| Character Profile | List of appearances |
Gordon Hilton Cunningham was the father of Dawn, Jude, Max and Cindy Cunningham with his first wife Angela Cunningham, as well as father to Tom Cunningham with his second wife Helen.
Gordon begins to comfort his daughter Dawn when she struggles to fend off the advances of her mother's new boyfriend, Terry Williams. Gordon tries to help his ex-wife, Angela overcome her crippling debts and tries to inject some discipline into the lives of their wayward children. Gordon soon builds up a witty repartee with Tony Hutchinson, when he becomes landlord of Got It Taped, and finds himself in various scrapes in his desperate attempts to keep Max and Cindy on the straight and narrow. However, things get bad for Gordon as he discover that Cindy was pregnant, and loses Dawn to leukaemia, and also is saddened when Jude runs off the next year after getting herself in trouble with the police. In August 1999, Gordon opened Drive 'n' Buy, and became a councillor in August 2001.
Gordon becomes a father figure to Bombhead. Eventually, Helen returns to Gordon and with some match fixing from Mandy and Max, the pair are reunited. However, tragedy strikes for Gordon when he has a random heart attack and ends up crashing the car. Gordon takes a heart attack immediately and dies in hospital. Helen also dies a few weeks later and Tom is left as an orphan. In Helen and Gordon's wills, Tom is supposed to live with Mandy but instead he goes to live with Max.
Background information
- In Episode 1, Gordon is partially seen, played by an uncredited walk-on actor.
- Gordon was initially contracted for six episodes, but actor Bernard Latham impressed producers, who saw a future to the character.
- In 2003, producer Jo Hallows decided to axe both Gordon and Helen Cunningham, with the characters' final scenes airing in February 2004 (however, Gordon would make several appearances between February 2004 and August 2018).