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List of EastEnders characters introduced in 1985

Reg Cox, played by Johnnie Clayton, is a resident of Albert Square. The first episode of ''EastEnders'' on 19 February 1985 centres upon pensioner Reg's death. According to scriptwriter Colin Brake, the creators of ''EastEnders'', Tony Holland and Julia Smith, wanted to start the serial "with a bang, throwing the audience into the middle of life in [the fictional setting of] Walford". The Reg Cox storyline was deemed as a good starting point, allowing various members of the community to be involved with or comment on the circumstances of the old man's murder.

In the first ever scene of the programme, the characters of Den Watts (Leslie Grantham), Arthur Fowler (Bill Treacher), and Ali Osman (Nejdet Salih) are shown breaking down the door of Reg's flat. In Holland and Smith's book, ''The Inside Story'', the authors have outlined their original interpretation of the scene: "[''EastEnders''] starts with a bang, as a size ten boot kicks down the door that's locked from the inside. The tiny, dirty and foul-smelling council-flat behind the battered door belongs to Reg Cox (known locally as "the-old-boy", and a cantankerous bastard at the best of times) who hasn't been seen around [Albert Square] for days.... Once the door's down, three men rush into the gloomy main-room.... They find the old boy sitting in his favourite armchair beside the gas fire (which isn't on) – and he's very nearly dead.... By the end of the episode the old boy will have been removed from the square and taken to Intensive Care, and the entire community will be rife with gossip, which spreads round the houses like the plague. Via the gossip we're able to piece together the events leading up to the discovery of Reg."

Reg lived alone at 23b Albert Square. On the morning of 19 February 1985, Naima Jeffery (Shreela Ghosh), who runs the shop on Bridge Street, becomes concerned about Reg after he has failed to make his daily milk purchase for the past three days, and her husband, Saeed Jeffery (Andrew Johnson), mentions this to Den Watts (Leslie Grantham), publican of the pub next door. Den and Arthur Fowler (Bill Treacher) rouse Ali Osman (Nejdet Salih), who lives downstairs from Reg, to let them into the house and the three of them kick in the door to Reg's room when he fails to answer their knocking. Den speaks the opening lines of the first episode, "Stinks in here, dunnit?", followed by the discovery of an unconscious Reg slumped in his armchair in the lounge of his neglected flat. Den runs to get the local doctor, Harold Legg (Leonard Fenton), and calls for an ambulance. On 21 February 1985, they learn that Reg had been severely beaten and died from injuries which had gone unnoticed when he was found. It is eventually revealed that Nick Cotton (John Altman) was behind the beating when he was attempting to steal Reg's war medals.

Reg, who was 59 years old when he died, was not a popular figure in Albert Square. He is referred to as a 'cantankerous old man' by Arthur, called a 'miserable so and so' by Ethel Skinner (Gretchen Franklin) and a 'nasty old man' by his downstairs neighbour, Sue Osman (Sandy Ratcliff). However, despite this, Lou Beale (Anna Wing) causes havoc around the Square, accusing Sue of neglect for allowing him to lie dying in his flat for days, without checking up on him. The character also appears in the Christmas special "CivvyStreet", set during the Second World War, shown on 22 December 1988.

In 2014, Reg's murderer, Nick, uses the name 'Reg Cox' as an alias after faking his own death. In 2015, Nick dies in the same place that Reg died exactly 30 years earlier, after admitting to his mother, Dot Branning (June Brown), that he killed Reg. Provided by Wikipedia