Joyce Walters was a friend of Vera Duckworth's and called with her into the Rovers one night in July 1976. Joyce was a divorcee and she and Vera had got tired of their usual haunt - The Wellington - as it was full of married couples and no available men. Vera got chatting to Fred Gee who she had known when she had worked with his now-deceased wife Edna and she arranged to go out with him. Joyce agreed not to play gooseberry but to go and see her mother as it had been some time since she had visited her.