role in the Armchair Thriller production The Limbo Connection (1978) and returned to Crossroads briefly for the screen wedding of Jill Harvey and Adam Chance (1983). She was then seen as the old lady in the Bafta award-winning short film The Dress (1984), before enjoying a long retirement.

Croft died the day that Crossroads was relaunched for a second time.

Anthony Hayward