Poppy Watts ran a theatrical boarding house on Clarence Street in Salford where Rita Fairclough decamped for two weeks after leaving husband Len in January 1980. She was at first reluctant to let Rita stay as she only allowed artistes in but Rita gave her professional (and maiden) name of Rita Littlewood and was granted access. Mrs Watts had trod the boards herself in her time as part of a kinfe-throwing act with her husband. She knew all the clubs and theatres in the region and spoke sadly of the various people who had stayed under her roof that the business now seemed to have no need for. Treading a careful line between minding her own business and being nosy, she nevertheless got on Rita’s nerves when she pried too much into her personal life, especially when Ralph Lancaster was a calle