Both Ends Meet / Dora

Like most housewives, Dora (a widow with young son Ronnie to bring up), continually finds she has too much week left at the end of her money. 

In order to make more than she is earning in the sausage factory where she works, she turns to a catalogue company called Excelsior Trading. Not to purchase anything, but to become one of their agents. After all, with all the women working around her, she has a ready-made customer base. Or does she? It's a question of being accepted as an agent. But if she is, surely life's little luxuries will at last be winging her way. 

Veteran comedian Dora Bryan starred in this LWT sitcom as Dora Page, the strap-cashed Cannon's Family Sausages packer who was always at loggerheads with her boss Julian Cannon (Ivor Dean), and finding herself in desperate situations with the other female factor workers. Also starring was Wendy Richards. Both Ends Meet, by the way, is a reference to the sausages! 

Ronnie was played by David Howe in the first series, broadcast from February to April 1972, but when it returned for series two later that same year (September to November) he was replaced by Peter Vaughan Clarke. That wasn't the only change. The original title was dropped and changed to Dora.

Also see: According to Dora

Published on August 12th, 2019. Written by Laurence Marcus for Television Heaven.