50 Days of Corrie

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50 Years Of Corrie In 50 Days

When Coronation Street was first broadcast on December 9th 1960 not even its creator Tony Warren could have dreamed that the programme would still be entertaining viewers 50 years later. To celebrate this momentous milestone, over the next 50 days we will be counting down to the 50th anniversary by looking at some of the events, characters and places featured in the show over the years and looking behind the scenes at how they came about.

A lot has happened over the years and so we can’t promise to feature all your favourite moments or characters so feel free to chip in with your own memories of the show through the years.

To get you in the mood, why not have a look at that very first episode here, here and here.

Also, there’s a summary of the episode here by our very own Tvor.

With many thanks to Daran Little and Sean Egan whose books have been invaluable in compiling this countdown.

Day 1 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation.

Elsie Tanner was probably the most gossiped about woman on Coronation Street. 1961 saw her first screen kiss, in a telephone box with Bill Gregory who was to whisk her away from the cobbles to Portugal 23 years later. In between she attracted the attention of an endless supply of men and fell in love and had her heart broken countless times. She married 2 of these, Steve Tanner and Alan Howard, and was proposed to many times by Len Fairclough, who she regarded more as a best friend than a lover and refused to marry him for fear of losing his friendship. But he was always there to pick up the pieces after another disastrous affair.

Having been through the mill herself Elsie was more than happy to keep a motherly eye on young women passing through Weatherfield and give them the benefit of her years of experience. They never listened of course but she’d be there to provide tea and sympathy and a shoulder to cry on when the inevitable happened.

Behind the scenes, 1961 saw a crisis that nearly saw the end of the Street before it really got started. A strike was called by the actors’ union, Equity, for a new pay deal to reflect

the success of commercial television. Fortunately 14 of the 25 cast members had signed contracts before the strike started and so the programme continued to run twice a week throughout the strike. However Granada were unable to employ anybody new or any extras so places like the Rovers suddenly seemed deserted.

As the strike continued into 1962, contracts that had expired couldn’t be renewed and at one point it got to the stage where there was nobody to serve behind the bar at the Rovers and a props man had to slide a pint into view. By the time the strike ended after nearly 5 months, the writers were having a hard time trying to find stories for the remaining 6 or 7 cast members. Bizarre stories were dreamt up that included the appearance of a chimpanzee and some performing sealions as they didn’t need Equity cards.

Also in 1961: Paul Cheveski is born; The Cheveski’s emigrate to Canada; Ida Barlow is run over by a bus; Joan Walker marries Gordon Davies; Concepta Riley marries Harry Hewitt; Violet Carson switches on Blackpool Illuminations with a Corrie theme; and Coronation Street is fully networked.

Day 2 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation.

Until 1962, Minnie Caldwell had lived on Jubilee Terrace with her mother but when she died, Minnie decided to take the tenancy of no. 5 Coronation Street with her cat, Bobby.

She always had trouble finding enough money for the rent so she supplemented her pension by taking in lodgers. The first of these was a friend of Dennis Tanner’s, Jed Stone, who she came across sitting on his suitcase in the Street. He’d left his native Liverpool when the police had grown too interested in him and hoped to put his past behind him by moving to Weatherfield.

A wheeler-dealer he was full of get-rich-quick schemes and used Minnie’s front parlour as a warehouse to store the merchandise he acquired, which he would sell on the market.

A lovable rogue nicknamed ‘Sunny Jim', he was never without his trademark flat cap, not even in bed. Minnie regarded him as the son she never had and in return he looked out for her and called her ‘Ma’.

His dodgy dealings finally caught up with him in 1966 when he was sentenced to nine months in prison for handling stolen blankets. When he was released he vowed to go straight and opened a double glazing business, moving in to a house on Nightingale Terrace. He kept in touch with Minnie and would send telegrams to the weddings of his friends on the Street but he wasn’t seen again until 2008.

Tony Gordon was planning a multi-million pound development and the only fly in the ointment was an old man and a cat who refused to move out of their house. He may have grown old and be less healthy than he was but Jed Stone wasn’t the sort of man to be bullied by anyone. Tony tried menaces and money but Sunny Jim wasn’t about to budge.

Unfortunately he suffered a heart attack during a visit from Tony and while he was in hospital his belongings and cat were thrown out onto the street.

Emily Bishop recognised him in Weatherfield General and when he was discharged she offered him a place to stay. He visited Tony in the factory to demand money for the loss of his home and accused him of the murder of Liam Connor. Tony strangled him with a negligee he had bought for his wife and dumped his limp lifeless body in a clothes hamper. When he returned the following day to dispose of the body Tony found that Jed was still alive but rather than finishing off the job he packed him off to a flat in Wigan and gave him ÂŁ3000 to keep quiet.

August 4th 1962 saw the first wedding for Ken Barlow. His bride was Valerie Tatlock, niece of his next door neighbour Albert who would Ken would refer to forever more as Uncle Albert. They moved into no. 9 which Ken had bought for ÂŁ550 and installed the first inside toilet on Coronation Street. Valerie closed her hairdressing salon on Rosamund Street and transferred the business to the front parlour and the cobbles were dug up to install the first telephone on the Street. Ken considered giving up teaching to become a full time writer but when his novel was rejected by a publisher he decided to keep his writing as a hobby.

Also in 1962: Christopher Hewitt is born; Christine Hardman marries Colin Appleby; Colin Appleby dies; Baby Christopher Hewitt kidnapped; Jerry Booth makes his first appearance; Len Fairclough is sacked for carrying on with Elsie Tanner so he sets up his own building business on Victoria Street.

Day 3 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation.

In September 1963 scandal hit Coronation Street. The contract of Eileen Mayers, who played dippy Sheila Birtles, was coming to an end and the producers decided to kill her off. Sacked from her job at the raincoat factory and crushed by her rejection by married petty crook Neil Crossley, who had taken her virginity, she found herself pregnant by him and unable to face the shame of having a child out of wedlock, she was set to commit suicide. The intention was for her to take an overdose of sleeping pills and then after vomiting them up, resort to gassing herself.

The story leaked to the press and Granada had to contend not only with shock-horror headlines in the tabloids and calls of protest from the public but the deputy coroner of Manchester objected. ‘A suicide would be a disgraceful thing to show. I fear that the screening of a suicide would remove the stigma from it, which would be very bad’, he is reported to have said. The producer, Margaret Morris, responded that Coronation Street was produced as a true-to-life drama but the ITA and Granada lost their nerve and the offending five minutes was removed from the broadcast.

The story was hastily rewritten to have Dennis Tanner smell the gas and save her life by forcing his way into her room above the corner shop. And instead of a bottleful of sleeping pills, she was seen to take a couple of aspirin and turn the gas on. Mayers herself was very disappointed that having worked herself up to such a harrowing and powerful story, the scene was wasted. She had been hounded at home by the tabloids: ‘The garden was full of press. They shouted through my letterbox, they climbed, they hammered on the windows … my little girl was upstairs crying.’

Dennis Tanner returned to the Street to manage the northern branch of the Lenny Phillips theatrical agency. He discovered window cleaner Walter Potts and launched his pop career as Brett Falcon. Timed to coincide with its release in the real world, his single, ‘Not Too Little, Not Too Much’ was played over the end credits which helped it reach no. 17 in the charts.

Also in 1963: Myra Dickenson marries Jerry Booth; Albert Tatlock is fined £10 after hitting a copper on a darts team outing to New Brighton; Len Fairclough proposes to Elsie Tanner but she says no; Frank Barlow opens DIY shop on Victoria Street.

Day 4 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation.

1964 saw the arrival of a new producer in the shape of 28 year old Tim Aspinall, its fifth since Coronation Street’s inception. As many producers have done over the years he embarked on a cull to shake up the programme and get rid of the dead wood in an attempt to reassert itself at the top of the ratings where it had been replaced by Steptoe and Son. Frank Barlow, Harry and Concepta Hewitt and Myra and Jerry Booth were all subject to the cull but by far the most shocking victim was the popular character of Martha Longhurst.

Along with Ena Sharples and Minnie Caldwell, Martha formed the trio of old ladies in the Snug at the Rovers that formed a sort of Greek chorus. There is a suggestion that Tim Aspinall got rid of her for a bet but whether he did or not it was certainly an audacious

move. As everyone from the Street gathered in the main bar of the Rovers to say farewell to Frank Barlow, who was moving away after a £5000 premium bond win, Martha slipped quietly into the Snug, removed her spectacles and with her passport for her forthcoming holiday in Spain on the table, she suffered a heart attack.

The rejuvenation of the show also meant the arrival of some new characters. Probably the most significant of these was the Ogden family. They were conceived by Tim Aspinall as ‘real sluts – Dad is a long distance lorry driver and Mum is the kind of woman who spends the kids’ dinner money in the pub’. Irma was the first to arrive followed by her father Stan who had come looking for her. As often happens the character started off very dark, with a history of drink-fuelled violence that had caused some of his children to be taken in to care, before mellowing out to become the hen-pecked, feckless waster we all came to know and love.

Stan bought No. 13 and he moved in with Irma to be joined by Hilda and their 14-yearold son, Trevor. In the original script, when the Ogdens arrived they actually had four children but the episode was never broadcast and when broadcasting resumed, it was explained that the other two children were in care. In later years they were airbrushed out completely and whenever Stan and Hilda were talking about their kids, there were only ever two, not four.

Also in 1964: Emily Nugent proposes to Leonard Swindley but then jilts him at the altar; Harry and Concepta Hewitt move to Ireland; Lucille Hewitt moves into the Rovers as the Walkers’ ward; Florrie Lindley opens a sub post office in the corner shop; Charlie Moffitt and his dog Little Titch lodge with Minnie; Jerry and Myra Booth leave.

Day 5 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

Formerly the barmaid at the Farrier's Arms on Collier Street, Florrie Lindley appeared in the first scene of the first episode of Coronation Street, taking over the corner shop from Elsie Lappin. Though she had an estranged husband who had run away to work as an engineer in India, she let it be known that she was a widow and even set her cap at Harry Hewitt, losing out to Concepta Riley. She found business hard and she had problems paying some of her suppliers, so in an attempt to generate more income, she had two of the upstairs bedrooms converted into bedsits and rented them out. The first lodgers were two young clerks from the Town Hall, who only stayed a month. They were followed by Sheila Birtles and Doreen Lostock who lived there for over a year, despite Florrie's strict rules about gentlemen callers.

After the girls left, Florrie became lonely and spent many evenings playing bingo, once winning ÂŁ100, only to have her handbag snatched on the way home. In 1964, she had the shop converted, moving the doorway from the windy corner, to the side next to No.13 and adding a sub-post office, complete with telephone kiosk. While Florrie sold stamps and cashed pensions, Irma Ogden ran the grocery shop, eagerly encouraging the pensioners to spend the money that they had just got from Florrie.

Jealous of her youth and popularity with men, Florrie turned on Irma and had a minor breakdown, throwing a tin of meat through the shop window, before collapsing in a sobbing heap on the floor. Despite her doctor's orders she soldiered on with the shop, but in 1965 her past was to catch up with her as her estranged husband Norman returned seeking a divorce. Norman had a brief affair with Elsie Tanner, before he reconciled with his wife and the two of them left to start a new life in Canada where Norman had taken a job.

Following the break-up of his marriage Jerry Booth returned to Coronation Street in 1965 and became a partner in Len Fairclough’s builders’ yard. One of their first jobs together was to demolish no.7 which had collapsed due to a snapped window beam. It left a gap in the terrace which would remain empty, save for a bench, until 1982. The real reason for the demolition was that the casting budget wouldn’t reach to filling it. It had another fortunate consequence in that as it was in the middle of the Street, only half of the set needed to be erected in the studio at a time.

Also in 1965: Susan & Peter Barlow born; Robert Maxwell dies; Violet Carson is awarded the OBE; Irma Ogden marries David Barlow; Leonard Swindley leaves the Street to star in spin-off programme ‘Pardon The Expression’; Ena Sharples becomes Elsie Tanner’s landlady.

Day 6 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation.

By 1966, Coronation Street wasn’t just being shown in the UK. Australia had been showing the programme since 1963 and by 1966 it was more popular there than back home. Channel 9 sent an invitation for a party from Coronation Street to visit fans in Australia. Granada accepted the invitation and a group was put together consisting of Doris Speed (Annie Walker), Arthur Leslie (Jack Walker) and Pat Phoenix (Elsie Tanner) from the cast along with producer/writer H.V. Kershaw and Norman Frisby from the press office.

The group visited Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide and they were mobbed everywhere they went. They visited several local Coronation Streets, presented awards, appeared on

numerous chat shows and even performed a sketch specially written by Kershaw. Driving back to the airport in Adelaide, Doris and Pat wept as 50,000 people turned out to wave them farewell.

For a while Ken Barlow had played the role of devoted husband and father but in 1966 he had his head turned by glamorous reporter Jackie Marsh who he’d met when she interviewed his brother David. He started to meet her behind Valerie’s back but Elsie Tanner saw them kissing and warned him not to throw away his family. He told her to keep her nose out and arranged to go away with Jackie, telling Valerie that he was attending a conference. However, when Valerie packed him a lunch for the journey, he realised he couldn’t betray her and ended the affair.

Ken thought he’d got away with it but two months later Valerie revealed that she’d known all about it and she left him, taking the twins with her to her parents in Scotland.

She returned a month later having forgiven him and Ken promised to be more attentive.

Also in 1966: Bet Lynch and Ray Langton join the cast; Sunny Jim returns; Len Fairclough and Annie Walker stand for the council and Len wins on toss of a coin; Ena is fined £2 for shoplifting; Paul Cheveski falls in canal; David and Irma Barlow buy the corner shop.

Day 7 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

Tragedy hit the Street in 1967 when a goods train plunged off the viaduct. At this time, the programme was still filming exterior scenes in the studio so it was quite some feat to set this up. A huge mass of bricks with iron girders sticking out was constructed and five goods wagons wrecked on top of the pile. Underneath was placed a squashed Mini from which PC Conway was dragged out alive. Nearby a corridor of timber and bricks was constructed in which Violet Carson, as Ena, had to lie completely still.

Ena, Jack, Elsie and Lucille were all missing, though only Ena had been caught up in the crash and as the programme went on each of the missing residents turned up. During the second episode of the disaster, David Barlow crawled out of the rubble to report that he had found Ena alive. The only death was of Sonia Peters, the girlfriend of PC Conway who had been in the crushed Mini. The disaster scenes were directed by Michael Apted who went on to be a renowned film director.

There were happier scenes when Elsie Tanner married her wartime sweetheart Steve Tanner. As soon as the wedding date was announced on screen, action off screen began to hot up. Viewers wrote in asking for the date to be changed as they would be away on holiday, the TV Times produced a 32 page souvenir that sold over 1 million copies and over 500 wedding presents were received by people unable to distinguish drama from

reality.

The viewers weren’t the only ones to be confused. Pat Phoenix insisted on choosing her own wedding dress, she arranged for jewellers H. Samuel to visit producer Jack Rosenthal with a selection of rings and when it came for her to appear on set, she refused to leave her dressing room. She only came out when Jack Rosenthal had visited her and reassured her as he might have done with a daughter with pre-wedding nerves.

Also in 1967: Ken Barlow goes to prison; Harry Hewitt dies; Irma Barlow miscarries; Emily Nugent joins a marriage bureau; Hilda Ogden has a breakdown; Jack Walker leaves Annie and Annie Walker is arrested for throwing a football rattle through a shop window.

