"We have trouble.."
Ann Reynolds was the Governor of Wentworth Detention Centre.
Ann before her time as governor was a former welfare officer who had worked in the system for a long time.
Ann was brought into Wentworth after the "resignation" of former Governor Erica Davidson at the hands of Ted Douglas who wanted to see some change after a litany of failures under Erica's leadership.
Ann during her time as governor has both Meg Morris and Colleen Powell as her deputy governors with Joan Ferguson ousting Meg as deputy and this caused considerable rifts with the staff.
In the end Ann says that she wants to bring reforms to the prison system including Wentworth with the help of Mr. Hudson, the reforms make it through Parliament at the same time as the downfall of Joan Ferguson happened.
Time At Wentworth[]
Ann is immediately latched onto by Joan who attempts to feed Ann information to discredit her rivals (367) and she aggravates her Deputy Colleen into giving her a list of her mistakes (368). Her taste in men proves to be as unreliable as her views are liberal. The first man to attract her interest is Wally Wallace (the human anorak) who she invites to stay in her attic (377) and her son Paul Reynolds helps him to move in (379). Paul is a photographer, and his candid snap of Ted Douglas taking bribes from crime boss Lionel Fellowes causes trouble for both of them: Fellowes' attempts to recover the negative include sending two men to Ann's flat to rough her up (381).
Ted Douglas' successor, Arthur Richards (387), is no easier to deal with and Ann finds herself blamed for poor security after the bomb blast organised by Fellowes to take revenge on the women. Her relationship with Wally develops and they first sleep together in (390), though she has rival in Paul's lawyer, Sam (413) Not expecting to return to Wentworth, she helps Joan Ferguson to take back her resignation (427), but when Wally offers to look after Paul, she is able to return to Wentworth as Governor (429). Ann's next romantic involvement is an old flame, Dr Jonathan Edmunds, who visits Wentworth to conduct experiments in behaviour modification (448), but he conducts a parallel affair with Meg, even visiting the two women on the same evening (449). Colleen alerts Ann to Jonathan's double dealing (453), and he is soon exposed for his unorthodox methods in a previous post, and arrested by the police. Joan Ferguson reports Ann's relationship with Dr Edmunds to the Department, and as a result Ann is placed on six weeks notice (463) and after the riot orchestrated by Joan, she is discharged as Governor (467), but before she has worked out her notice she is reinstated due to Leigh Templar's influence with politicians (469).
She first notices a lump in her breast in (412) and after considerable delay in seeking medical advice, she is admitted to hospital for a biopsy (417), during which a mastectomy is performed. To add to her problems, her son Paul is shot in (422) on Lionel Fellowes orders. She leaves hospital in (424) but does not return to work immediately and considers giving up her career to look after Paul.
A campaign of death threats against Ann beginning in (478) appears to be over when Ann co-operates with the police in dropping off ransom money (490), but this was merely an opportunistic attempt by an accomplice of Lou and Reb, and the real culprit, Brian Lowe, takes Ann and Meg hostage (498) and holds them in a booby trapped warehouse (499-501). Ann returns to work prematurely after her ordeal in (504), but collapses in (507) and returns again in (512). She seems to be about to leave again when William Coleby seems keen to organize a promotion for her (517) but she turns it down (522).
After the resignation of Andrew Fry, the Minister asks Ann to take over his job (558), but she is more interested in moves towards reform represented by the prisoners' Council and educational classes. Ann has to fight Departmental corruption when Julie Egbert tells her about duplicate payments for goods supplied to the prison (563), leading to the exposure of Geoffrey Chaucer in (566), but Ann has to face an intimidation campaign from his supplier Adrian Bullock, including an attack on her daughter Pippa (568). When Lou Kelly takes over as top dog and orders a mass hunger strike, Ann offers to resign but is persuaded to take leave of absence instead (591).
After a prisoner strike led by Lou, Ann is put on a "leave of absence", she appears only occasionally, helping Ettie Parslow with her home for wayward girls (595) but finding time to embark on a third disastrous relationship. This time she falls for Dan Moulton, a priest and bikey, and they are sleeping together by (605). She returns as Governor in (606), but Dan is hospitalized after an accident during Bongo Connor's attempt to break Rita from prison (618). Her final battles with Joan Ferguson begin: she is compelled to accept Joan as Deputy (620), and the Minister is clearly on Joan's side, even threatening to demote Ann in favour of Joan over the handling of Julie Egbert's wedding (629). Dan returns from hospital to tell her he's fallen in love with one of the nurses (648).

Ann oversees Joan's induction as a prisoner
Joan takes her chance while Ann is away at a conference on prison reform and transfers Rita to Blackmoor (665), and when Rita burns Blackmoor down and Ernest Craven is transferred to Wentworth, Joan plots with him to depose Ann, which they achieve over the issue of Lorelei's rape: Ann is dismissed in (671). After Craven is exposed on a TV news program, the Minister is forced to reinstate Ann (678) and she pushes ahead with her plans to liberalize the prison regime at Wentworth. In the final episode, she achieves the double triumph of having her reform report accepted by the Department, and seeing Joan Ferguson fixed once and for all, she watches Joan's induction to Wentworth and tells the police that she cannot guarantee her safety, and the following morning with Meg and the prisoners see Joan taken away for good.
Trivia[]
- Gerda Nicolson appeared in the series a few years earlier as Deputy Governor Mrs Roberts of Barnhurst
- During the episode where Ann and Meg are kidnapped, Gerda was afraid of mice, so her stunt double tried the scene and couldn't do it. So Gerda did the scene herself and her reactions were genuine
- In Wentworth -Ann Reynolds is the General Manager of Corrections taking over from disgraced former manager Derek Channing. Ann is an old friend of Vera Bennett when they were in the Corrections Academy
- In episode 459, just before Myra walks out of the gate, Mrs Reynolds can be seen walking holding a young girls hand. This is potentially her daughter Julie who looks around 15-16 years old and is mentioned in a previous episode. However later in the show, her daughters name changes to Pippa and is a lot older.