FOR the four years Mr. Swindley puffed and huffed his imperious way around the intrigues of Coronation Street, the man who played him, actor Arthur Lowe, had a problem on his mind.

As far as he was concerned, publicity, interviews and public appearances were OUT. “I don’t want to be type-cast,” he said.

Now, with the Chaplinesque-like Swindley projected as the star of Pardon the Expression (Wednesdays) the risk of lifelong identification seems higher than ever. Why the change in attitude?

“When I was first asked to play Swindley,” said Lowe, “I hadn’t the faintest notion that the part would last for four years. We all thought that Coronation Street was a modest little cameo of Northern life which would run for seven weeks and then finish.”

Arthur Lowe left Coronation Street for a spell earlier this year, to appear in the stage version of John Osborne’s play, “Inadmissible Evidence.”

“When the invitation came to star in Pardon the Expression, I was faced with a terrible decision. It took me weeks to make my mind up,” he said.

Why did he plump for Swindley? “Because I like to think of him as a funny man with international possibilities.

“I’m hoping that he will appeal to a much broader audience than Coronation Street. If we do well enough we might crash the overseas TV market and go some way towards fulfilling my next ambition to become an international star. ”

Arthur Lowe is an agile man — mentally and physically. He has many of Swindley’s mannerisms. He beams broadly, then his furrowed brow will crease in thought as he weighs your questions.

“Having made my decision to stand by Swindley,” said Arthur, “I am now wholeheartedly in the part.”

One thing he has learned to do is leave Mr. Swindley at the studio door. “I never take him home with me. I’m very fond of Swindley but he’s just another character whom I happen to have played longer than the rest.”

The post Mr Swindley goes it alone appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

HUFFING, harassed Mr. Swindley of Coronation Street has always tickled viewers pink. Only right, therefore, that he should be given a comedy show of his own – the Wednesday programme Pardon the Expression. Arthur Lowe’s portrait of a funny little man reminds us of Charlie Chaplin of old-always coming to grief. Still, Swindley is Swindley, upon my soul. And setbacks in business – whether in the small-time shop of Gamma Garments or the big-time store of Dobson and Hawks just spur him on … if you’ll pardon the expression

The post Pardon the Expression… that’s business appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

This is Anne Reid (left), a carefree, eager little girl with her mum. And the hasn’t a worry in the world. The woman above it also Anne Reid. An actress now. But as Valerie Barlow in Coronation Street she looks a little anxious, a little worn. And no wonder. As Valerie, she’s waiting for a taxi to take her to the maternity home. Which would be reason enough for her to look anxious … she’s expecting TWINS … and on Monday a tired stork flies over Coronation Street

The post Woman in waiting appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

A MILLION friends and neighbours make life bearable for each other every week in countless Coronation Streets up and down Britain.

And that’s the case in ITV’s famous Coronation Street, where two of the oldest neighbours and longest residents there are the beady-eyed Ena Sharpies and do-good pensioner Albert Tatlock.

Just how long they have lived in the district is uncertain except to say that Albert can tell you a tale or two about Ena’s schooldays.

Could. Would is a different matter, for even Albert has been around long enough to know that if he starts spoutin’ about Ena’s early life, he’ll feel the sting of that famous whiplash tongue of hers.

But though they are temperaments apart, they are still friends and neighbours.

Away from the Street, they are, of course, Violet Carson and Jack Howarth.

The post Neighbours appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THE three of us — Sandy, Gordon and me — stood at the bar. So I ordered halves of bitter all round.

“It has to be bitter for Sandy,” said Gordon Rollings. “He won’t look at anything else, you know.”

And before anyone could dispute the point Sandy gulped down his drink, licked up a couple of spilled drops from the counter, lolled out a red tongue hopefully and gave us a cheerful wag of his tail.

“Thirsty work, acting,” said Gordon, pushing Sandy’s nose out of his own beer. “Even for whippets.”

Gordon plays Charlie Moffitt, Minnie Caldwell’s lodger in Coronation Street.

Sandy — alias Little Tich (his stage name), alias Dauntless Star or Dauntless Satellite (his professional racing names) — is that little whippet who steals so many scenes in the Rover’s Return.

‘The thing that bothers me,” said Gordon, looking at a sign which said no drinks would be served to young persons under 18, “is how the licensing laws affect whippets.