Day 8 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation.

There had been many changes to Salford since the area had been scoured by Tony Warren and set designer Denis Parkin looking for streets on which to base the Coronation Street set. Many of the old back to back terraces had been demolished and the local council had plans to demolish them all by 1971. In 1968 Richard Everitt accepted the job of producer with the proviso that he could change the physical environment as he felt that the indoor set was ridiculous and it was time to bring the whole thing up to date.

His plan was to demolish the half of the Street that made up the raincoat factory and the mission hall and replace them with flats. This would bring the area more up to date and also allow the producers to bring in more characters. ‘Dramatically, it is a device to bring the old into conflict with the new, to change the street, but at the same time to retain some of its time-worn flavour’ is what he wrote to the Granada executives. The plans were agreed and an old railway yard near the studios was acquired.

Denis Parkin was asked back to oversee the construction. At first the sets were simply transferred from the studio, with a brick frontage added and a half roof built on. It was 18 months before more money was found so that the backs of the houses could be built.

Seven maisonettes were built to complete the set but in spite of the original intentions, only three were occupied and only one of those by a new character.

In 1968, the corner shop changed hands again. A local couple, Les and Maggie Clegg bought it and moved in with their 17-year-old son Gordon. Up to that point there’d not really been any youngsters in the cast to appeal girls and young women. While filming at Granada, 23-year-old Bill Kenwright was invited to lunch with the producer and offered the role without even an audition. Having a desire to play Shakespeare and not wanting to be typecast at so young an age he initially turned the part down. Not long afterwards his mother asked him if he had any jobs coming up and he told her about the offer. She nearly dropped the washing up. She dragged him to the telephone and rang his aunties, uncles and grandma and said: ‘Just tell him. Tell him what it would mean to us to have my son in Coronation Street.’ The next morning he went back to Granada and said yes.

Also in 1968: Steve Tanner is murdered; Dennis Tanner marries Jenny Sutton; Dickie Flemming marries Audrey Bright; No. 11 becomes a hippy commune; Emily falls for Miklos Zadie; David and Irma Barlow move to Australia; the handpumps are removed from the Rovers; Annie is kidnapped by students for rag week and has to pay the ransom herself; Stan buys a window round.

Day 9 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation.

In 1969, Coronation Street transmitted its first episode in colour. To mark the event a special episode was scripted by H. V. Kershaw which took the cast on an outing to the Lake District to show off its incredible beauty in full colour for those people fortunate enough to have a colour TV.

Things didn’t go to plan however as nobody had ordered any colour film for the cameras and so colour filming didn’t take place until the following episode which covered the aftermath of the trip which had ended up with the coach crashing. As a result, instead of the first colour shots being of Elsie Tanner walking in the glorious Lake District landscape, it was of a bloodied Hilda Ogden wandering round hospital corridors searching for Stan. To make things worse, some of the shots from the location shoot were to be used in the following episode which resulted in a mishmash of scenes cutting from colour to black and white and back again.

This year saw the first appearance of Manchester’s oldest barmaid, Betty Williams nee Turpin. Betty and her policeman husband first came to Coronation Street to help out her sister Maggie Clegg in the corner shop but she so took over the place and tried to organise Maggie’s personal life that Maggie sold Jack Walker the idea of her working in the Rovers when Annie went away on holiday. On her return Annie tried to get rid of her as she feared Jack would find Betty attractive. Although it feels like she’s been there ever since, Betty has been sacked, reinstated, stormed out in a huff and been begged to return more times than it would be seemly to remember.

Whilst she is usually a warm and comforting mother figure, she started out as rather loud, brash and vicious-tongued gossip. She still doesn’t suffer fools gladly and can be very disapproving of younger generations, handing out withering put downs with a pursing of her lips and adjustment of her ample, matronly bosom. But at heart she is a kindly soul who is happy to share the wisdom of her years with younger women facing a crisis.

She was widowed in 1974, when Cyril had a heart attack and she had a breakdown. She was so ill that the funeral was arranged without her and it was only at the last minute that Maggie decided she was well enough to attend. She always maintained that Cyril would be the only man in her life but she found love again in 1995 and married Billy Williams.

Her secret to a happy marriage is to always fill the kettle before you go to bed in case the water isn’t on in the morning.

Also in 1969: Alan Howard arrives; Albert gets engaged to Alice Pickens (played by Doris Hare); Minnie Caldwell runs away because of gambling debt; Annie wins perfect landlady competition by installing a phone and serving hot pot; Gordon Clegg jilts Lucille Hewitt and goes to London; Emily Nugent meets Ernest Bishop.

Day 10 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

Christmas 1970 saw the conclusion of a story that had started some 2 years earlier. When Steve Tanner had been found dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs in September 1968 there had been no evidence to condemn anybody of foul play. In November Joe Donnelli, a friend of Steve Tanner’s from the American base at Burtonwood turned up on Coronation Street and lodged with Minnie Caldwell. A dangerous and violent man who enjoyed going to war, he locked Irma Barlow in the flat above the shop and confessed to how he had murdered Steve over a gambling debt. Threatening her with a pair of scissors he told her he would not let her share her secret with anyone.

For over two weeks he kept her in a constant state of fear as his prisoner in the shop.

Knowing something was amiss, some of the residents lured them both to the Rovers, having called the Military Police. Joe escaped and went to no. 5 where he held a terrified Minnie at gunpoint. Unaware of the gun, Stan Ogden crashed into the house to deal with the ‘damn Yank’ who had threatened his daughter, Irma. Joe let Minnie go but held turned his gun on Stan. As the end credits rolled on Christmas Eve, a single shot rang out and viewers had to wait until after the festivities to find out that Joe had shot himself and for once in his life, Stan was the hero.

In June 1970, the 1000th episode was transmitted. John Braine, author of Room at the Top wrote in a TV Times supplement: ‘The most important character in the Street is the Street itself. No matter who comes and goes, the Street remains.’ Words that still hold true as we head towards the 50th anniversary.

By 1970, the programme had been broadcast in ten other countries including Canada, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Holland, Greece and Sierra Leone, where it was voted the most watched television series, although there were only 3000 TV sets in the country.

Also in 1970: David Barlow & son Darren die in Australia; Elsie Tanner and Alan Howard marry; Dave Smith arrives; Bet starts work at the Rovers; Stan Ogden sells some of Ena Sharples’ songs to club singer Mickey Malone; Handel Gartside romances Minnie Caldwell.

Day 11 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

1971 promised a fresh start for Ken Barlow and family as he accepted a job as a teacher in Jamaica. Valerie was concerned about leaving Uncle Albert behind but the thought of a better lifestyle away from Weatherfield for her and the twins won her over to the idea.

They sold their car, bid farewell to the family and left the twins with Uncle Albert so they could enjoy their last night on the Street partying with their neighbours in the Rovers.

Ken waited in the pub while Valerie got ready at home. She tried to mend the plug on her hairdryer with a vegetable peeler but this didn’t work and she ended up jamming the plug into an already overloaded socket. She let out a single gasp as the electricity shot through her and as she fell, she knocked an electric fire into a packing case. The credits rolled as flames licked around a teddy bear.

The fire at the Barlow’s gave the writers the chance to demolish the maisonettes which had never really fitted into the show. They were demolished after serious structural faults were brought to light by the fire and were replaced by a community centre and a mail order warehouse. These locations gave the writers much more scope for storylines and the introduction of new characters. The community centre soon became a hub for local activity with night classes, flower shows and amateur dramatics and new employees at the warehouse included Ivy Tilsley and Mavis Riley.

Also in 1971: Barlow twins move to Scotland; Annie Walker serves watered down gin; Irma Barlow (nee Ogden) leaves; Jerry Booth returns; Ernest Bishop proposes to Emily Nugent; Stan Ogden forms SODU (Stan Ogden District Union).

Day 12 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

1972 saw the arrival of a new producer, Eric Prytherch, and he decided that the current cast was getting a bit long in the tooth and needed some younger characters. To this end he brought in Diana Davies to play Norma Ford and Anne Kirkbride as dolly-bird Deirdre Hunt. Diana was a northern actress who had been seen regularly in Family at War and so was a well known face to TV viewers. As soon as the series finished, Prytherch snapped her up. Eighteen-year-old Anne, like many Street actors, had trained at Oldham Repertory Theatre though she had been spotted in TV play Another Sunday and Sweet FA, written for Granada by Jack Rosenthal. She was originally given just one episode but was such a hit that her part was built up over the next year with the plan to be a love interest for Ray Langton.

Barbara Mullaney (now Knox) had appeared in an episode in 1964 but 1972 saw her return, retaining the same first name she’d had in her first appearance. Following the marriage of Elsie Tanner to Alan Howard, it was felt that Rita Littelewood could step into the role of sexy redhead which was now vacant (back in the 70s it was impossible for a married woman to be sexy apparently). The original description of Rita reads: ‘In midthirties, Very attractive in a blowsy way. A sentimental good-time lady. Irresponsible, with muddled values but in a good way.’

On April 3rd, Miss Emily Nugent, spinster of this parish married, Mr Ernest Bishop.

Ernest caused some worries amongst the bridal party by nearly being late for the wedding. Wracked with last minute nerves he had to be driven round and round Mawdsley Street Chapel several times before steeling himself for the ceremony. The wedding went without any other hitches and after honeymooning in Edale, the Bishops took up residence in No. 3.

Also in 1972: Elsie Tanner gets a pink bathroom suite (about which Hilda Ogden said: ‘Only a Jezebel would have a pink bath. That’s not a flipping bath, it’s phonographic’); Alec Gilroy makes his first appearance; Stan Ogden is accused of being a peeping Tom; Billy Walker is offered the tenancy of the Rovers but turns it down.

Day 13 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

In 1973 Len Fairclough bought Biddulph’s, a run-down newsagent cum café cum lending library at 16 Rosamund Street and installed his lover, Rita Littlewood as manager. Rita wasn’t much impressed by the place at first, calling it ‘a grotty little hole’ but was won round when the upstairs flat was thrown in as well. Rita wanted to call the place Rita’s but was overruled by Len who decided upon ‘The Kabin’. Rita soon realised that she couldn’t run the shop single-handed and despite suffering from a severe bout of hiccoughs during her interview, Mavis Riley was taken on as her assistant.

The following year, Len tried to sell The Kabin when he received an offer of £5000 from

developer Douglas Wormold but when he’d originally bought the shop, he’d put it in Rita’s name and she refused to allow the sale to go through. In 1978 the café area was closed down after the authorities were alerted to its inadequate toilet facilities by Joe Dawson who was opening a café next door. Eventually the lending library became a record library, which in turn was closed down too when Alan Bradley persuaded Rita to let him run a video library instead.

In 1990 Rita closed down the Rosamund Street premises and relocated The Kabin to Coronation Street itself and moved into the flat above the shop. Two years later the business brought romance into her life when she was wooed by confectionery salesman Ted Sullivan. The pair married but the marriage was short-lived as Ted had a brain tumour and only had months to live. In 1999, Rita’s long-term foster daughter, Sharon Gaskill returned and in an attempt to keep her in Weatherfield, Rita gave her The Kabin, working there as her assistant. When Sharon was reunited with her fiancé, Ian Bentley, he forced her to sell the shop so they could buy a house together. Rita swallowed her pride and bought the shop back from Sharon for £40,000.

In 2000, Rita and her new assistant Norris Cole underwent training to open a sub post office. As Norris became more and more involved with the running of The Kabin, Rita agreed to him becoming a full partner in the business. In 2009 after the death of Norris’s brother Ramsay, Rita decided that life was too short to spend so much time working behind the counter of a backstreet newsagent and sold her remaining share to Norris who had been left £172,000 in his brother’s will. After going on a cruise, Rita returned to the Street and started working at The Kabin again.

Also in 1973: Elsie and Alan Howard move to Newcastle; Alf becomes mayor; Joanna Lumley appears as Elaine Perkins; Ken visits the twins in Scotland and returns with a wife; Tricia Hopkins makes her first appearance; Deirdre Hunt starts working at the builders’ yard; Mavis Riley starts dating Jerry Booth.

Day 14 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation.

Coronation Street had done location shooting before but in October 1974 a new first was established when 2 episodes were filmed in Majorca. In the Rovers, Len Fairclough insinuated that women new nothing about football. In an attempt to prove him wrong, Bet Lynch got a few of the women together and they entered a spot the ball competition in the local paper. They were amazed when they won first prize, a holiday for two in the Bahamas. Bet negotiated with the paper and managed to get the prize changed to a holiday for eight in Majorca and so Bet, Deirdre, Emily, Annie, Rita, Mavis, Betty and Hilda headed off for a week of sun, sea and sangria.

Behind the scenes, the cast weren’t too impressed by the ‘holiday’. While the crew were put up in a 5-star hotel, the actors stayed in the 2-star hotel where the action was filmed.

They were called at 6am each morning for make-up which was done in a room next to an open sewer that smelt disgusting. And when scenes were being filmed in the swimming pool, genuine holidaymakers were ordered out of the pool and away from the poolside and were not best pleased.

However, on screen they all had a fabulous time. Bet fell for a holiday tycoon and stayed on, only to find that he had moved on to another conquest; Deirdre, who was engaged to Billy Walker, won Annie’s approval by rejecting the advances of another holidaymaker; and Mavis surprised everyone by having a fling with a Spanish electrician (played by Malcolm Hebden).

Also in 1974: Blanche Hunt makes her first appearance (initially played by Pat Cutts); Maggie Clegg marries Ron Cooke and they emigrate; Cyril Turpin dies; Gail Potter, Eddie Yeats and Vera Duckworth make their first appearances; Lucille Hewitt leaves; Deirdre Hunt dumps Ray Langton and gets engaged to Billy Walker; Minnie Caldwell and Albert get engaged; Rovers Amateur Dramatic Association produce The Importance of Being Earnest; The Hopkins family buy the corner shop; Susi Hush becomes first female producer.

Day 15 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

Coronation Street celebrated its 15th year with the burning down of the warehouse and the death of popular character, Edna Gee. The Fire Service and paramedics worked with the production crew to create the blaze, making it the most ambitious disaster the Street had ever screened.

The neighbourhood was being plagued by three young tearaways who were former pupils of Ken Barlow. They were constantly cheeking the residents and indulging in acts of petty vandalism. Albert Tatlock reported them to the police but the youngsters thought that Ken was responsible and wrecked his house in revenge. The fathers of two of the boys tried to bribe Ken into not going to the police but Ken wouldn’t take the money and thinking that society was to blame, didn’t take the matter any further.

However, the boys thought that the police were after them so they broke into the warehouse and spent the night in a store room. In the morning they left a cigarette burning in there and a fire started. The storeroom happened to be Edna Gee’s favourite place to go for a crafty smoke herself and when she opened the door she was engulfed in flames and died instantly. The fire took hold and the entire warehouse was razed, leaving Fred Gee a widower and all the workers unemployed.

1975 saw the marriage of Deirdre Hunt and Ray Langton. Deirdre was engaged to Billy Walker but when Ken Farrington handed in his notice, the storylines had to be rejigged.

With the wedding date set and both mothers having bought the same outfit, both Billy and Deirdre started to have second thoughts. Billy broke it off and jetted off to Jersey to take a bartending job. Deirdre and Ray then amazed all the Street residents by getting together and after a whirlwind romance they were married at the local register office.

