Marion Stowe was the blinkered, difficult mother of Candice Stowe, the rebellious friend of Sarah Platt. She felt that Sarah was a bad influence on her daughter, completing missing the point that of the two girls, it was Candice who was much more the trouble-causer. Her dislike of Sarah came about when she discovered that the thirteen-year old was pregnant in March 2000 and refused to allow Candice to see her friend any more. A furious Gail went round to the Stowe's house to remonstrate with her but the front door was slammed in her face. After Sarah gave birth to Bethany, Mrs Stowe next made an appearance in the August when she gate-crashed the party held at 8 Coronation Street to celebrate the baby's christening, angrily shouting at Candice for associating with "that little tramp" against her orders and also insulting vicar Jessica Lundy for participating in what she called a "charade", only to be told back that it was a pity that her brain wasn't as big as her mouth! She physically dragged Candice from the house.
The following July, Mrs Stowe demonstrated that the attitudes towards the morals of the Platt family had not changed when she reappeared in the street to stop Candice going on a holiday camping trip with them, telling them that would only happen over her dead body. Again her daughter was dragged away.
Mrs Stowe started to get an idea that it was her daughter who was a real source of trouble, and not Sarah, in the November. Two months earlier, Candice had got herself an evening job in a factory to earn money to buy expensive clothes and bullied Sarah into letting her copy her homework. Teacher Charlie Ramsden spotted the similarities between the submissions and eventually discovered that Candice was the copier and Sarah the willing supplier and warned Gail Platt. At the same time, Gail discovered bags of expensive shopping hidden in Sarah's room (Candice not daring to have them at her house) and when Sarah admitted that the items were her friends' but wouldn't give an explanation for them, Gail summoned Mrs Stowe to confront the two girls. When Candice refused to help Sarah with the situation she had gotten her into and recriminations started to fly between the two families, Sarah admitted the truth and this time Candice was dragged out of No.8 to explain herself and not to get her away from Sarah's "influence".
Almost two years later, in the summer of 2003, it was the actions of Mrs Stowe that caused a breach between her and her daughter when she took up with a new boyfriend named Gerry Burton. It wasn't long before he came on to the daughter as well, touching her in a suggestive way and entering her bedroom at night. Candice told her mother what was going on but wasn't believed. Candice stayed overnight at her then place of work, Audrey Roberts's salon. The next day, Gerry turned up at the salon, ostensibly worried about her whereabouts but in reality trapping the young girl alone. Audrey entered the premises in the nick of time and sent the man packing with threats of the police and arranged for Candice to live as a lodger in the salon flat. Mrs Stowe came to the salon herself to demand her daughter come home and told her that her stories about Gerry, who she described as the best thing ever to happen to her, were all lies. Candice refused to return and her selfish mother showed that she was prepared for that answer, having brought with her a bag full of her daughter's belongings which she dumped at her feet. The two rarely met again.
- The character was credited as "Mrs Stowe" on all but her final appearance.
List of appearances[]
2000
2001
2003