“I mean, Sandy is five years old. Does that mean he is drinking under age?

“He doesn’t belong to me,” said Gordon. “He is owned by Syd Roscoe, who has a garage just down the road from the studios.

“It seems that Sandy started drinking at a family party by helping himself to some beer.

“Never lost the taste for it. But it isn’t a problem with him, mind you. I mean, he doesn’t drink a lot.”

Sandy looked up at him winningly, but Gordon remained unmoved.

“One half of bitter is his ration,” he said severely.

In Coronation Street Sandy is a whippet with no talent for racing whatever.

“But he’s only acting,” said Gordon. “He has won more than 30 races.

“On one famous occasion they brought a ‘world-beater’ from Stoke-on-Trent to race against him. Sandy won by yards — and went home that night covered in lipstick from women who had congratulated him afterwards.”

“A bit of a gay dog,” I said.

Sandy looked at me appreciatively. Or was he just trying to get round me?

Gordon is no stranger to animals. He worked for a long time as a clown with a French circus.

At his home in London, Gordon keeps a cat, a dog, and a hamster named Rupert.

“The cat and dog are great friends,” said Gordon. “The cat washes the dog’s face every morning.”

The post A bit of a gay dog appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

Coronation Street, sold to Australia last November, is already a tremendous success Down Under. Here ALISTER WILLIAMSON who is now a personality in ‘‘The Street” as club manager Gus Loman, talks to Brian Finch about the Australian audiences

JUST think of it. A big, fat, easy chair on the verandah, outlined against the sunset. The temperature hovering in the eighties.

An iced beer at your elbow. And the smell of the orange blossom slinking tantalizingly round the television set.

Not the sort of environment in which you would expect to watch this week’s episode of Coronation Street. But it’s the way thousands of my fellow – Australians must have been following the programme over the past few months.

And it’s to the “Street’s” eternal credit that it has been able to establish itself as one of the top shows on the Australian network, despite the fact that the sooty, terraced houses and the way of life of their inhabitants are about as familiar to most Aussies as mountains on the moon.

Mind you, Australia does have its terraced houses.

But most Aussies live in bungalows with plenty of space in between and plenty or room to breathe. They have to — the weather is sb hot.

Australians have what they call their “backyards”, just like people do in Lancashire. But a backyard Down Under would be called a garden in Britain.

My backyard back home had lemon trees in it—and the lemons were so plentiful that anybody in the neighbourhood was welcome to help themselves.

Australia has its Rover’s Returns. But the licensing laws are very different there.

Up to a few years ago, for instance, the pubs closed at six o’clock in the morning [sic: evening – Ed] — and were almost the exclusive preserve of men. Ena, Minnie and Martha wouldn’t have gone much on that!

Even today in some areas the pubs close at six. But they usually open much earlier in the day than British pubs, so I suppose that compensates our hardened drinkers.

Maybe one reason why Australians have taken to Coronation Street is because most of their streets tend to be tightly-knit little communities, too, where everybody knows everybody else and folk are always ready to help each other out in an emergency.

But the social habits of Australia are completely different.

My country is a big, brawny open-air kind of place and cosy chats around Elsie’s living room fire don’t happen very often.

An Aussie family with a couple of hours on its hands is much more likely to pile into the battered old family car and shoot off to the seaside or the country for the evening.

Nobody seems to do much betting in Coronation Street and that would amaze most Australians.

A bob on the nags is the breath of life to most Aussies. And if Coronation Street was situated in Australia one of the focal points of local activity would almost certainly be the local bookie.

He would run his business — illegally — from his own front room and be raided about once a fortnight by the police.

But he would pay his fine with a smile and be right back in business the next day.

If Coronation Street was in Australia, Ena Sharpies would be very much in demand, too — as a pianist. My countrymen love to make their own entertainment and anyone who can play a piano is guaranteed plenty of invitations to parties.

Miss Nugent would be brought out of her shell and at a party even Mr. Swindley would have to provide a party piece.

At Australian parties everyone gives a turn. And the worse they are, the better they go over! You might think that the strong North of England accents in the programme would baffle most Australians. But I don’t think they are proving much of a problem.

Most of the people back home seem to know at least one Northerner. And Northerners never lose their dialect — even on the other side of the globe.