Also in 1975: Graham Haberfield (Jerry Booth) dies; Lynne Johnson is murdered and Len Fairclough is the chief suspect; Carlos proposes to Mavis to get a work permit; Gail Potter and Tricia Hopkins get conned by a modelling agency; Betty Turpin wins Newton & Ridley’s ‘Personality of the Pub’ competition; Stan Ogden wins free beer for a week.

Day 16 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

1976 saw the arrival of one of the world’s greatest cultural icons, Hilda Ogden’s ‘muriel’.

Eddie Yeats was in need of lodgings and approached Hilda about moving into her back bedroom. Hilda agreed to the proposal on the condition that Eddie help Stan redecorate her back parlour. Ever the scheming wheeler-dealer, Eddie acquired a job lot of old wallpaper buy halfway through hanging it, discovered that four of the rolls were faded because it was old stock. Hilda was furious about her ruined room but Eddie came to the rescue when he got hold of a wallpaper mural of the Canadian Rockies. Hilda was instantly smitten and invited all the neighbours round to view the scene. Annie Walker had this to say: ‘You know dear, I feel just a little giddy. Would you mind if I sat facing the other way until I’m acclimatised?’ 2 years later the mountain scene was replaced by a seascape after Stan let the bath overflow and it was damaged by water.

This year saw the last appearance of Minnie Caldwell. Minnie was quiet and timid and was always being bossed around by her friend Ena Sharples, who she was regularly to be found with in the Snug at the Rovers Return drinking milk stout along with Martha Longhurst. Though Minnie once said of Ena "She bullies me. She always has... in the name of Christianity", they were always there for each other and whenever Ena was ill, or was unable or unwilling to live at the Mission, Minnie provided her with a bed. Minnie lived round the corner from Coronation Street at 15 Jubilee Terrace, but when her bedridden mother died in 1962 at the ripe old age of 94, she decided she could no longer live there and with the help of Leonard Swindley, who spoke to the landlord and agreed a fair rent, she moved in to no. 5.

Having retired from Earnshaw's Mill in 1960, Minnie began to take in lodgers to help supplement her pension. Many came and went, some staying a few days, others years, but her favourites were petty crook Jed Stone and failed comic Charlie Moffitt. Jed came and went but he finally left when he was sentenced to 18 months in Walton. Despite never returning, Jed's place in Minnie's heart was reaffirmed when Bobby disappeared and was replaced by a stray found up on the viaduct, which Minnie called 'Sunny Jim' - though she later re-named him Bobby.

Having stopped taking in lodgers, Minnie's biggest worry continued to be money, both the lack of it and decimalisation. Albert Tatlock thought that he had the answer to both their money problems and popped the question. Minnie was quite keen on the idea as long as Albert moved into No. 5, but insisted that he ask Ena's permission first, as is only right and proper. Ena got the wrong end of the stick and accepted Albert's proposal on her own behalf. Minnie and Albert came to an understanding, but then Ena told them that they wouldn't be better off financially as they had thought and although Albert was still willing to go through with the marriage if Minnie was, his irritating habits, like drinking his tea from a saucer, had started to get on her nerves and so they called it off. Jed Stone's Walton cell-mate, Eddie Yeats, turned up on her doorstep and out of friendship for her old lodger, she took him in but Minnie's health was deteriorating and after meeting up again with Handel Gartside, she finally retired with Bobby to Whaley Bridge to keep house for him.

"I know folk think I'm simple. What I say to them is that I'd rather be simple and 'ave my pleasures than know everything and be miserable, like Ena." Also in 1976: Stan Ogden and Albert Tatlock get locked in the Rovers’ cellar; Renee Bradshaw buys the corner shop; Elsie Howard returns; Mike Baldwin arrives and sets up

a factory; Mavis Riley meets Derek Wilton; Bill Podmore starts work as producer with the promise to introduce more comedy; Gail Potter falls for Roy Thornley who turns out to be married.

Day 17 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

In 1977, Ken Barlow’s estranged wife, Janet, returned to the Street. Kicked out by her lover, she turned up on Ken’s doorstep and begged him to take her back. He refused her advances but said that she could stay the night. Upstairs alone and frightened, she opened a bottle of pills and took the lot. Ken found her dead in the morning and initially the police suspected him of murdering her. Ken felt that death was stalking him, having lost his mother, father, brother and two wives. He turned to Rita Littlewood for comfort: ‘We’ve all had our nightmares Ken. We’re all the walking wounded, love. It’s just that some of us get more wounded than others.’

Suzie Birchall arrived on the Street fleeing her violent, abusive father. She talked Mike Baldwin into employing her in his boutique, ‘The Western Front’ and Elsie Tanner into

letting her share a room with Gail Potter at no. 11. Elsie was amused by Suzie as she saw a lot of her younger self in her, which is probably why she let her get away with so much.

She was an assertive, bubbly, forthright and fun-loving woman who liked men like Mike Baldwin who could show her a good time and had numerous flings during her time on the Street.

Convinced that she could be a big success as a model, she decided to try her luck in the bright lights of London. Instead she ended up working in pubs and burger bars. While there she met and fell in love with Terry Goodwin and got married. His true colours soon showed however as he became abusive so she returned to the safety of Weatherfield where Elsie took her in again. Terry came after her but Elsie protected her and made him see that there was no future in their marriage.

Suzie took a job as barmaid at the Rovers and threw herself at Mike again but he wasn’t interested. While she’d been away, her best friend Gail had settled down to married life with Brian and had had a son, Nicky. Jealous of her happiness, Suzie tried to seduce Gail’s husband but her plan backfired when he resisted her and told Gail. Elsie was disgusted and threw her out but Suzie thought her a hypocrite: ‘Come on Elsie, maybe I did go over the top but it’s not like you to take this high moral tone. I mean, Elsie Tanner, she used to be the biggest slag of the lot!’ She stormed away from the Street and, unfortunately, has not been seen again.

Also in 1977: Tracy Langton is born, Len Fairclough and Rita Littlewood tie the knot; Doris Speed receives the MBE; the residents hold a Silver Jubilee carnival; no. 13 becomes no. 12A; Annie Walker celebrates 40 years in the Rovers.

Day 18 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

Stephen Hancock, who played Ernest Bishop, had his contract up for renewal. He didn’t feel that the contracts, whereby some of the cast were paid appearance money for every episode even though they didn’t appear in them all, were fair and so told the producer he wouldn’t be signing. Bill Podmore tried numerous times to change his mind but he stood firm and was adamant that under the existing system, he wanted to leave. Writer John Stevenson came up with the exit storyline. It would not have been believable for Ernest

and Emily to split up and divorce and just as unlikely for him to leave the area without her. It would have been unfair to send Emily away when Eileen Derbyshire had no desire to leave the show. So it was decided that in order to save Emily Bishop, Ernest must die.

Ernest was the wages clerk at Baldwin’s Casuals and was busy making up the wages one day when two youths, Tommo Jackson and Dave Lester, burst into the office with a shotgun and demanded the cash. As Ernie handed it over, Mike Baldwin came into the office, nudging the gunman who shot Ernie in the chest. The raiders fled whilst Mike stared in horror at Ernie’s lifeless body. He was rushed to hospital but died on the operating table.

Another departure this year was Ray Langton. Ray had grown bored with his work and domestic life and started up an affair with Janice Stubbs who worked at Dawson’s café.

Emily was the manager there and was horrified when she uncovered their illicit relationship. Deirdre grew suspicious and Emily was forced to tell her the truth. Deirdre confronted Ray and he was repentant promising them a new start in Amsterdam. She agreed to emigrate with him but when it came down to it she decided she couldn’t trust him enough and refused to go.

Also in 1978: Gail Potter meets Brian Tilsley; Alf Roberts and Renee Bradshaw get married; Fred Gee proposes to Betty Turpin, Bet Lynch and Alma Walsh from The Flying Horse in an attempt to get a pub of his own; the factory workers go on strike Hilda is sacked for asking for a new broom; Elsie Howard becomes Elsie Tanner again.

Day 19 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

We first met Ivy Tilsley in 1971 when she worked at the warehouse and later Baldwin’s Casuals and became a regular in the Rovers. Her son Brian had been introduced as a love interest for Gail Potter and we had seen her husband in 1975, when he had been called Jack, but in 1979 it was decided that the family should take up residence in the Street with Ivy’s husband now called Bert to avoid any confusion with Vera Duckworth’s other half.

A good Catholic, Ivy doted on her family, though there was never any doubt about the fact that she was in charge, dominating both Bert and Brian. In his turn, Bert was down to earth, would do anything for a quiet life and would only stand up to his wife when she, inevitably, went too far. Brian was the apple of his mother’s eye and nothing and no-one was too good for him so when he took up with Gail, who was not a Catholic, from a single parent family and had been named in a divorce case, Ivy was horrified. When Brian’s marriage to Gail frequently came between him and his mother, it was always Bert who came along to smooth things out.

The only good thing Gail ever did in Ivy’s eyes was give birth to Nicholas Paul Tilsley, who immediately became Ivy’s blue-eyed little boy. Ivy was continually interfering in Nicky’s upbringing, calling in on Gail unannounced and criticising her child rearing methods. And when Gail went back to work leaving Nicky with a childminder, Ivy accused her of being a bad mother. Her grip on Nicky continued with her into the grave as when she died, she left her house to Nicky on condition that he change his name back to Tilsley after becoming a Platt when his mother remarried after Brian’s death.

It wasn’t only at home where she ruled the roost. She was a staunch Trades Unionist and was shop steward at the factory where she wasn’t slow in jumping to the aid of anyone who was badly treated. When Mike Baldwin sacked Hilda Ogden, who wasn’t even in the union, for asking for a new broom, she brought the workers out on strike and battled on the picket line when Baldwin brought in scab labour to try to finish an important order.

Bert’s death in 1984 left Ivy without the stabilising influence in her life and she clung even harder to Brian and Gail, desperate not to be left alone in life. She eventually found love in the shape of George Wardle who was down to earth like Bert but when she found out he was divorced and so still married in God’s eyes, she ended the relationship. But she still had her Brian so all was ok with the world. When he left Gail due to her infidelity, he was welcomed with open arms by his mother. Whilst she knew that Brian had strayed, she found that acceptable as he was a hot-blooded male but Gail had no excuse, after all she was married to the perfect husband.

Ivy remarried after she met taxi-driver Don Brennan. All was fine at first but after Brian was murdered, Don had trouble competing with the ghosts of Ivy’s past. After an affair with Julie Dewhurst and a failed suicide attempt, he eventually left her and she took to the bottle. She went to a Catholic retreat to dry out but died of a stroke shortly after Don wrote to her seeking a divorce.

Also in 1979: A Lorry crashes into the Rovers; Hilda starts keeping hens; Audrey Potter arrives; Brian Tilsley and Gail Potter get married; Fred Gee gets a toupee; a strike at ITV causes Coronation Street to be off air for 2.5 months; Jack Duckworth makes his first appearance; Ken takes Deirdre and Tracy to the Lake District on holiday; Suzie comes back from London.

Day 20 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

In order to cater for Deirdre Langton’s childcare needs, she and Emily Bishop decided to set up the Coronation Street Secretarial Bureau. One of their first clients was Arnold Swain who owned a pet-shop and needed help with his bookkeeping. He took an interest in Emily but scared her off by asking questions about her finances. Deirdre truned private investigator to look into Arnold’s background and found that he was no gold-digger as he had plenty of money himself.

He proposed to Emily twice before she accepted and they were married in Weatherfield register office before honeymooning in Shanklin on the Isle of Wight. After the wedding Emily was shocked when Arnold started making plans to sell up and move to Derbyshire.

But before the move could be finalised, Emily received a visit from an insurance man searching for a Mrs Margaret Swain. She was stunned to discover that Arnold had another wife to whom he was still legally married. She confronted him and he admitted it but said that the marriage had only lasted three weeks and he had told everyone that she had died to avoid the humiliation. Emily threw him out and she went to report the matter to the police but they refused to believe her, thinking that she was just a lonely old soul who had made it all up.

Despite having just recently signed a new contract, in 1980 Madge Hindle found out that her character Renee Roberts was to be killed off as the producers didn’t think that her marriage to Alf Roberts was working. Renee was learning to drive and she and Alf had gone out into the country for a meal. Alf had had too much to drink and so Renee got behind the wheel for the return trip to Weatherfield. Whilst going through some roadworks, Renee stalled the car and an agitated Alf got out of the car and made her

change places. Before Alf could get back in to take control, a lorry appeared and smashed into the car. Renee was rushed to hospital and underwent surgery for her burst spleen but died on the operating table.

Also in 1980: Nicky Tilsley is born; Ena Sharples moves to St. Anne’s; Hilda wins a night out with Mike Baldwin; Bet wears Annie’s dress the wrong way round; Martin Cheveski comes to stay with Elsie; Eddie Yeats starts work on the bins.

Day 21 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

1981 brought us the wedding of the year when Ken Barlow and Deirdre Langton finally tied the knot. The pair had first started seeing each other in 1979 after Deirdre had told Billy Walker she didn’t find him exciting like she had Ray and he jetted off back to Jersey. The relationship continued for a year or so before the romance died when Ken decided that he didn’t want to risk a third marriage. Despite this, they still had feelings for each other though fate intervened to prevent them seeing more of each other after Ken failed to turn up for a date because his car broke down and so Deirdre took up with Mike Baldwin instead for a while. It was after a flat- warming party at Mike’s when the two of them found themselves doing the washing up together that they realised they were made for each other.

They married in July 1981, two days before another widely watched wedding, with Deirdre noting that the age difference between her and Ken was the same as that between the royal couple. The ceremony took place at All Saints, with Alf Roberts giving the bride away, Emily Bishop as matron of honour, Tracy Langton and Susan Barlow as bridesmaids and Len Fairclough as best man. The pair settled down to married life at no.

1 along with the uncle of Ken’s first wife, Albert Tatlock. Working all day in the corner shop and then coming home to look after a four year old child, an eighty six year old curmudgeon and a husband who had started taking her for granted, it’s no surprise that when wooed by a man who treated her as a desirable woman rather than a drudge she fell for Mike Baldwin.

Emily worked out what was going on between Deirdre and Mike and begged her not to throw her marriage away. Deirdre had already decided that it was over though and planned to run away to Mike with Tracy but when it came down to it she couldn’t face leaving Ken on his own. She confessed all and ken threw her out but she refused to go and begged his forgiveness. They were reconciled and Ken set about rejuvenating himself and their marriage, warning Mike to stay away from his family.

Deirdre became a councillor and Ken became first agony uncle and then editor on The Weatherfield Recorder. This combination was fraught with problems as Ken would quiz Deirdre about goings on at the council and use what he learned as a husband when writing for the paper. When Ken alerted the readers to confidential council plans to turn a local community centre into a hostel for homeless youths, Deirdre’s colleagues assumed that he had learnt of the details from her. Officials at the council only believed her denials of any involvement when The Recorder started to print details of meetings which she hadn’t attended. Ken eventually admitted that the mole was the chief executive’s secretary, Wendy Crozier who was promptly sacked.

Feeling guilty for not protecting his sources, Ken employed Wendy on the paper and one thing led to another and as Ken turned 50, the two became lovers. They managed to keep the affair secret for three months but on Christmas Eve Deirdre confronted Ken with her suspicions and he broke down and admitted the affair. Deirdre was less forgiving than Ken had been over Mike and on New Year’s Eve she threw him out and then filed for divorce.

