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Unseen Character Profiles > Phillipa Wade

Phillipa Wade

When Phillipa Wade and her girlfriend wanted to have a baby, Phillipa’s good friend Andrew Rodwell offered to give her a sperm sample, and she accepted. However, with a wife, Wendy, and young daughter, Sadie, Andrew started to realise the mistake he’d made and told Phillipa that he’d changed his mind. As Phillipa and her girlfriend had split up, she told Andrew that she would destroy the sample, and Andrew distanced himself from their friendship after that.

Phillipa, meanwhile, didn’t destroy the sample, instead giving it to her best friend Cara, who’d been attempting to have a baby with her partner Remi through an anonymous American sperm donor. When Cara then fell pregnant a couple of weeks later, having used both samples, it was unclear who the father was. She told herself that, because the insemination from the American donor had been done properly in hospital, it was more likely that he was the father, and never told Remi what had happened, later giving birth to a son, JJ.

When Phillipa died several years later, JJ got hold of her diaries that had been left to Cara, learning about the favour Andrew had done for Phillipa all those years earlier. After doing some research, JJ found an Andrew Rodwell who fitted the description, and when his family needed somewhere to stay, he arranged for them to spend a couple of weeks staying at 24 Ramsay Street through Rent-a-Home, next-door to Andrew and his family. Unfortunately for JJ, Cara and Remi decided that they liked Ramsay Street and they ended up buying no. 30, and it was then only a matter of weeks before JJ blurted out the truth. Wendy and Remi were horrified to hear about what had been kept from them by their spouses but, following a DNA test, it was confirmed that Andrew and JJ were not related.

It later emerged that, when Andrew had changed his mind about his own donation, his adoptive younger brother, Felix, had considered stepping in and taking his place. Though he'd told Andrew that he wasn't going ahead with it, he'd later met up with Phillipa at a party and she had paid him for his sperm, which she had later passed on to Cara. Before her death, Phillipa had then taken the pages mentioning Felix out of her diary and sent them to him in prison, where he was serving a short sentence for his involvement in some robberies.

When Andrew next heard from Felix, he was hoping that his brother would allow him to stay with his family on Ramsay Street as part of his release on parole. Still unsure whether Felix had given the donation to Phillipa, due to the missing diary pages, Andrew asked Felix directly if he'd gone ahead with it, explaining the situation with JJ. Felix insisted that he hadn't, but immediately panicked when he arrived on Ramsay Street, and it soon became clear that Felix and JJ had idential birthmarks on their lower back. With JJ being drawn to Felix, who helped him deal with some bullies, it wasn't long before Remi and Cara stepped in, uncomfortable with the influence Felix was having on their son. But with JJ's moods worsening, they decided that he could spend time with Felix, a decision that proved to be disastrous when JJ offered to help with a robbery at the worksite of Eirini Rising. When the pair were caught, and Andrew was injured, Felix did a runner and, whilst trying to work out where he'd gone, Wendy found the missing pages from Phillipa's diary in his bag. When Felix finally turned up, Wendy confronted him and he showed her the birthmark, admitting that he'd known all along and he was going to use the money from the robbery to leave Erinsborough and get away from JJ, unable to cope with the idea of being a father. Wendy then went to Andrew with what she'd found out, and they told Cara and Remi, who were left to break the news to JJ.

Trivia Notes
• Phillipa's address, as shown on Felix's letter in episode 8996, was 89 Fernvale Road, Werribee, Vic 3030

Biography by Steve

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