The most important contribution to Australian life that Coronation Street is making is educational.

In the mind of the average Australian, England is a green, moist country, choked with cute little churches, ancient abbeys and castle ruins.

The sombre and occasionally harsh portraits of life in Coronation Street have helped to shatter that illusion and provided a realistic picture of life in a large slice of Britain today.

The post The ‘Street’ goes Down Under appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THE graveyard was sodden. And perched high on a bleak, windswept Yorkshire hillside.

Hardly the place anyone would expect to find Peter Adamson, better known as Len Fairclough, the jovial odd job man of Coronation Street.

“Aye, there’s the rub,” said Peter, playing around a little irreverently with Hamlet’s famous words as he took what he considers one of his most interesting gravestone rubbings with tracing paper and charcoal stump.

He had tracked down the curious half-ton stone slab in the corner of the churchyard at Uppermill on the rising slopes of the Pennines.

The Shakespearian soliloquy was very much in keeping with the drama chiselled into the black, weathered stone.

Peter rubbed and the legend emerged … “Lie interred the dreadfully bruised and lacerated bodies of William Bradbury and Thomas his son, both of Greenfield, who were together savagely murdered in an unusual horrid manner on Monday night Ap 21 1832. Wm being 84 and Thos 46 years old.”

The biting wind howled across the gaunt headstones as though nature was in sympathy with the dead. Peter rubbed on …

“Throughout the land where ever news is read
intelligence of their sad death has spread
Those now who talk of far fam’d Greenfield Hills,
will think of Bill O’Jacks and Tom O’Bills

Such interest did their tragic end excite
that ‘ere they were remov’d from sight
thousands on thousands daily came to see
the bloody scene of the catastrophe

One house one business and one bed
and one most shocking death they had
one funeral came one inquest passed
and now one grave they have at last.”

Peter called on the local historian, Miss Vera Winterbottom, who unfolded the gruesome story and his day was complete.

Said Peter: “Apparently, a sword stick, a horse pistol and a spade were used. The house was covered in blood, but the mystery was never solved.

“A couple of travelling Irishmen were suspected because William’s last words were ‘Pat, Pat.’ Some even believed it was a quarrel between father and son.”

Peter’s off-beat hobby is a legacy from the days when he was an apprentice engraver in a cellar in Knight Street, Liverpool, There, he engraved office name plates and coffin plates by hand.

At his home, 50 rubbings he has made from Scotland to Cornwall in the past 10 years are filed away.

Wherever he happens to be, he always drops in at the local churchyard and goes date hunting.

“You’ll be amazed at what you find,” he says. “Some of it is deadly serious, some humorous and some sociological.”

In the boot of his car there is always paper, charcoal and a wooden batten to hold down the paper on windy days.

His oldest find is in Latin — which he can’t understand — dated 1410 from a church at Finedon, in Northants. His oddest is from Bircle Dean, near Bury, in Lancashire, where two wives and the mistress of the same man are buried in the same grave.

And then there’s the one sent by his brother in America — concerning an Alabama negro who “died in chains.” He’s even got a rubbing of a stone with the tongue-twisting Welsh town of Llanfair PG. carved out in full!

Peter reckons he learns a lot about history and social conditions from his rubbings. “It’s not uncommon to see the names of four children from the same family who died within six months in the early part of the last century.”

The post Stories in stones appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IF Stanley Meadows ever runs out of work as an actor, he won’t starve.

He has the basic principles of half a dozen jobs at his fingertips.

And before finding his feet in the theatre he worked, among other things, as a barman, storeman, waiter and shipping representative.

“But I never worked as a theatrical agent,” said Stanley, referring to the part he plays as Laurie Frazer in Coronation Street.

“And I don’t suppose I ever shall. I just don’t have the temperament for it. To succeed in this business, an agent has to be ruthless.

“He has to be able to sell a thing really big, to project a somewhat exaggerated image of the artist he is pushing. And I just couldn’t do that.”

Smooth, polished and quietly accomplished, Stanley Meadows isn’t what you might call a conventional actor.

Many actors and actresses concern themselves almost exclusively with acting, on and off the stage. Stanley doesn’t.

“When I leave the studio in the evening, I forget all about my work. I have no special friends inside the business.