Nearly ten years later, Deirdre had ended up in jail after being taken in by con-man Jon Lindsay. Along with others on the Street, most notably Mike Baldwin, Ken worked hard to right the miscarriage of justice. Blanche Hunt returned to the Street to live with her daughter and immediately set about matchmaking between Ken and Deirdre. She was unsuccessful but their daughter Tracy managed to reconcile them after returning home after leaving her husband.

In 2005 the couple got married again but married bliss wasn’t their style and in 2009, Ken embarked on an affair with Martha Fraser who lived on a canal boat. When faced with the opportunity to say goodbye to the Street and spend the rest of his life with his intellectual equal, Ken couldn’t do it. He returned to Deirdre and confessed all but rather than get annoyed and have endless rows about the whole affair or throw him out, Deirdre just treated Ken with contempt. After all, Ken had forgiven her over her unseemly fling with Dev Alahan some years before and so she decided with some bitterness that she could do the same.

Also in 1981: Rita and Len Fairclough try to adopt and end up fostering; Fred Gee marries Eunice Nuttall; Alma Sedgewick makes her first appearance; Arnold Swain dies leaving Emily £2000; Alf Roberts proposes to Audrey who runs away; Vera Duckworth has a fling and Jack throws her out.

Day 22 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

In 1981 work had begun on the building of a new outdoor set, which was opened by the Queen in May 1982. The previous one on Grape Street was starting to fall to bits and was unpopular among the cast due to its distance from the studio. The opportunity was taken to rebuild no. 7 which had collapsed in 1965 and provide a much more modern house which included central heating for the first time on Coronation Street. Len Fairclough had bought the plot of land and built the new house, though all the building took place off screen. He had initially intended to sell it but once it was finished, Rita liked it so much that they moved in and sold no. 9 to Chalkie Whitely.

Also a ginnel was built between No. 1 and the Rovers to put an end to letters from viewers complaining that every time anyone went to the toilet in the pub, they would actually end up in Albert Tatlock’s. Perhaps that’s why he was always so grumpy. 49,000 bricks and 6,500 roofing slates were reclaimed from Salford streets to give the set the right period look and at last the cobbles on the road would be running in the right direction.

The Faircloughs had started fostering the year before but in 1982 their relatively quiet lives were turned upside down by the arrival of 16 year old tomboy, Sharon Gaskell. She wasn’t happy working in the Kabin all day with Rita and Mavis so ended up helping Len with the building of no. 7. All was happy with the family until Sharon clapped her eyes on Brian Tilsley. She started babysitting for the Tilsley’s and threw herself at Brian, who, flattered by the attention and a little drunk, responded. It all ended in tears and raised voices when Gail found out and told Rita. Embarrassed to remain living near Brian, when she was offered a job as a kennel maid in Sheffield she took it and moved away.

Also in 1982: Jack Duckworth and Bet Lynch have a fling; Betty attacked; Hilda Ogden starts cleaning for Dr Lowther; Phyllis Pearce makes her first appearance; Brian Tilsley goes to Qatar to work; Mike Baldwin gets Maggie Dunlop pregnant but she marries Harry Redman; Slim Jim meets Stardust Lil; Mavis Riley meets Victor Pendlebury; Harry the budgie lays an egg.

Day 23 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

1983 saw the departure of Annie Walker and Len Fairclough. Doris Speed's health had deteriorated, which wasn’t helped when a national newspaper printed a copy of her birth certificate showing her to be 15 years older than she claimed. She was also traumatised by a robbery at her home while she was upstairs in bed and so moved into a nursing home. On screen, Annie Walker retired to her daughter’s in Derby.

Peter Adamson had stood trial on charges of indecent assault and was found not guilty.

Having won the case and hence his costs would have been repaid, it was therefore puzzling why Adamson decided to sell his story to a newspaper. He had been warned before about selling unauthorised interviews before and so Granada felt they had no option but to sack him. On screen, Len was killed in a car accident after falling asleep at the wheel while driving back from a job in Ashton. To add insult to injury, it was revealed after the funeral that Len had in fact been having an affair with Marjorie Proctor.

Mavis Riley was being wooed by bohemian potter Victor Pendlebury who brought out the wild, artistic, romantic in her. He took her on a camping holiday to the Lake District but when she saw the size of the tent that he’d brought for them to sleep in, she refused to have anything to do with it and they ended up sleeping in a youth hostel. He later announced that he was buying a cottage in Saddleworth and asked Mavis to move in with him in a trial marriage. She was tempted but felt that if he wasn’t prepared to commit fully then he wasn’t worthy of her. The following year he proposed to her but by then she was engaged to that dozy drip of a man, Derek Wilton. If only she’d been bolder.

Also in 1983: Deirdre Barlow has an affair with Mike Baldwin; Eddie Yeats and Marion Willis get married; first appearances for Curly Watts, Terry Duckworth, Kevin Webster and Percy Sugden; Suzie Birchall returns but leaves again after failing to seduce Brian Tilsley; Graffiti Club opens; the Duckworths move into No. 9, complete with pigeons; Vince St Clair & Carole Malone go on a ‘date’.

Day 24 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

With the departure of Pat Phoenix, 1984 saw Bill Roache become the last remaining cast member who had appeared in the first episodes. Elsie Tanner’s old flame Bill Gregory had turned up on the Street for his friend Len Fairclough’s funeral and had been surprised to find that Elsie was still around. He whisked her away to Portugal where he had a wine bar and as Elsie left in a taxi for the late train, the taxi driver asked her if she was going away for long. ‘Ah,’ she replied, ‘there’s a question.’

She left her daughter, Linda Cheveski with the task of selling her house. Being in the throes of divorcing her husband, Linda took the opportunity to stay in the house herself.

Builder Bill Webster was interested in buying the house to provide some stability for his children Kevin and Debbie after the death of their mother, Alison. Linda took quite a fancy to Bill and hoped that he would ask her to live with him but he wasn’t interested so she returned to Birmingham.

The year saw the end of another well-loved character. The health of Bernard Youens, who played Stan Ogden, went through a horrific decline, though he continued to appear for quite a while. On screen Stan’s health started to mirror that of the actor and he became bedridden. Hilda was worn to a frazzle looking after him and continuing to be the house’s main provider. After Hilda had a collapse, the doctor insisted that Stan be admitted to hospital and a couple of weeks later he sadly died.

Their son Trevor tried to convince his mother to have Stan cremated to save money but Hilda insisted on a burial, buying a plot with enough room for her as well. Throughout the funeral, Hilda had kept her dignity but on returning home she unwrapped Stan’s belongings which had been returned by the hospital and as she opened his spectacle case she wept floods of tears.

Also in 1984: Violet Carson dies; Bill Webster rents Len’s old builders’ yard; Mavis Riley and Derek Wilton jilt each other at the altar; Bert Tilsley dies; Albert Tatlock dies; Gail becomes manager of Jim’s Café after Alma goes off to Spain; Graffiti Club closes

after manager runs off with profits; Mike installs a PC in his office; Jack buys Stan’s old window cleaning round and meets Dulcie Froggatt.

Day 25 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation.

Annie Walker’s retirement had left a vacuum at the Rovers. Fred Gee had a disastrous time as temporary manager when he began to cut corners and he was replaced by relief manager Frank Harvey when he contracted pneumonia and he left to be nursed by his sister. Billy Walker returned to take control but he left under a cloud after he racked up some large debts and Mike Baldwin threatened to expose him to the police over some of his dodgy dealings.

The permanent manager of the Rovers soon became Bet Lynch who, supported by the locals, beat off competition from Gordon Lewis. While Bet was given training in the art of the licensee by Newton & Ridley, Frank Harvey came back as relief manager and employed Gloria Todd as barmaid. On returning from her training, the first thing Bet did was sack her. While on holiday in Blackpool with Rita and Mavis, Bet befriended hotel barman Frank Mills who followed her back to Weatherfield. The pair went off on an impromptu Norwegian cruise together and the brewery had to make Betty Turpin temporary manageress. They also reemployed Gloria Todd as permanent barmaid and when Bet returned from her jaunt up the fjords, the brewery put her on probation and she had to swallow her pride and knuckle down to running the pub.

Audrey Potter returned to Weatherfield and told her daughter Gail that the time had come for her to settle down. She decided that the best catch around was mini-mart (formerly corner shop) owner, Alf Roberts and set about winning his heart. Alf had recently been turned down by Rita Fairclough, who would always be his true love, and so he succumbed quite easily to Audrey’s charms. They married two days before Christmas and spent their honeymoon in Paris.

Alf was happy to be seen with such a desirable woman on his arm, especially at council functions and Audrey was happy to be financially secure and to be able to turn shopping into a hobby rather than the occasional treat. But in their own ways they were very fond of each other and although Audrey would flirt outrageously with any good looking men she came across, she was never actually unfaithful to her dear Alf. Also in 1985: The Clayton family arrive; Bill Webster marries Elaine Prior; Jack Duckworth becomes the Rovers’ cellar man; Susan Barlow starts working for her father at the Recorder and starts seeing Mike Baldwin; Terry Duckworth gets Andrea Clayton pregnant; Gail and Brian Tilsley move out of Ivy’s; George Wardle proposes to Ivy; the Clayton family leave.

Day 26 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation.

The producers wanted to give the Rovers a facelift and asked the writing team if they could write some episodes without the pub so that the set designers could have a chance to update the interior. The writers didn’t think it was feasible as the pub was such a pivotal part of the Coronation Street community but agreed that something needed to be done and came up with the idea of a fire which would mean that the Rovers would have to be closed while it was refurbished.

The story had Jack Duckworth changing a fuse but causing a small fire to break out in the fuse box which flared up after the Rovers had closed. Bet was trapped upstairs in her bedroom awoken by the smoke, she had to crawl out to the stairs and scream as she saw

the flames lapping up the stairwell. When it came to film the scene the stairs had completely burnt out by the time she got to them and everything had to be reset.

Julie Goodyear has this to say about the subsequent action: ‘It was real fear the second time; I’d seen what fire could do. The fire brigade gave me oxygen every four minutes because the smoke was real.’ Floor manager John Friend Newman gave Julie the cue and she staggered towards the stairs, saw the flames and screamed. John shouted ‘Cut!’ then rushed forward, threw Julie to the floor and started beating out the flames round her feet.

The director had been working so intently on getting the shot that he failed to notice that Julie’s nightdress was on fire. ‘I can assure you that the scream at the top of the staircase was authentic.’

Young mechanic Kevin Webster was driving the works van one January morning and drove through a puddle, splashing Sally Seddon who was on her way to a job interview.

She flew into a rage as Kevin looked on dumbstruck and he took her back to Hilda’s to dry out. Romance blossomed but Hilda thought that Kevin could do better as the Seddon’s had a reputation for being common, rough and criminal. When Sally was thrown out by her parents, Hilda agreed to her moving in to no. 13, provided there was no shenanigans: ‘You know what I mean. I don’t have to draw no diagrams.’ Hilda eventually warmed to Sally and was as proud as punch when Kevin and Sally got married in October 1986.

Also in 1986: Rita Fairclough fosters Jenny Bradley; Susan Barlow marries Mike Baldwin; Ken Barlow hits Mike; Pat Phoenix dies; Vera Duckworth wins a car in a ‘Husband of the Year’ competition; Gail Tilsley has an affair with Ian Latimer; Terry Duckworth finds out he’s a father to Paul Clayton; Ken adopts Tracy.

Day 27 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation.

For 23 years Jean Alexander had played the nation’s favourite gossiping cleaner, Hilda Ogden but in 1987 she decided to call it a day to allow her to do some of the things she’d been doing before she started in Coronation Street. When Jean announced her decision to leave, the writers decided to send her off in style.

Dr and Mrs Lowther, who she had cleaned for for years, had decided to retire to Derbyshire. Hilda went round to help them pack up their house and disturbed some burglars. In the struggle she was knocked unconscious and ended up on a life-support system. When she came round she was told that Mrs Lowther had died of heart failure during the attack. On her release from hospital she withdrew into herself, frightened to leave the safety of no. 13 and when Dr Lowther offered her the chance to be his housekeeper in Derbyshire, she jumped at it. On Christmas Day in the Rovers the whole Street turned out to give her a rousing send off and over 26 million viewers tuned in to hear her sing ‘Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye’.

Eager to get the brewery off her back, Bet Lynch set about getting together the funds to buy the Rovers off Newton and Ridley. She couldn’t scrape together anywhere near enough and so, despite warnings from all her friends, she borrowed money off Alec Gilroy. No sooner was the pub hers than she disappeared off to Spain, feeling unable to cope with the repayments she’d saddled herself with. Alec was quick to tell Cecil Newton where her money had come from and he was allowed to take control of the pub. When Alec located her he flew out to see her and asked her to come back to run the pub with him as his wife.

One of the most unlikely weddings ever to feature on Coronation Street went ahead with fans outside the church chanting ‘Don’t Do It’. But do it they did, with Bet wearing the most outrageous meringue of a wedding dress you’ve ever seen, while wardrobe were unable, or unwilling to even bother, turning up Alec’s trousers properly.

Also in 1987: Brian and Gail Tilsley are reconciled after birth of Sarah-Louise; Alan proposes to Rita and they live over the brush; Deirdre becomes a councillor; Don Brennan makes his first appearance; Terry Duckworth beds Dulcie Froggat; Susan Baldwin gets pregnant and tells Mike she’s had an abortion; Vera Duckworth’s mother, Amy Burton, moves in.

Day 28 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

Mavis Riley and Derek Wilton’s lives had intertwined many times over the years. Since they jilted each other at the church in 1984, Derek had shocked Mavis by marrying his boss’s daughter, Angela Hawthorne and on occasion had returned to Mavis for comfort after suffering at his wife’s acid tongue. Angela divorced Derek, citing Mavis as corespondent. Tired of the daily grind of newspapers and toffees at the Kabin, Mavis went for an interview at a stationery firm only to find Derek on the other side of the desk doing the interviewing. She was insulted when he refused to employ her but he made her another offer instead. Down on his hands and knees and talking through the letterbox at the Kabin because Mavis wouldn’t let him in, he proposed to her. To her friends’ amazement she accepted but not before letting him know how much he’d hurt and humiliated her in the past. A register office wedding was arranged and this time they both turned up. They honeymooned in Paris before setting up home together in the Kabin flat.

Shirley Armitage was the first ethnic minority resident of Coronation Street. She’d been working for Mike Baldwin for a few years but in 1988 she’d had enough of living with her family and asked Alf Roberts about renting the flat above his mini-mart. Alf turned her down saying that he needed the space for storage but when later on Curly Watts, who unbeknownst to Alf was going out with Shirley, asked about renting it, he readily agreed.

The pair of them soon put two and two together and realised what was going on. Curly’s landlady, Emily Bishop, got to hear of the problem and tackled Alf about it, calling him a bigot in the middle of his shop. Alf relented and Shirley and Curly decided to move in to the flat together, where she swiftly took his virginity. Even after they moved in they faced problems, this time from their respective families, neither of whom approved of their relationship.

Also in 1988: Curly Watts out and Percy Sugden in at Emily’s; Ivy Tilsley and Don Brennan are married; Alma Sedgwick returns and takes over Jim’s Café; Brian and Gail Tilsley remarry; Kevin and Sally Webster buy no. 13; Audrey Roberts jets off to Canada to see her son; Bet Lynch gets pregnant but miscarries; Ken Barlow buys all of the Recorder; Mike Baldwin banned for drink driving; Mike wins Don’s taxi in a poker game.

Day 29 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation.

