Having worked out a basic premise, fleshing things out by turning to familiar figures would probably come as no great surprise.
In most cases the roles they play are incidental to the unfolding narrative, though I should note some significant departure from anything resembling reality.
Given the two blokes with a pile of money scenario it's easy to come up with a two or more parties interested in getting a share of it.
In this case, it's a mother and daughter looking at a double wedding, though it could, in a future instalment, be a pair of lesbians intending to take over The Crossroads for a wymmins cooperative and expropriate a large part of the Jeffrey/Herston fortune to fund the enterprise.
Some of the characters who turn up along the way were put in there to see what happens.
The crew from the tug boat, for example, get far more coverage than they need, but I had them involved in a couple of intrigues I’d pencilled in, including the possibility that Jeffrey might avoid the wrath of a vengeful Olga by escaping to sea as an unofficial passenger on a tug.
They also provide an excuse for Jeffrey to overhear certain confidences.
Sascha and The Butch, the duo that play in the Palace Beer Garden, have real life models, though to the best of my knowledge those models have never actually performed together. There was the possibility of a Herston-Sascha-Boris The Backdooring Bastard tussle for Bernelle's affections that was shelved so Boris could host a sea-borne party (because someone needed to).
Speaking of Boris the Backdooring Bastard, his original inclusion was meant to add a degree of three-way intrigue to the musical beds side of things.