Emmerdale star William Ash once had a part in rival soap Corrie – where his character help up four cobbles legends at gunpoint.

The actor was cast as Emmerdale’s Caleb Miligan, the long-lost brother of Cain (Jeff Hordley) and Chas Dingle (Lucy Pargeter), in 2022. But 20 years earlier he popped up in fellow ITV soap Coronation Street, played a character named Johnny James.

Johnny was a young crook who robbed the Post Office then tried to flee with the cash. However, as he tried to get out of Weatherfield he came across Rita Sullivan (Barbara Knox), who had been off to celebrate her birthday with pals Emily Bishop, Blanche Hunt and Betty Williams when they got lost on a country road.

He lied about what he was up to, making up a story about visiting someone in hospital, so they agreed to give him a lift. But when his tale started to unravel, Rita slammed on the brakes.

William plays Caleb in Emmerdale (Image: ITV)Desperate to get away with his ill-gotten gains, the criminal whipped out his gun and told the pensioners to get out of the car, but Rita wasn’t taking it lying down and grabbed her keys and started bashing him with her bag. Luckily, the police had been alerted and they turned up just in the nick of time to arrest Johnny.

After that 2002 episode, actor William went on to appear in other programmes such as Shameless, Casualty and Inspector George Gently. He was in also in movies like Playing Dead and Man In The Moon.

Then in 2002 it was announced that the 47-year-old was taking another trip to soapland, this time in Emmerdale. At the time William said in a statement that he was “thrilled” to be joining the show as Caleb, the son of the late Faith Dingle (Sally Dexter).

“Emmerdale is packed full of fantastic actors and I’m really looking forward to working alongside them,” he said. “Caleb is a fantastically complex character and I can’t wait to get stuck in.”

The actor made his first appearance in the Dales in the Christmas Day episode of 2022.