When her mother Pat was killed in a car accident, papergirl Jenny Bradley was taken in by her boss Rita Fairclough. Her father Alan was traced and reintroduced to his daughter after an absence of six years and took an instant liking to her foster mother. Initially Jenny felt only bitterness towards her father, but slowly over a period of weeks, with the help of Rita, he won her over. The courtship between Rita and Alan blossomed, but Alan was never sure of her feelings towards him and he started an affair with barmaid Gloria Todd.

When Rita found out about Alan's secret love, she gave him an ultimatum. Initially, he decided to stick with Gloria, but after he reappraised the financial situation he went back to Rita. When Alan went to the Middle East to work, Rita stayed behind and looked after Jenny, fast becoming a surrogate mother. On his returned, Alan proposed to Rita and she turned him down, but invited him to move in to No7 with her and Jenny, 'over the brush'.

The relationship soon started to fall apart, with Rita becoming ever more cold towards Alan and eventually, he left her for housewife Carole Burns. Rita was devastated and longed for him to return, which he did after 6 weeks after he tired of the physical side of the relationship and a bank had refused him a loan to set up a business, Carole having no money. Rita welcomed him back with open arms, unaware of his real motives for returning. Alan stole the deeds to No7 and calling himself Len Fairclough, obtained a mortgage for ÂŁ15000 so that he could set up his security firm. Rita was proud of the new offices on Rosamund Street, little knowing that she was financing them and for a while at least, the couple seemed happy.

Things were not to remain calm for long however. Alan tried to rape his receptionist Dawn Prescott and she went straight to Rita and spilled the beans about the source of Alan's funding. At first she refused to believe the story, but she broke in to the office and found letters addressed to Len in Alan's files. Whilst Jenny was out celebrating her eighteenth birthday, Rita confronted Alan with what she had found and told him that she

wanted to see him ruined. He pounced on her, beat her about the room and then tried to suffocate her with a cushion. Jenny arrived in the nick of time to pull her father off Rita and he disappeared out into the night.

The police eventually caught up with Alan and at the last moment, he changed his plea to guilty and was sentenced to two years imprisonment, but walked free from the court after his time on remand had been taken into consideration. With revenge in his heart, he took a job on the building site opposite No. 7 so that he could keep an eye on Rita and torment her. Unable to take the constant proximity of the man who had tried to kill her, Rita disappeared without a trace. The locals were convinced that Alan had done away with her and the police dug up the building site looking for her body.

On an overnight trip to Blackpool so that Alec Gilroy could check out some acts, he and Bet Lynch discovered "Rita Littlewood" singing in a hotel owned by an old mate of Alec's. Bet and Alec found Rita in a terrible state, seemingly having blotted out the last 15 years. Bet stayed in Blackpool to comfort her only to lose her again, while Alec returned to Weatherfield and in a state of guilt over having suspected Alan of killing Rita, told him where she was. Intent on getting Rita to return and clear his name, Alan went to Blackpool where he came across her on the street outside her hotel. He bustled her into the car, but she managed to escape and ran across the road narrowly missing a tram. Alan was not so lucky and was killed instantly, his crumpled body lying on the promenade as Bet consoled a distraught Rita.

Also in 1989: Friday episode introduced; Brian Tilsley murdered; Factory and Community Centre demolished to make way for shops and houses; McDonald family arrives; Reg Holdsworth makes first appearance; Gail starts seeing Martin Platt; Curly & Shirley split up; Curly gets job as trainee assistant manager at Bettabuy; Kevin becomes head mechanic at garage; Vera gets stone cladding; Alma divorces Jim and gets cafĂŠ as settlement; Deirdre throws Ken out after his affair with Wendy Crozier; Jack holds his glasses together with a plaster for the next twenty years.

Day 30 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

For thirty years the cast had rehearsed in large rooms with tape on the floors marking out their homes but in 1990, Coronation Street was given exclusive use of its own studio called Stage One allowing rehearsals to be done on the actual set that the scenes would be filmed on. Rather than sets being erected for filming and then being dismantled so that other filming could be carried out, sets for places like the Rovers, shops and café could be kept up permanently with house interiors erected as required. The Coronation Street cast also got their own dressing rooms, make-up facilities, costume areas and Green Room.

With the expansion to three episodes a week the previous year this all helped in dealing with the increased workload and tighter schedules. More characters were needed too and the erection of houses, shops and flats on the even side of the Street gave the production team the space to expand the cast and to move some existing characters from off-street residences onto the actual Street. The first characters to set up on the other side of the Street were Des and Steph Barnes. Steph’s father, who had built the new houses, sold no.6 to them at cost price and they moved in on their wedding day. They were labelled by some as ‘yuppies’ but they were really just working class people who had a bit of cash, Des was a bookies clerk and Steph a shop assistant. At their housewarming, Steph got Kevin Webster drunk and shaved off his moustache, thus winning a bet with Des who was forced to drink in the Rovers without his trousers.

Rita Fairclough closed the Kabin on Rosamund Street relocating it to one of the new premises on Coronation Street and moved out of no. 7 and into the flat above the new shop. Jenny Bradley swiftly moved in her friend Flick Khan and her younger sister, Joanne who became the centre of attraction for Steve and Andy McDonald. Steve won the battle for Joanne’s heart but his father, Jim, didn’t approve so they stole Jim’s motorbike and ran away to the Lake District together. The romance was short-lived and Joanne soon returned to the Street after having to take a badly paid job in a hotel. Liz went to fetch Steve home and threatened to leave Jim if he laid on finger on their wayward son.

Also in 1990: Rosie Webster and David Platt born; Deirdre divorces Ken; Ken sells the Recorder; Alec tracks down estranged daughter and hits it off with his granddaughter Vicky; Curly Watts and Kimberley Taylor get engaged; Alma moves in with Mike but he takes up with Jackie Ingram; Jack Duckworth buys Vera an Alsatian called Boomer; Percy Sugden lies about his age to get a job as a lollipop man.

Day 31 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation.

Curly Watts’ engagement to fellow Bettabuy employee Kimberley Taylor was shortlived. She cited Curly’s dislike of her mother and the fact that although she wanted to save herself until she was married, he was always trying to get her into bed. Overhearing this, checkout girl Raquel Wolstenhulme thought that it might be worth giving herself to Curly as it could improve her career prospects. At first Curly wasn’t in the least bit interested as he was still obsessed with Kimberley who had taken up with her cousin, Adrian Gosthorpe. After he told Curly that he and Kimberley had had sex, Curly attacked him and ended up in a police cell. Kimberley was moved to Bolton and Curly then directed his attentions towards Raquel who he supported in her attempts to win the Miss Bettabuy North West title.

Though thwarted in the beauty contest, Raquel did achieve her ambition to do some

modelling when Angie Freeman asked her to help out with her end of degree show. She was spotted by a photographer who lured her away from Bettabuy for a career in ‘artistic’ poses. Upset, Curly got drunk with Angie and they spent the night together. Angie immediately regretted it, regarding Curly as more of a brother than a lover. Five months later, Raquel was back, crying on Curly’s shoulder, jobless and homeless. With Curly’s help she got a job at the Rovers and moved in as Des Barnes’s lodger, though in reality she spent only one night in the spare room.

Des Barnes bought himself an old boat and set about renovating it in the back garden.

Steph got annoyed at the amount of time he spent working on it, neglecting both him and the house. She went off on a skiing holiday and when she returned, Des was convinced that she’d had an affair whilst away. She denied it but Des remained convinced and so spent more and more time on his boat. Feeling neglected , Steph was flattered when she received some attention from architect Simon Beatty and started an affair with him. Des eventually finished work on the boat and on its maiden voyage, Steph confessed all to him and told him she was leaving. Des panicked her into thinking he had killed himself by blowing up the boat but she found him sitting on the river bank watching the flames: ‘There goes our marriage Steph … didn’t it go with a bang!’

Also in 1991: Ken attempts suicide but is saved by Bet; Mike Baldwin and Jackie Ingram marry but split up in a week; Gail Tilsley and Martin Platt get married; Mike opens a garage and employs Kevin Webster to run it; Ken starts seeing Alma and Mike steals her off him; Vicky Arden is orphaned; Percy Sugden is Bettabuy santa; Andy and Steve McDonald start a pirate radio station.

Day 32 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation.

Since his arrival on Coronation Street the character of Jim McDonald had been pretty one-dimensional. He shouted at his sons, hurled insults at other characters and condescended to his wife, Liz. But 1992 saw the culmination of a story that melted the hearts of the viewers as the McDonald family came to terms with the loss of a baby. Liz had been surprised to find out she was pregnant and initially considered an abortion before Jim talked her out of it, pointing out that this was her last realistic opportunity of having another child. Steve had been involved with a gang selling stolen car radios and after Andy was beaten up as a warning to him, he went on the run. Liz was worried that Steve was lying dead somewhere and with the stress of the situation she went into labour prematurely. Baby Katie was born on January 1st 1992 but sadly died the following day.

In the aftermath Jim was shown to be caring, sensitive and supportive and at last the viewers started to warm to him.

1992 was a year of weddings with no fewer than three marriages taking place within the space of a month. The first pair to tie the knot was Terry Duckworth and his pregnant girlfriend Lisa Horten. Terry had been allowed out of jail for the day accompanied by two

prison officers but Vera persuaded them to remove his handcuffs for a wedding photograph. Seizing the opportunity, Terry did a runner leaving Lisa wondering if he’d only got married so that he could escape from prison. When he was eventually apprehended in Bettabuy’s car park he assured her that the wedding was genuine and he really did love her.

A week later the residents gathered at the register office to witness the wedding of Rita Fairclough and Ted Sullivan. Only one of the guests, Audrey Roberts, knew the real pain behind the smiles of the happy couple. Rita had broken down at her hen party and confessed to Audrey that Ted had a brain tumour and wasn’t long for this world. Three months later Rita found Ted asleep on a bench and realised that he was in fact dead.

Finally we saw the long awaited wedding between Mike Baldwin and Alma Sedgewick.

Alma had been cited as co-respondent in the divorce between Mike and Jackie Ingram and she was distraught. After Mike told her that he had her name removed at the cost of thousands of pounds she happily agreed to marry him. However, the day before the wedding Jackie informed her that it had been Mike’s idea all along to cite Alma and she had doubts about going through with the wedding and only made up her mind to go through with it at the last minute: ‘The only sin I’ve committed, Mike, is knowing you.

And I’ll be regretting that for the rest of my life.’

Also in 1992: Raquel takes up with Des Barnes; Tommy Duckworth born; Alec Gilroy sails away with Sunliners; Bet back in charge at the Rovers; Denise Osbourne opens salon; Mark Redman ages 2 years; Curly Watts buys no. 7 and puts a telescope in loft; Martin Platt trains as a nurse; Don Brennan attempts suicide.

Day 33 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

While training to be a nurse, Martin Platt befriended fellow student nurse Carmel Finnan.

She started to babysit for the family and moved in as a lodger. Little did he know that she had become fixated with him. After getting drunk one night he woke up to find her in his bed and she confessed to being in love with him and told him she knew that he loved her too. He denied he felt anything for her and to Gail’s surprise, he threw Carmel out of the house. Carmel confronted Gail and told her that she loved Martin, that Gail was no good for him and that she was p[regnant with his baby. Martin swore to Gail that there was

nothing going on between him and Carmel and she believed him until she found out about the night they had spent in bed together and started to have doubts.

In a dramatic climax, Carmel tried to kidnap David Platt. Gail tried to warn her off and ended up pushing her downstairs. She broke her leg and Gail worried that she may have damaged the baby but at the hospital the Platts were told that Carmel wasn’t and never had been pregnant. Carmel’s grandfather turned up to take her back to Ireland and confessed to the Platts that this wasn’t the first time that Carmel had become obsessed with a man.

Lisa Horten and her son Tommy moved in with Des Barnes and they were contemplating moving away from the area to start a new life. Unfortunately Lisa was killed on the Street when she was knocked down by a car and young Tommy was taken in by his grandparents, Jack and Vera. Vera was counting the days to Terry’s release from prison with the expectation of them all living together in domestic bliss. Little did she know that Terry was negotiating with Tommy’s other grandparents, Geoff and Doreen Horten, to sell Tommy to them to be brought up in Blackpool. Jack twigged what was going on and thumped his son before disowning him for breaking his mother’s heart again.

Also in 1993: Jenny Bradley tries to fleece Rita; Liz McDonald leaves Jim to run the Queens; Liz has an affair with Colin Barnes; Fiona Middleton and Maureen Naylor make their first Appearances; Tracy Barlow finds out about Deirdre’s affair with Mike; Don Brennan stalks Denise Osbourne; Steve McDonald beds Vicky Arden; Jim calls Liz a whore; Raquel takes French lessons from Ken; the evil Tanya Pooley starts working at the Rovers.

Day 34 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

It had been planned for Ken and Deirdre to reunite but when Anne Kirkbride fell ill and had to be written out of the show for six months, storlines had to be rejigged and Ken was paired up with Denise Osbourne instead and got her pregnant. On her return from nursing her sick mother, Deirdre was furious and reminded Ken of the times she’d begged him to let them start a family when they were together. Deirdre flew off on holiday to Morocco where she had a holiday romance with a 21 year old waiter. On her return she borrowed money from Emily and amazed the Street by paying for him to come to the UK. Samir Rachid arrived frightened by the western world but hopelessly in love with Deirdre.

He took a job in a local restaurant and moved into no. 1 with Deirdre, despite the misgivings of her daughter Tracy. When immigration officers started to show an interest, Deirdre proposed to him to keep him in the country and they were married at the register office. Immigration officials refused to believe it was a genuine marriage and they were both faced a fierce interrogation by the authorities. Samir felt like a prisoner and Deirdre felt isolated when her friends refused to believe he loved her. She sold no. 1 to Mike Baldwin and the pair of them used the proceeds to fly back to Morocco to start a new life.

Another unlikely romance blossomed in 1994. Curly Watts had always been interested in barmaid Raquel Wolstenhulme but she’d rejected his advances in the past and he’d come to think of her as unobtainable. He was sacked from Bettabuy after his area manager, Elaine Fenwick, submitted a sexual harassment complaint against him after he kept

declaring his love for her. He worked for a week at the bookies but it was a disaster and so he took a job as manager of discount shop, SoopaScoopa. In an attempt to impress his new bosses he pretended to be engaged and managed to talk Raquel into pretending to be his fiancée.

Raquel had been having a hard time of thing, continually being messed around by Des Barnes. She’d moved into no. 6 with him but he was still attracted to the evil Tanya Pooley who was having an affair with Des’s boss, Alex Christie. Things came to a violent conclusion when Des confronted Alex & Tanya in bed. Raquel arrived on the scene in time to hear Des ordering Alex out of ‘my girl’s bed’ and left in floods of tears, searching out Bet Gilroy for comfort.

After such a torrid time, it is no surprise that when Curly decided that he really did love Raquel and proposed to her, she accepted even though she didn’t love him in return.

Much to her delight, for Christmas that year Curly named a star after her. She broke off the engagement the following year after Des Barnes begged her to marry him at their engagement party but she eventually realised that she didn’t love him. So, on December 18th 1995, in the programme’s first ever hour-long special to celebrate the programme’s 35th anniversary, Raquel and Curly were married in secret in a register office with strangers as witnesses.

Also in 1994: Ivy Tilsley moves to religious retreat; Reg Holdsworth marries Maureen Naylor; Fred Elliott makes his first appearance, I say, Fred Elliott makes his first appearance; Sophie Webster born; Tony Warren gets an MBE; Reg buys the corner shop; Bet Gilroy teams up with Charlie Whelan but he runs off to Hamburg with the evil Tanya Pooley; Fred Elliott tries to bribe an official in a black pudding contest; Steve McDonald and Fiona Middleton move in together.

