The Grant family consisted of Bobby (Ricky Tomlinson), Sheila, Barry (Paul Usher), Karen (Shelagh O'Hara) and Damon (Simon O'Brien).

After Bobby had spent his first months of Brookside Close fighting to save his job and 200 others at Fairbanks Engineering, Sheila is the one made redundant in 1983.

[1] The two however disagree when Sheila nominated Roger Huntington (Rob Spendlove) as chairman instead of Annabelle and when they clash over what type of group it should be with Annabelle wanting it to be an apolitical group bringing issues such as hedges and refuse collection to the attention of the council while Sheila wanted to use it to campaign about the poor standard of schooling in the area and the lack of jobs for their children.

Bobby and Sheila persuaded Barry not to go after revenge (something he didn't do until Damon's murderers were released in 2003), but the strain this put on her caused a rift in her marriage.

Despite Barry and Sheila's best efforts, without Bobby's wage they fall behind with the mortgage repayments and their home is repossessed, later being bought by Frank Rogers (Peter Christian).

Barry lived in a Volkswagen camper van while Sheila moved into friend Billy Corkhill's (John McArdle) house with Claire.

On Christmas evening, Billy gives Sheila her present, some rosary beads which he had bought from the Cathedral, knowing how important her Catholic religion was to her.

Sheila goes to confide in a priest she does not know about her failed marriage with Bobby, her repossession and meeting Debbie (whom she refers to as Damon's wife) and her grandson Simon.

She returned again the following year another straight-to-video special, Friday the 13th, to attend the wedding of her niece-in-law Lindsey Corkhill (Claire Sweeney) and Peter Phelan (Samuel Kane), however she became caught up in trouble when her brother-in-law Jimmy (Dean Sullivan) is pursued by drug-dealers intent on killing him.

He assessed that love grew in an unlikely couple: Sheila "a devout Catholic" and Billy "a reformed scally" who committed electricity bill fraud.

She branded it "gripping stuff" and noted "an army of soap fans were stunned" by the "horrific rape" of the "Close's matriarch".