Lucinda Croft
Lucinda Claire Croft (1991-1992)
Dee Smart
Episodes: 789–1093
Parents: Carl & Mary Croft
Siblings: David Croft (deceased)
Occupation: Boat Shed worker, Road Gang worker, Shop Assistant, Waitress, Art Teacher
When Donald Fisher received word that his niece Lucinda, daughter of his sister Mary, was coming to visit—having gone travelling after finishing a fine arts degree—he was taken aback when a young woman on a motorbike turned up, having not seen Lou since she was a young girl and collected dolls. Lou insisted on paying him board and advertising her services for odd jobs. She soon got to know cousin Bobby and attracted the attention of Adam Cameron and Matt Wilson, both of whom arranged dates with her, with Adam getting her a job at the boat shed and Matt teaching her to wind surf. Nick Parrish also showed an interest in her, and was both Lucinda and Donald’s favoured choice, but felt she wouldn’t be interested in him if she was interested in Matt and Adam. Don tried inviting Nick round for dinner to match make only to end up with Adam and Matt as guests instead. They eventually started dating but struggled with the contrast between Nick’s traditional views and Lou’s liberated lifestyle, with him uncomfortable with her making the first move. She was also unhappy when he gave Matt a speeding ticket while he was driving her home when she had a cold. She suggested she and Nick try something fun and signed them up for a one day parachuting course ending in a jump. However, she was left embarrassed when Nick did the jump and she was too scared, although she managed to do it the following day.
When her brother David also came to stay, Lou was unhappy: Her parents had lost all their money after David gave them bad investment advice and Lou felt he had abandoned them afterwards. In fact, David had been working in the mines to pay their parents back but Lou refused to have him in the house, resulting in him moving into the caravan park. Lou eventually agreed to give him a chance, buying him some wine gums and inviting him to stay at the house, although they hit a stumbling block when Nick bought Lou a bracelet and told her he loved her, and David mentioned to him that Lou thought things were going too fast. Lou suggested they only see each other a couple of times a week but Nick felt uncomfortable with not knowing how far to push things. Lou tried to add some fun by leaving clues around the Bay and presenting Nick with a toy car he’d been after as a child as a prize.
She cautioned David over dating teenager Sophie Simpson but it didn’t last long as David was killed in a car accident when Karen Dean drove through a Stop sign and hit his car. Lou was comforted in the aftermath by Ryan Lee, an old friend of David’s and her ex-boyfriend, who accompanied her to the funeral in Perth and then back to Summer Bay. With her and Nick having broken up, she let Ryan kiss her and went to the opera with him rather than dinner with Nick. Ryan proposed to her and she eventually accepted. They had an uncomfortable dinner at a restaurant after running into Nick and his rebound date Isabelle and she came close to leaving town with Ryan, giving David’s necklace to Sophie as a keepsake while Ryan planned their wedding, but Nick laid signs, asking her to stay, along the route out of town. Finding him at the end of them, she decided to stay. Nick took Lou out on a romantic trip on a boat, although it ended up being disrupted by the discovery runaway Finlay Roberts had been sleeping on board, and asked her to get a place with him. Lou agreed but admitted to Marilyn she’d hoped he would ask her to marry him. When he heard, Nick did so in the Diner and she gladly accepted.
The couple found an apparently perfect house being rented out fully furbished by an older couple, the Davises, and gave them a deposit only to turn up the next morning to find several other couples waiting to move in, having all given deposits, and realised they’d been conned. With no more money for anything else, Nick convinced Lou to move into his room at the beach house. She decided she needed to bring her own wardrobe and hired Adam to transport it from Don’s place. However, they struggled with the lack of privacy and high rent. Lou resigned her part-time job at the boat shed and took a job on the road gang to help out, which Nick again struggled to reconcile with his views of a woman’s role. Lou was left with blistered hands on her first day and, while directing traffic past the works, she got distracted talking to Pippa, resulting in a jam when both she and the foreman let traffic through. She hit the chauvinistic foreman with her sign and quit, initially telling Nick she’d done it to please him before admitting the truth. They moved into the caravan park for a time and Lou sold her motorbike and Nick his car to raise money. Nick spent money on an engagement ring, which pleased Lou even though it meant their chances of getting their own place were even further away. She asked Donald about them moving back in with him but he was uncomfortable with them living together before they were married and they had to agree to separate rooms.