Day 35 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation.

As first barmaid and later landlady, Bet Gilroy was part of the Rovers’ furniture but it was all to come to an end. Newton and Ridley announced that they no longer wished to keep the Rovers as a tenancy and put the pub up for sale. The brewery at least gave her first refusal and a slightly reduced price tag of £66000 but with no savings it was never a

sum she could hope to raise through normal channels. She approached her good friend Rita Sullivan for a loan and for a while she contemplated the deal and starting up a partnership with Bet but it was clear that Bet had little business sense and as an investment it didn’t look like a good prospect. She approached Vicky McDonald as well but she too saw the deal as a bad risk and turned her down. Rita’s refusal soured relations between the two who had been good friends and Bet felt like she didn’t have a friend in the world. Dejected, she packed her bags and disappeared into the night leaving no forwarding address.

The brewery decided that the Rovers would go to whoever came up with the asking price of £68000 first. Two couples were interested, Jim and Liz McDonald and Jack and Vera Duckworth. Unfortunately the McDonalds were late getting to the brewery as Jim couldn’t get away from work as Mike Baldwin’s chauffeur, though he tried so hard that he lost his job. The Duckworths had come into some money with the death of Jack’s brother Cliff. They’d considered using the windfall to buy the corner shop and had then arranged to buy Des Barnes’ house on the other side of the road as they fancied having a garden. They’d agreed the sale of no. 9 to Gary and Judy Mallet but the sale stalled when Des decided he didn’t want to move after all. And then the Rovers came on the market and they snapped it up.

With Vera Duckworth’s name over the door, they settled into life in the licensed trade but struggled hard to make a success of it. They enjoyed the idea of being mein hosts but they had little business sense and matters weren’t helped by constantly borrowing money from the till and by drinking so much of the profits. Terry turned up hoping to profit from his parents’ new venture though even he soon realised that he wasn’t going to get anything out of it and left but not before getting Tricia Armstrong pregnant. Andy McDonald helped them with their book-keeping but they were soon in trouble with the VAT and were presented with a huge tax bill. In order to pay it they had to sell half the pub to Alec Gilroy who had returned to the area having been made redundant by Sunliners.

The partnership was fraught with tension and was doomed to failure from the start as Vera could never see eye-to-eye with Alec. Alec bought out the Duckworth’s remaining share of the pub and kept them on as employees but the arguments still raged. Alec tried to throw them out of the pub but they managed to barricade themselves into the upstairs living quarters. In the end Alec couldn’t take any more and when Natalie Horrocks offered to buy the pub he washed his hands of the place and headed off to Brighton to help his granddaughter Vicky run a wine bar. Natalie was left with the problem of getting rid of the Duckworths who eventually moved out and lodged at Eunice Gee’s Bed and Breakfast.

Also in 1995: Raquel and Curly marry in 35th anniversary episode; Daniel Osbourne is born; Tracy Barlow suffers kidney failure; Samir is killed and Tracy receives his kidney; Ivy Tilsley dies and leaves her house to Nicky if he changes his name back from Platt; Roy Cropper makes his first appearance; Alf Roberts receives the OBE; Arthur the gnome goes on his travels; Bill Webster returns; Betty Turpin marries Billy Williams; Steve McDonald and Vicky Arden run away to St. Lucia and get married.

Day 36 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

With its ratings share declining, ITV decided that they needed to spread their most successful programmes further and insisted on a fourth episode of Coronation Street being produced, to be shown on Sunday evenings. With only so many hours in a day and with weekend shooting already having become commonplace since the switch to three episodes per week a way had to be found of accommodating the extra episode into production schedules. The result was that it was decided to do away with the producer/technical rehearsal that had been a feature of the Street from day one. This technique of rehearsing immediately before shooting a scene was already a feature of location shooting but now it would be brought to the studio.

Most of the cast had no real problem with the new process as despite the extra scenes required for the fourth episode, the rejigging of the schedule would actually mean they had more free time. The writers were more concerned however. By holding a technical rehearsal some days prior to the actual filming they were able to watch the rehearsal and make adjustments to the script if a line could be improved or if an actor had taken something the wrong way. Also there was a loss of continuity as the scenes were no longer filmed in transmission order, so actors would sometimes lose their knowledge of where a scene was going and how it all sat within the overall story. This was especially true if an actor had a heavy workload and only bothered to read their own scenes and so didn’t really understand how they fitted with everybody else’s.

Furthermore, the amount of story material had to increase and consequently, as we have seen over the years, the stories move further from the viewers’ own reality, which initially drove the programme, to a point where suspension of disbelief is stretched to breaking point. Finally, the extra episode didn’t sit well with the audience. Viewing figures for the new Sunday episode were always lower than the Monday, Wednesday and Friday programmes. Despite Friday regularly ending with a major cliff-hanger to try to draw the audience in on Sunday, people never really got used to the weekend scheduling.

One cast member who was uncomfortable with the switch was Sarah Lancashire who played Raquel Watts. As a popular character she was much in demand on screen and had been carrying long running storylines for months without a break. She announced her decision to move on and left a week before the first Sunday episode was transmitted in November. Raquel took up aromatherapy and hired the back room at the salon to work with clients. Then she decided to enrol on a course in Maidenhead and shocked Curly when she returned much more confident that when she left. She had an interview with an international firm and was offered a job in Kuala Lumpur. Curly put on a brave face when she broke the news in floods of tears but inside he was heartbroken. Before leaving she left Curly a pile of ironed shirts with her wedding ring sitting on top and after giving the Street one last sentimental look, turned to Judy Mallett and said: ‘Look after him.’

Also in 1996: Jim McDonald hits Liz; Steve McDonald gets sent to the big house for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice; Liz catches the eye of Frazer Henderson; Alec Gilroy returns and opens Sunliners travel agency; Fiona Middleton buys the salon; Terry Duckworth sells Tommy again; Terry gets Tricia Armstrong pregnant; Audrey Robert’s estranged son, Stephen Reid, turns up; Norris Cole buries Angela’s golf clubs in the Wilton’s allotment; Don Brennan attempts suicide.

Day 37 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

‘The Street is currently being terrorised by a smiling axeman.’ So wrote Victor LewisSmith in The Daily Mirror about the arrival of new producer Brian Park. Over the years various producers had come in and set about rejuvenating the Street after it had become stale and complacent but none had carried out such a large scale restructuring of cast and storylines as Park was about to. Coronation Street was losing the ratings war with Eastenders and it had gone from a programme that your mother watched to one that your grandmother did. Park also thought that it was facing bias from the press which perceived the programme as being old-fashioned and fuddy-duddy.

On his first day he sacked Peter Baldwin (though credit for this decision has to go to his predecessor Sue Pritchard), who played dopey Derek Wilton, causing outcry across the globe but he’d only just started. Other casualties of Park’s cull were Don Brennan, Percy Sugden, Andy McDonald, Anne Malone, Bill Webster, Billy Williams, Maureen Holdsworth and Scamper the dog and new arrivals included Zoe Tattersall, neighbours from hell The Battersbys and a new look Nicky Tilsley, played by Adam Rickitt. As well as making changes to the cast he also tried to introduce bigger, bolder and longer storylines and move power away from the script writers and more towards the storylining team, feeling that they took a more long-term view towards the stories than script writers who just dealt with one episode at a time.

The Battersbys arrived on the Street with a bang, They were loud, brash, inconsiderate and the sort of people who think that the world revolves around them. They weren’t popular with the residents and Percy Sugden got up a petition to have them forcibly removed, while life became unbearable for next door neighbour Curly Watts who had to suffer loud music blaring out from no. 5 at all hours of the day and night. At the end of his tether he broke into their house and threw their CD player out of the window onto the cobbles below. In response, and much to the amusement of Leanne and Toyah, Les head butted Curly, smashing his glasses.

Toyah took a part-time job at the café and Leanne joined her mother at Underworld, only to get the sack for smoking and setting off the fire alarm. Nick Tilsley returned from Canada to study PE at the local technical college and much to his mother’s horror, started a relationship with Leanne who took his virginity. Meanwhile Toyah fell for Emily Nugent’s eco-warrior nephew, Geoffrey ‘Spider’ Nugent who had moved into his auntie’s spare room. Together they liberated Teresa the turkey that Les was planning to eat for Christmas dinner but the bird wandered out on to the cobbles and was run over by Les. Also in 1997: Brad Armstrong is born in the back room at the Rovers, delivered by Betty; Fred Elliott marries Maureen Holdsworth but she runs off to Germany with Bill Webster, Don Brennan dies crashing Alma’s car into the viaduct; Mavis Wilton moves to Cartmel to open a B & B; Alec Gilroy bails out Jack and Vera over their VAT bill; Alec opens Golden Years dating agency; Kevin Webster leaves Sally and moves in with Natalie Horrocks; Deirdre starts seeing airline pilot Jon Lindsay; Fiona Middleton is jilted at the altar after she admits to Alan McKenna to having slept with Jim McDonald; Flaming Nora and Sunny Jim meet for the first time, on the set of Coronation Street.

Day 38 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

With two failed marriages and a third husband dead, Deirdre Rachid hadn’t had much luck in the love stakes over the years. So, when she was on a girl’s night out with Liz McDonald and she met a handsome, courteous and dashing pilot called Jon Lindsay who seemed interested in her, she thought her luck had changed. He lavished extravagant gifts on her, in a way that she’d never experienced before and she soon became besotted with this straightforward charmer. But all was not as it seemed as by chance Ken saw him working in a tie shop at Manchester Airport.

When Deirdre confronted him Jon told her that he’d only deceived her to try to impress her and she believed him as they continued to live the high life, which he paid for with for with forged credit cards. She gave him five thousand pounds to use as a deposit on a home for them and when he proposed she was over the moon. They bought a luxury house in Didsbury but joy soon turned to sadness as on Christmas Day she found out that rather than being away on business trips, Jon was still living with his wife and children.

After confronting Jon over the fact that he was married, she refused to believe he still loved her and set about trying to recover the money she’d given him. Using a credit card he’d given her she started to withdraw money from their joint account only to be arrested as the account was in the name of a Captain Jenkins. She told the police all about Jon but they refused to believe her as he had disappeared. When Jon eventually turned up he portrayed himself as an innocent accessory to the deception and told the police that

Deirdre had been the mastermind behind it all. Unfortunately for Deirdre, the jury believed him and Deirdre was sentenced to 18 months in prison and Jon got away with a suspended sentence.

Back on the Street the residents were shocked by the verdict and despite their differences, Ken and Mike got together with Emily to prove Deirdre’s innocence and campaign for her release. In the meantime, Deirdre was stuck sharing a cell with gobby Jackie Dobbs who tried to show her the ropes of prison life but her constant assertions of innocence annoyed inmates and warders alike and she was sedated. Eventually Ken and Mike’s tireless investigations into Jon’s life bore fruit when another woman who had been tricked by him came forward and after spending three weeks in gaol, Deirdre was released.

The other big story of the year was the introduction of transsexual Hayley Patterson and her subsequent romance with Roy Cropper. Hayley started working at Firman’s Freezers and whilst slightly gauche she had a very sweet nature. Though initially portrayed as rather creepy and sinister, Roy had developed into a nice, quirky but harmless character who was a bit of an outsider. Roy and Hayley were attracted to each other though because of their shyness some matchmaking of the pair had to be undertaken by Alma Baldwin before they got together. The courtship ended suddenly when Hayley broke the news that she was a transsexual and confused, Roy refused to have anything to do with her anymore. Further intervention was required from Alma to make him understand that if he really cared for Hayley, then nothing else mattered. Hayley was delighted when Roy flew out to Amsterdam, where she’d gone for her final operation to become a woman, tracked her down and asked her to return to Weatherfield with him.

Also in 1998: Nicky Tilsley and Leanne Battersby elope to Gretna Green and get married; Anne Malone freezes to death; Des Barnes and Natalie Horrocks marry; Des Barnes is killed; Gary and Judy Mallett have twins; Emily Bishop protests up a tree with Spider Nugent; Jim McDonald ends up in a wheelchair; Sally Webster has an affair with Greg Kelly; Zoe Tattersall joins the Cult of Nirab.

Day 39 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

In August 1999 the country was gripped by all things celestial when the population of the UK were to get a chance to see a full solar eclipse. In Weatherfield, Spider Nugent and Toyah Battersby decided to spend a night under canvas on the Red Rec, hoping to catch a glimpse of the event themselves. Instead, something much more earthly happened. Back at Aunty Emily's, she asked them both how the evening had gone. "Er.. cosmic", said Toyah . But Spider wasn't so sure and spent most of the week afterwards trying to avoid her. Leanne told Spider if he didn't do the decent thing with Toyah she would threaten him with Les Battersby but Spider really did seem confused. Finally though, Toyah got her man after she stormed round to see him at Aunty Em's and demanded to know what was going on. After a couple of snogs the pair of them seemed a lot happier.

When Les found out who Toyah's new boyfriend was, he was less than pleased: "You mean that dozy crusty's sleeping wi' our Toyah?" he yelled before storming round to the cafĂŠ, intending to pull the legs off Spider before flushing him down the toilet, no doubt.

Fortunately for Spider, all the shouting in the cafĂŠ brought Hayley downstairs and she sorted out the lot of them. Spider managed to sweet talk Aunty Em into letting Toyah stay there for a while after the fall-out with Les. Aunty Em agreed, on the understanding that no hanky panky went on under her roof. They both agreed, well, at least they tried to, but hormones being hormones and all, well Aunty Em was not best pleased when she found out what was going on and threw Toyah out. Curly let the young lovers use his spare room, while worried about incurring the wrath of Les next door.

In October 1999, Spider and Toyah set up home in a tent on the Red Rec but the sanitary arrangements left a lot to be desired, with no toilet or fresh water. When Audrey found out that "Mr Hippy, the armchair anarchist" had set up home in one of the parks she had control over in her role of councillor, she wasn't best pleased. Aunty Em went off on holiday with Maud Grimes and while she was away, Spider and Toyah moved back in to her house. While the two of them were upstairs playing battleships in the bath tub, a candle set fire to Aunty Em's curtains and the living room ended up with serious smoke damage. Spider enlisted Hayley to help out redecorating Aunty Em's front room after the fire, and while she got cracking making new curtains, Spider and Toyah did the wallpapering and the place looked ok again.

Hayley happened to mention that her old bedsit was free and so Spider and Toyah could have a home to call their own. Only one slight problem, they couldn't afford it, so Spider decided it was time he got himself a job. Off he went to the jobcentre and tried to get a job as park keeper but the job had already gone. However, Ernest in the jobcentre tried to find something suitable for him. He offered slaughterhouse work (no - he's vegetarian), pest control (no - he couldn't kill creepy crawlies), car park attendant (no - we all know the damage they do to the environment), baker (no - too many animal fats and GM foods) and canal dredger (no - he couldn't work with Toyah's dad). "Principles don't put bread on the table", Gail told him, so there was only one thing for it - he went for an interview with the establishment - the Benefits Agency itself. A bit nervous before the interview, he started talking to a guy who worked there, only to find it was fellow crusty, Ganja Tim. "There's something I should tell yer" said Spider, "I'm an anarchist". "So am I" replied Ganja Tim. It was a done deal, he got the job and planned to make the system work to help claimants with their benefits rather than becoming one of the establishment himself.

Spider uncovered evidence that showed Les Battersby was working while claiming benefits. He and Toyah decided to get rid of the incriminating evidence but he was caught by his boss, Miss Finch and had some explaining to do. Spider settled into a more responsible lifestyle, wearing a suit and tie for work each day, looked after Toyah and the pair of them entertained friends with vegetarian dinner parties in their bedsit. However, working at the Benefit Agency became too much for Spider when he had to refuse a single mother her benefits - and he walked out.

He headed home to sit around a candle and went 'um' in an unconvincing Buddhist way and told Toyah he'd booked them both on a spiritual journey. "Were not going to the Millennium Dome, are we?" she asked. “No, Toyah, you're going to India.” Well, Spider would have liked her to have gone to India with him, he'd bought two tickets after all, but it was too much for Toyah to take in, too sudden. She couldn't just up and leave, so in the end, finally, and tearfully she decided her own destiny, remaining in Weatherfield without him. And so he went, just like that. He said goodbye to Aunty Em, paid a month's rent in advance and left £100 in the bank for Toyah.

(With many thanks to Flaming Nora for her profile of Geoffrey ‘Spider’ Nugent. To read the whole profile click here.)

Also in 1999: Ashley Peacock finds out that Fred Elliott is not his uncle but his father; Ashley marries Maxine Heavey; Alf Roberts dies; Judy Mallett dies; the Desai family buy the corner shop; Rita Sullivan gives Sharon Gaskell the Kabin and then buys it back; Mike Baldwin is blackmailed by Julia Stone; Norris Cole returns and starts working at Kabin; Ken and Deirdre reconciled by Tracy; Nicky Tilsley bullies Leanne into having an abortion; Nicky leaves for Canada; Leanne gets involved with Jez Quigley and develops a cocaine habit.

Day 40 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

In 1999 Granada closed their visitor attraction, The Granada Studio Tours, which included the outdoor set for Coronation Street. This gave the producers the opportunity to expand the set and include the exteriors of some places that we’d only ever seen the inside of and to include some new locations as well. A medical centre and chip shop (sadly not Jackson’s Chippy) were placed on Rosamund Street on the site of the old Graffiti Club and on Victoria Street shops for Elliott & Son’s Butchers, Roy’s Rolls and D & S Hardware were built. Strangely a new viaduct which had never been seen or mentioned before also appeared crossing Rosamund Street behind the Rovers.

Photographs of the new additions can be found here.

The year started with the Street’s first ever two-handed full episode, featuring Raquel and Curly Watts. At 2 in the morning, just as Curly is in the kitchen mixing up something to try and help him avoid too bad a hangover, there is a knock on his back door. He thinks it's just the lads and shouts at them to go away, but the knocking persists and he opens it to see Raquel, his estranged wife. Curly hopes that she has returned for him, but although she says she still cares for him, she says she doesn't love him the way he wants and she can't some back. Her first bombshell is that she and Curly have a daughter called Alice, although she didn't know she was pregnant when she left and she didn't tell him about it

because she didn't want him chasing after her to Kuala Lumpur. Curly is over the moon that he's a father, but very annoyed that she hadn't told him about her, especially as she returned to England to have the baby and stayed with her sister. In his anger, he makes cruel insinuations, asking if she's really his, but Raquel assures him there was nobody else and that she's told Alice all about her father and she's looking forward to meeting him. On a visit to the bathroom, she takes a look round her old home and sees that very little has changed, her old dressing gown is even still hanging on the back of the bedroom door.

As they look at the star that Curly bought for her, he says he's prepared to forgive and forget and that they can start again, but she drops her second bombshell when she tells him there's someone else. When she was in hospital having Alice, she befriended a French couple, the wife of which was dying of cancer. She's been working as a nanny looking after their 2 children as well as Alice and now lives in a chateau, 'a real one, detached and everything', in the Loire valley (she even speaks fluent French and knows a bit about wine). The wife died 2 years ago and since then she's helped put Armand, the husband, back together again, got him loving his children again and the pity she felt for him when his wife first died has blossomed into love. Curly realises that the next thing she'll be asking for is a divorce, which she duly does and she knows he'll give her one, because he's a nice bloke who still loves her and wants her to be happy. She finally drops her third bombshell, announcing that she's pregnant and needs to be married in case the child is a boy, for inheritance purposes. Curly opines 'Why can't it be me, why can't it ever be me', but as Raquel predicted, Curly agrees to the divorce and seems to be finally accepting that it's over. She says she wants Alice to get to know her real father and that he can come over to France any time and that when she's older, she can come over and stay with him during the holidays and they set the first visit for Easter. As dawn is starting to break, she says goodbye and leaves by the back door with tears in her eyes.

Another landmark this year came in the form of the 40th Anniversary of the programme.

Rather than celebrate another decade with a special TV Times supplement and a couple of TV specials it was decide to broadcast an hour long episode featuring the culmination of a campaign to save the Street’s cobbles which the council was threatening to tarmac over. But more than that, the real headline grabber was that this episode would be broadcast live for the first time since February 3rd 1961. The only members of the cast remaining who had ever known what it was like not to be able to redo a fluffed line were Bill Roach and Eileen Derbyshire. There were significant logistical problems with the shoot as well. All the action was taking place on a single day so most outdoor scene had to be crammed in to the first part of the programme before it started to get too dark. The final scene was a major problem too as it took place outside the Rovers after everyone

had emptied out of the pub, so the final interior scenes for the Rovers had to be filmed in the shell on the outdoor set. Despite all the problems the programme was a great success and the cobbles were saved when Stan Potter (played by Noddy Holder), turned up with a fake preservation order for them.

Also in 2000: Steve McDonald borrows money off Jez Quigley to start Streetcars; Bethany Platt born; Mike Baldwin marries Linda Sykes; Kevin Webster marries Alison Wakefield; Alison Wakefield commits suicide; Peter Barlow returns; Terry Duckworth sells a kidney for £25k and does a runner; Vera Duckworth donates a kidney to Paul Clayton; Eileen Grimshaw makes her first appearance; Jim McDonald kills Jez; Jim McDonald and Liz remarry; Curly Watts and Emma Taylor get married.

Day 41 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

Although she later turned out to be gobby and sassy, Karen Philips made quite a subdued entrance to Coronation Street when her mate Linda Sykes helped her land a job as a knicker-­‐stitcher at Underworld. That wasn’t to last though, she had a fling with Vikram Desai and a one-­‐night stand with Peter Barlow before starting on Steve McDonald. Janice Battersby teased her about her disastrous track record with men and bet her that she couldn’t get Steve to propose to her. She confided in Steve about the tease and lo and behold he got down on one knee in the Rovers in front of all her mates from the factory. Janice saw through them and so upped the stakes a bit and bet her two days’ pay that she’d never actually get him to the altar.

Neither Steve nor Karen would back down and so it was that they arrived at the register office on May 30th 2001, each expecting the other one to chicken out but neither of them did and they ended up married. Six weeks later they went on honeymoon to Florida and realised that actually they really liked each other and would try to make a go of it. However, after a couple of years Karen decided that she wanted to do things properly and so they got divorced and arranged a fairy-­‐tale wedding. It was such a fairy-­‐tale in fact that it featured a deranged, jealous, evil witch in the shape of Tracy Barlow who wanted to get her clutches on Steve, the father of her daughter, Amy. Despite her attempts to sabotage the wedding plans and disrupt the service, the happy couple were eventually married though it wasn’t long before Tracy managed to split them up and the pair were divorced again.

Later that year Alma Halliwell received that shock news that due to a missed smear test and a further misdiagnosis, she had developed untreatable cervical cancer.

Although a spokeswoman for Macmillan Cancer Relief applauded the storyline as it reminded women of the need to have regular smear tests and could therefore help save lives, the story was somewhat implausible and condemned by Amanda Barrie who played Alma: ‘Cervical cancer takes years to develop. No consultant would make a pronouncement as quickly and bluntly as that. I felt straightaway that it gave completely the wrong message.’

Initially Alma only told her best friend, Audrey Roberts but she eventually passed the information on to Alma’s ex-­‐husband, Mike Baldwin who still cared for her deeply and regretted their splitting up. Alma headed off to the Lake District to get away from it all, get her mind straight and come to terms with the her imminent death. Mike tracked her down and full of and apologies confessed his regrets. They reminisced about the happy times they had spent together but Alma insisted that he should go back to his wife Linda and try to make a go of it. Alma spent her final hours at Audrey’s with Mike, Ken and other friends and her ashes were scattered in Derwentwater in her beloved Lake District.

Also in 2001: Ben Watts is born; Susan Barlow dies in a car crash; Toyah Battersby raped by Phil Simmonds; Sarah-­‐Louise groomed by an internet predator; Matt and Charlie Ramsden move in; Eileen Grimshaw rents no. 11 with Todd and Jason; Fred Elliott marries Evelyn Sykes bigamously; occasional fifth episode sneaked in; Shelley Unwin makes her first appearance; Edna Miller dies in Duggie Ferguson’s bed.

Day 42 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation.

In 2002, Keiran Roberts took over as producer and came out with the usual comment that ‘Nobody on this show is bigger than Coronation Street’, which is traditional of a new producer, and was proved correct yet again with the return of Bet Lynch to our screens.

Fred Elliott organised a retirement party for Betty Williams and invited some old faces, like her son Gordon (with a new face) and his wife and also former Rovers landlady, Bet Lynch. She’s not changed a bit, still all cheap cigarettes and leopard skin prints, and is back in Manchester for a couple of weeks to sort out some business. Things are still frosty between her and Rita, though they try to put the past behind them, and Rita soon guesses that the business involves a fella and some cash. She later confides in Ken that she’s a witness in a court case against a man who owes her money and if she loses then she’ll be penniless.

Unfortunately we were never to see the conclusion of this story as Julie Goodyear disappeared from the show after filming just 17 episodes. The official reason given was that the four episodes a week schedule was too hectic for her and she was exhausted.

Others have said that she got the hump because she wasn’t allowed to smoke in her dressing room. As former Coronation Street writer said: ‘Nobody is bigger than the Street itself. That’s the mistake that a lot of them made. They thought if they went, that they could come back and name their own price. But they find the Street goes on without them.’ Bet returned briefly the following year attending a licensee’s do in Blackpool where she accepted a marriage proposal from Cecil Newton but the wedding didn’t take place as Cecil died of a heart attack before the ceremony.

Newlyweds Ashley and Maxine Peacock were having trouble conceiving and so Maxine did what any young woman would do in such a situation, she consulted her local GP, the too tall Dr Matt Ramsden. His prescription for the problem was unorthodox and unethical: a couple of bottles of red wine and some rumpeh pumpeh with Doctor Lurve.

Matt’s heavy drinking wife Charlie found out about the fling and flung him out only for Ashley to invite him to stay with the Peacocks. When Charlie found out where Matt was staying she forced him to tell Ashley why he’d been thrown out and the stress of the ensuing argument sent Maxine into labour. She was rushed to hospital and gave birth to a son, Joshua. At first Ashley demanded a DNA test to determine who Joshua’s biological father was but he later relented after declaring his love for his wife and son. Several years later, Matt returned to the Street to fight for custody of Joshua. A blood test proved that he was the biological father but despite a battle, Joshua remained in the care of Ashley.

Also in 2002: Gail Platt marries Richard Hillman; Sally and Kevin Webster remarry; Dennis Stringer killed in car smash; Duggie Ferguson falls to his death; Patricia Hillman murdered by her ex-husband; Archie Shuttleworth makes his first appearance; the Nelson (Harris) family move in; Les Battersby and Kirk Sutherland pretend to be a couple; Deirdre gets jiggy with Dev.

Day 43 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

Richard Hillman fetched up on the Street when he turned up to the funeral of his cousin, Alma Halliwell, no doubt in the hope that there might be something for him in the will.

He made quite an impression on Gail Platt and it wasn’t long before he’d moved into no.

8 with Gail, Sarah and David. As an Independent Financial Advisor and full of charm he quickly started on ‘helping’ several of the older residents with their investments, notably the Duckworths and Emily Bishop.

He went into business with Duggie Ferguson redeveloping and old house into luxury flats but the project went over budget because of problems with the foundations and fears of a bail hostel being built next door threatened the future profits. While arguing at the site one night, Duggie leant on a bannister which collapsed underneath him and he plunged to his death. Rather than seek help, Richard raced off to steal money from Duggie’s house and left him to die. When Richard’s ex-wife turned up demanding her share of his business, he lured her to the site and hit her over the head with a shovel, dumping her body in the trench built for the underpinning of the foundations.

His marriage to Gail was a lavish affair but the cost only sent him deeper into debt and seeking a new cash cow. This came in the form of his mother-in-law, Audrey Roberts. On finding out she was worth £250,000 he started to make it look as though she was losing her marbles and when that failed went in for the kill by trying to set her house on fire while she slept. Audrey soon realised who was at the bottom of things and tried to convince Gail that he was a wrong ‘un but nobody would believe that such a charming man could stoop to such skulduggery, except Norris Cole, who could see the bad in just about anyone.

He was now on the verge of bankruptcy and the only way out that he could see was killing Emily Bishop. He’d convinced her to take out a sell and rent back scheme on her house and with her dead he’d be able to cash in on the deal. While everyone was at the Rovers for a 50th birthday party for Maxine Peacock’s mother, Doreen Heavey, and with Emily Bishop babysitting for the Peacock’s, he disguised himself as Sarah Platt’s boyfriend, Aidan Critchley and sneaked into no. 4. He hit Emily a blow with a crowbar but before he could finish the job he was disturbed by Maxine who had returned home early. He attacked her and fled and while Emily survived, Maxine wasn’t so lucky.

By now Gail was starting to feel that all was not as it seemed with Richard and when she found out that Aidan had been drugged with Audrey’s tranquilisers she realised that something was seriously wrong with her husband’s explanations. She confronted him and a clearly unhinged Richard confessed to everything. He fled into the night and Gail called in the police who started a man-hunt but no sign could be found of him. A couple of weeks later, Gail returned home to find her son, daughter and granddaughter bound and gagged in the car in the garage, with Richard ready to gas everybody with the exhaust fumes.

Meanwhile Audrey could hear the car revving in the garage and sought help to open the doors. With a crazed Richard at the wheel, the car sped out of the garage and careered through the streets of Weatherfield. Screaming ‘This is it! I love you!’ and with The Wannadies’ ‘You and Me Song’ on the car stereo, Richard drove the family into the murky depths of the canal. Gail, David, Sarah and Bethany all managed to get free and were helped out of the canal by Martin Platt and Tommy Harris but when the car was removed there was no sign of Richard. Police divers dredged the canal and Richard’s body was found and identified by a relieved Gail.

Also in 2003: Peter Barlow marries Lucy Richards; Peter Barlow marries Shelley Unwin; Steve McDonald has a one-night stand with Tracy Barlow; Roy Cropper marries Tracy Barlow; Simon Barlow born; Curly and Emma Watts move away as scriptwriters can think of no more storylines; Todd Grimshaw kisses Nicky Tilsley; Sunita Parekh and Ciaran McCarthy call it off at the altar; Neil Fearns, father of Bethany Platt, dies in a car crash.

Day 44 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

Maya Sharma had first appeared as the lawyer advising Roy and Hayley Cropper about their rights over Tracy Barlow’s baby, Amy, when they’d been convinced by Tracy that Roy was the father. Coming across as a foxy smart lawyer, it slowly became clear that she was rather unstable and when she was dumped by Dev Alahan in favour of shop

assistant Sunita Parekh, the full extent of her craziness was unleashed. She married six illegal immigrants in Sunita’s name and then ruined her real wedding to Dev by arranging for her to be arrested at the reception. Maya was rumbled and arrested but while out on bail she hatched a bigger and much more disruptive plan to get her own back on the happy couple.