When Sophie fell pregnant, she claimed her classmate Simon Fitzgerald was the father, but when she gave contradictory statements about how far gone she was, Lou realised David was the father. Sophie was scared David’s family would try and take the baby off her and, with Lou pressuring her to admit the truth, ended up running away for a time, forcing Lou to face up to her role in things. Don sold his house to the Bowmans and it took some weeks for the new house to be available, with Nick and Lou staying in a caravan again as a stopgap. She took a job as Alf’s assistant at the store but she and Alf had a number of personality clashes, especially when he started using a cut-out of a bikini wearing woman to advertise things. She agreed to Adam putting a cut-out of a scantily-clad man alongside it to teach Alf a lesson and their argument led to Lou walking out and Alf immediately rehiring Marilyn. Nick arranged for Lou to take over Marilyn’s job at the Diner, leaving her infuriated that he didn’t trust her to find a job herself. Marilyn gave them a magazine article with advice for couples, to which they agreed to regular hugs and Lou doing whatever Nick wanted for a day. Nick got her to join him fishing and she managed to conquer her fear of small boats, although they ended up stuck in the middle of the sea when the motor gave out. She accidentally put her foot in it be telling Sophie that Simon was uncomfortable with how much she relied on him.
Around the time that they finally got to move into Don’s new house, Ryan returned to town and stirred things between Lou and Nick, with Lou realising Ryan was there to win her back and making it clear it wasn’t happening. However, she was forced to accept his help with Sophie’s pregnancy and they bonded while helping her set up a new bedroom for her and the baby. She convinced Nick to pose nude for her by suggesting she might ask Ryan then pulled out of helping Ryan house-hunt when it upset Nick but accepted his help to talk Sophie into letting Mary visit. She invited him round for dinner to thank him but had to rebuff him again when he kissed her. When Don admitted he was having trouble finding an art teacher, Lou pointed out she had the necessary qualifications and insisted on applying despite his worries of being accused of favouritism. In the end, she got the part-time position by virtue of being the only applicant. However, she ended up in trouble on her first day when Blake and Simon convinced her to take the class down the beach without permission.
Ryan took the nude drawing of Nick that Lou had done and convinced Blake and Simon to hang it up at the surf club at a fun run to embarrass him. The arrival of Nick’s troublemaking brother Shane caused further tension, and despite being disgusted at him dating Marilyn to make her jealous, when Ryan kissed Lou, she didn’t immediately pull away. She began to be torn between the two of them: When Sophie told her Ryan was leaving town, she asked him to stay while she worked out her feelings. However, when Nick nearly caught her and Ryan together at the Diner, she decided she and Nick should get married in two weeks. Nick wanted to focus on his constable first class exams however and Lou felt let down when he decided to delay the wedding for six months. Marilyn saw her and Ryan kissing and threatened to tell Nick so Lou went to see her parents in Perth to do some thinking. On her return, Nick was too preoccupied with Shane to pay her much attention but she told Ryan she’d chosen Nick anyway. However, when Nick spent her first night back working, she slept with Ryan in his caravan. When Shane and his friend Damian saw Ryan kissing Lou (but missed her pushing him away again), Shane started a revenge campaign against Ryan, forcing Lou to admit the truth to Nick.
Nick moved out but Lou refused to go back to Ryan. Ryan decided to move back home, hoping Lou would follow him. When Nick found out, he tried to pick a fight with Ryan but Lou stepped in, convincing him she wouldn’t follow Ryan anywhere. She asked Nick to move back in and he initially refused but, after they had dinner together in his caravan, he agreed to give it a try. They immediately hit a stumbling block however when Nick missed out on his promotion after failing his exam and blamed Lou for distracting him from his studies. Lou decided to book a holiday for them behind Nick’s back but when Nick realised she was hiding something, he thought she was cheating again. They were forced to accept the trust was gone between them and Lou moved back to her parents’. Ryan returned to Summer Bay a short time later and admitted Lou had refused to have anything to do with him.