First she blew up some of Dev’s shops and as he raced round Greater Manchester watching his empire go up in flames, she kidnapped Sunita and tied her up in the flat above the corner shop on Coronation Street. Dev tracked his wife down but before he can release her Maya clubbed him unconscious and he ended up bound and gagged as well.

She kept them there overnight and the following morning she turned on the gas on the cooker before heading down to the shop where she built a bonfire and lit it using one of their wedding photos. She made her escape but the neighbours were soon alerted to the fire and Ciaran and Charlie managed to save the Alahans before the corner shop exploded. Maya had watched all the commotion from the safety of her car and on seeing that Sunita is safe, sped towards her and the other residents gathered on the cobbles. They all managed to get out of the way and Maya crashed her car into a wall but she still wasn’t beaten. When she came round she had another go at Sunita by reversing towards her but was hit by a truck and crushed against the wall. She managed to survive this final crash but by now the police had arrived and after a spell in intensive care she was sent for trial.

As the arrival of his first – and Sarah Platt’s second – child approached, Todd Grimshaw’s life started to unravel. Having already kissed Sarah’s brother Nick, Todd started a full-blown affair with nurse Karl Foster, though he couldn’t bring himself to end his relationship with his pregnant girlfriend even when Katy Harris threatened to blow the whistle. When the truth finally came out, Sarah was naturally devastated, Todd’s brother Jason was uncomfortable and confused (when isn’t he) and Gail was disgusted.

Gail went to confront Eileen and after a doorstep confrontation it spilled out onto the Street with Eileen slapping Gail, Gail pulling Eileen’s hair and the pair of them wrestling on the cobbles while gob-smacked neighbours looked on. Todd was now very publicly out of the closet. Sarah went on to give birth 9 weeks prematurely and the baby, Billy, died.

Also in 2004: Amy Barlow is born; Claire Casey and Ashley Peacock have a Christmas wedding; Steve and Karen MacDonald remarry; Barlows play happy families on TV; Tracy sells Amy to the Croppers who call her Patience; Danny, Frankie, Jamie and Warren Baldwin make their first appearance; Jack dresses as Ida Fagg for bowls match; Peter Kay makes a guest appearance as drayman Eric Gartside.

Day 45 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation Street -­‐ written by blogger Sunny Jim.

When Shelley Unwin was first employed at the Rovers by Duggie Ferguson, she was brassy, confident and wouldn’t take any nonsense from the punters. A bigamous marriage to Peter Barlow and lack of luck with fellas in general had started to dent that confidence and when she took up with the dominating bully of a builder, Charlie Stubbs, she was about to sink even deeper.

He constantly chipped away at her, undermining her self-­‐esteem and self-­‐confidence and turned her into an agoraphobic, insecure mess. He was constantly criticising her weight, her behaviour and her personality and one occasion he made her change her outfit fourteen times and ripped out her earrings before a night out. She became completely submissive to him and was a shadow of the plucky, feisty, fun-­‐loving woman we first met.

Despite all her friends and her mother, Bev, begging her not to, she agreed to marry her manipulative oppressor. The night before the wedding she was forced to listen to a few home truths about her fiancé, including the revelation that he’d tried it on with pretty, young barmaid Violet

Wilson. Meanwhile, Charlie was spending the night before the wedding in the arms of another woman who he’d picked up in a bar. At the church it looked like neither of them were going to turn up but eventually Charlie swaggered in followed by an unsure looking Shelley. When the vicar got to ‘Do you take this man?’ the nation cheered when she replied: ‘No, I’m sorry, I don’t. I can’t trust you! I can’t marry you!’ before fleeing the church. Charlie couldn’t take the public humiliation and drove off in the wedding car with Shelley as hostage. He threatened her and told her she must be mentally ill but this time she was stronger and managed to escape. She fled through the streets of Weatherfield in her wedding dress, finally free of him.

Martin Platt fell in love with sixteen year old schoolgirl Katy Harris and was branded a pervert by family and friends alike. Her parents wrongly convinced her that Martin was having an affair with Sally Webster in an attempt to split them up and in a state of shock and betrayal she aborted the child she was carrying. Martin was devastated at the loss of his child and the lack of trust she had shown him so ended the relationship. Katy confronted her father about his lies at the garage but he was unremorseful, thinking it all worthwhile to end the affair. She lashed out at him with a wrench and killed him. Her mother, Angela, had seen it all and tried to cover up the murder, first letting the police suspect Martin and then later taking the blame herself. After her mother had been sent to gaol, Katy, a diabetic, committed suicide by eating spoonsful of sugar. Martin found love again and moved to Liverpool with his new girlfriend Robyn.

Also in 2005: Danny Baldwin turns out to be Mike’s son; Ken and Deirdre Barlow remarry; Ray Langton dies at wedding reception; Les Battersby marries Cilla Brown; Status Quo play at Les and Cilla’s wedding; Diggory and Molly Compton and Lloyd Mullaney make their first appearances; Mel Hutchwright wows and cons the book club.

Day 46 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

Sitting in the Rovers one day in 2005 Mike Baldwin suddenly couldn’t remember the name of vessel in which drinks are contained. It was a small, understated little scene but hugely significant as it signalled the start of the onset of Alzheimer’s. Over the coming year, much to the distress of people around him he became increasingly confused and lost and in his moments of clarity was in terror of the disease which was getting increasingly worse. Not all of his friends and family were wholly sympathetic though. His son Danny decided to try to take advantage of his vulnerable state and with his girlfriend Leanne Battersby, schemed to get Mike to sign documents that would hand control of the Baldwin empire to him.

Mike contracted pneumonia and was admitted to hospital but he ran off believing that he had some important business to take care of. He was spotted near his factory in the pouring rain by Ken Barlow who wrapped his coat around him and called an ambulance. In his confused and distressed state, Mike taunted Ken that Deirdre and little Tracy were going to move in with him now and that he was finished. ‘Deirdre loves me. She’s mine.’ And with that he suffered a massive heart attack and died on the cobbles in the arms of Ken. Ultimately Danny and Leanne’s plan to inherit Mike’s wealth were scuppered by the existence of another will which bequeathed everything to Mike’s son Adam, who sold the factory to Paul and Liam Connor.

Fred Elliott was a butcher with an eye for the ladies, unfortunately his love life was tragically unsuccessful. He’d married Maureen Holdsworth who promptly left him and ran away with Bill Webster. He married Eva Sykes who hadn’t bothered to divorce her previous husband first. And then there was his Thai bride Orchid, who turned out to be a con-­‐artist market trader called Stacey. He was a serial proposer, asking Doreen Heavey, Rita Sullivan, Penny King and twice, Audrey Roberts to marry him but he was turned down every time. After years of trying he finally struck it lucky with Bev Unwin who gave him his chance to settle down once and for all.

In the run up to the wedding, Audrey admitted to Fred that when she last turned him down she was a stupid shallow woman who thought that she could do better but now she realises that she was wrong. If he’d asked her to marry her again, she would have said yes. But it wasn’t to be, Fred had now fallen in love with Bev and that was an end to it. At the church Ashley told his dad that Audrey had decided not to come and so he rushed off to see her. He told Audrey he hadn’t come to tell her what she wanted to hear, but that he loved Bev and he’s going to marry her. As he took his leave he told her: “Be happy. I say, be happy”. And as he headed to the front door there was a crash, a bang and a very deep moan. Fred had suffered a massive heart attack and died on Audrey’s Welcome mat laid out by her front door.

Also in 2006: Aadi and Asha Alahan born; Freddie (originally Thomas) Peacock born; Charlie Stubbs and Tracy Barlow get together; Ernest Bishop’s killer, Ed Jackson, returns to ask for forgiveness; David Platt sends his mother cards from Richard Hillman; Steve MacDonald buys the Rovers; Adam Barlow inherits the factory and sells it to Paul and Liam Connor; Becky Granger, Carla Connor and Michelle Connor make their first appearances; Maureen Webster returns briefly only to be told that her husband, Bill, is having an affair with Audrey Roberts.

Day 47 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

After being jilted by Shelley Unwin, Charlie Stubbs teamed up with Tracy Barlow.

The pair seemed well suited, both being amoral, selfish and cruel but a manipulative bully like Charlie wasn’t interested in an equal partnership and soon the mind games started. When Tracy moved in with him she brought her daughter Amy with her but Charlie threw them both out, saying that a kid wasn’t part of the deal so Tracy had to dump Amy on Ken and Deirdre. To get her own back at being separated from her daughter Tracy pretended that she was pregnant and let Charlie talk her into having an abortion which he was happy to pay for. She spent the money on shoes and by pretending to be grieving for her lost child, convinced Charlie to allow Amy to move in with them to give her some comfort.

When Charlie heard that his ex, Shelley, was leaving the Weatherfield to run a pub in Derbyshire, he decided to seduce her, just to prove that he could. Shelley told Tracy what had happened and then, disgusted at herself for what she’d done, took it back, saying she’d lied. But when Shelley returned later it was clear she was pregnant and it was obvious who the father was. Tracy forgave Charlie but his attentions soon turned to Maria Sutherland. She had moved into his old flat when he’d bought no. 6 and he was always finding excuses to visit her even sneaking in when she was out to sabotage things in the flat so that she would call him in to fix them.

Tracy was after revenge and by faking injuries, like burning herself with the iron, managed to convince her parents and Claire Peacock that Charlie was being abusive.

When she was visited by her step brother Peter, she let Charlie believe that he was her lover and he beat him up. He was arrested and convicted of the assault and sentenced to community service. He ordered Tracy out of no. 6 but she refused.

Instead she lulled him into a false sense of security by dancing provocatively round the living room before clocking him one with a statue. He fell to his knees and she hit him again and then tried to make it look as if there’d been a fight and placed a knife in his hand before calling an ambulance. Charlie clung to life for three days before finally dying much to Tracy’s delight.

Tracy was charged with murder, and planned to call as witnesses Claire, Deirdre, and David Platt, who told her he'd seen what she'd done, and would tell the truth unless she had sex with him. Tracy agreed, but strung him along during the trial.

Deirdre told Tracy she had questions about Tracy's innocence, but would lie for her in court. Tracy then confessed her entire plan to a horrified Deidre. During the trial, the prosecutor managed to discredit Claire due to her mental illness, and tore David apart. Meanwhile, Deidre had a panic attack during her testimony and was less than convincing. With Tracy's defense in shambles, she was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum tariff of 15 years.

Also in 2007: Sarah Platt and Jason Grimshaw get married; Paul Connor dies in a car crash; David tries to sabotage his sister’s wedding; David drives into the canal; Sarah moves to Milan; Harry and Dan Mason buy bookies; the Morton family arrive; Casey Carswell abducts Freddie Peacock; Bruce Jones is sacked for giving away plotlines; Steve MacDonald and Eileen Grimshaw go to Malta on holiday; Liz MacDonald and Vernon Tomlin get married.

Day 48 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

The Duckworths were finally ready to retire and had put down a deposit on a house in their favourite seaside resort, Blackpool. With the sale of no. 9 to Tyrone and Molly agreed everything was in place for the move. Vera sat in her favourite chair and flicked through the estate agent’s details with Jack, working out what they’d be taking with them,

and where it would fit in the new house. Thirsty after a day in Blackpool measuring up, Jack nipped out to the Rovers for a swift pint. When he got home, Vera was sleeping peacefully in the chair where he’d left her. Surprised that she hadn’t got his tea ready, he walked over to her and asked if she was ok. There was no response. He touched her hand and realised that she’d gone and softly he began to sing to her: ‘If you were the only girl in the world…’

He’d tried to ruin his sister’s wedding, terrified his mother by sending cards from her dead husband, attempted to kill his future brother-in-law and endangered the life of his niece by storing ecstasy pills in one of her dolls. Bad enough you’d think but things took a turn for the worse when David Platt found out that his girlfriend had had an abortion and that his mother had helped her. He went upstairs to pack his things ready to leave while Gail desperately tried to explain that it was Tina’s decision and tried to stop him leaving. On the landing he pushed his mother and she fell headlong down the stairs smashing her head against the wall. David left her for dead but she got taken to hospital and eventually recovered but the last thing she remembered was having an argument with Jason Grimshaw who initially got the blame.

Audrey began to suspect that David had a hand in his mother’s fate and so he pressured Tina, who felt guilty over the abortion, to provide him with an alibi. But when Gail started to regain her memory, Tina realised it was wrong and dumped David. Gail confronted him and he went on the rampage, smashing windows up and down the Street and was arrested. At the police station he confessed to everything and insisted that he should be locked up for his own good. He was sentenced to four months in a Young Offenders’ Institute where he struck up a friendship with arsonist Graeme Proctor.

Also in 2008: Liam Connor marries Maria Sutherland; Dylan Wilson born; Gail’s father, Ted Page, turns up; Leanne Battersby torches restaurant for insurance; Tony Gordon victimises Sunny Jim; Victoria Court built; Windass family arrive; Carla Connor and Tony Gordon marry; Tony arranges Liam’s murder; Peter Barlow returns with his son, Simon.

Day 49 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation Street

The portents were not good for the wedding of Becky Granger and Steve McDonald: he’d been married three times before and the day they’d chosen was Friday the thirteenth. So there was little surprise when it all went horribly wrong. The day started with Becky toasting herself over breakfast with brandy and champagne.

Blanche Hunt sent over a celebratory bottle of Thunderclap cider for the bride-­‐to-­‐be and once at Audrey’s salon, Natasha helped calm Becky’s nerves with whisky. With her hair and make-­‐up sorted and wearing a bright pink wedding dress that Hayley had made for her, the next stop was the builder’s yard to share a can or two with her ex, Jason Grimshaw. By now she was not only inebriated but very late and Steve was at the register office trying to placate the registrar. Roy and Hayley managed to get Becky there but she was in such a state that registrar refused to marry them

A new date was set but this time when Becky turned up at the register office she was stone cold sober and the whole McDonald clan were there to welcome her to the family. The ceremony went without a hitch and the couple were wed, unfortunately things were about to takle a nasty turn at the reception. Detective Hooch had it in for Becky as he blamed her for his lack of progress within the force so he’d got her ex, Slug, to plant some drugs in her handbag. The police raided the Rovers, found the drugs and Becky was arrested, spending her first night of marriage in a police cell.

Steve managed to extract the truth from Slug and threatened to expose the bent copper. Under pressure he eventually agreed to lose the evidence so that the trial was cancelled and Becky was a free woman.

Also in 2009: Molly Compton marries Tyrone Dobbs; Fiz Brown and John Stape marry in prison; Maria Connor gives birth on Southport beach; Eileen’s father, Colin, turns up; Colin Grimshaw is exposed as Julie Carp’s father; Ken has an affair with Martha Fraser; Norris’s long lost brother Ramsay arrives from Australia; Kevin Webster starts an affair with Molly Dobbs; Sally Webster gets cancer; Ramsay Clegg dies; Rita sells the Kabin to Norris; Colin Grimshaw dies; Rovers Amateur Dramatic Association revived.

Day 50 of our 50 day countdown of Coronation

Thank you all for reading it's been a pleasure to bring you this trip down memory lane._ Be sure to raise a glass tomorrow to wish Coronation Street a happy 50th birthday.