“All my close friends are doctors, or lawyers, or people like that. At home I want to meet new people — not talk shop.”

It was a lesson Stanley learned when he was odd-jobbing around London a few years ago.

“Every job I did brought me into contact with new people,” he said. “It was invaluable experience and grounding for an actor.

“There aren’t many kinds of people that you don’t get a chance to study first-hand if you’re working as a waiter in a restaurant, or serving drinks behind a bar.”

But then Stanley has always been a great one for mixing with a variety of people. He had to be.

The elder son of a sweetshop owner in one of the poorer districts in Stepney Green, he won a scholarship to Forest School in Epping Forest.

“The scholarship provided me with a double problem,” said Stanley drily. “When I was at school I was a Cockney trying to establish myself in public school company.

“When I was at home I was a public school boy trying to adjust again to life in Stepney.”

Stanley emerged singularly lacking in neuroses — which ought to prove something — and by the time he was 21 he knew the only thing he wanted to do in life was to act.

He has worked in a variety of rep. companies, under-studied Sir Laurence Olivier in “The Entertainer,” worked with Sir John Gielgud and Harold Pinter and most of the other top names in the business, and starred in a number of plays on ITV.

His direction at the moment?

“To return to the stage for a while,” he said.

The post An actor who hates shop talk – that’s Stanley Meadows appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

Jerry and Myra’s wedding day — TV Times captures the happy moment they will remember all their lives. Outside Broadcast cameras were on hand on Wednesday to show Jerry and Myra (Graham Haberfleld and Susan Jameson) arriving for the ceremony at St. Paul’s. In real life the church is St. Clement’s at Salford. The vicar, the Rev. Edward Forrester, gave the production team every co-operation. “As we are right next to the street which was the original model for Coronation Street I would have been disappointed if you had picked any other church for your wedding, he told them.

Here, for Coronation Street’s 20 million viewers, are the scenes following the arrival of the bride and groom — scenes recorded exclusively by photographer Warwick Bedford and pictured here and on the next two pages

The post The wedding album appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

DO you notice people who play the small parts in television dramas? You know, the barman polishing glasses in the background, the waitress, the bus conductor?

If you don’t — spare them more than a glance next time. You might be watching a television star in the making.

It isn’t enough to be a first-class stage performer if you are going to succeed on television. You have to be trained for the new medium — and for this reason most television companies have a system of trying out promising actors and actresses with small roles.

One system was initiated, in fact, by Margaret Morris — who has just taken over as producer of Coronation Street but who was then head of casting.

“In those days all actors and actresses in our plays were imported from London,” said Margaret. “But we knew that there was a huge reservoir of virtually untouched talent in the North itself, and we wanted to get that talent onto our screens.”

The Casting Department travelled thousands of miles up and down the region, following tip-offs — visiting scores of theatres, interviewing hundreds of performers.

Margaret made a number of real television discoveries.

Peter Adamson was one of her most exciting. Peter was working at Sale Repertory Theatre when Margaret spotted him.

“He had a rugged romantic quality, and a marvellous comedy ability,” she said. “But hardly any television experience.”

So Peter was introduced through bit-parts in a number of series and made a big impression with a small part in one in particular.

“And by the time Coronation Street came along, he was more than ready for the part of Len Fairclough,” she said.

“Pat Phoenix was another actress with a first-class repertory reputation but little television experience,” said Margaret.

Pat was first seen on ITV screens in a small part in The Verdict Is Yours. And her magnetism marked her out for future stardom immediately.

Doris Speed and Arthur Leslie were both bom into the theatre business — but they, too, went through the “digestive” process.

“Doris gave a most memorable performance as a precise and businesslike lady magistrate in a court series,” said Margaret.

“Arthur used that great quality of gentleness to best effect in one of his series. And after those they were natural choices for Jack and Annie Walker.”

Bill Roache came from repertory in Oldham to play the lead of a soldier with a social conscience — “a boy very similar to Kenneth Barlow” — in a play called Marking Time, after two other tiny initiating parts.

Ivan Beavis was the greatest gamble of all — because Margaret had only seen him in a Manchester amateur production before giving him his first chance.

But by the time casting was under way for Coronation Street, Ivan was already some thing of a television “veteran” with half a dozen brief appearances in other shows.

The post Learning to live in Coronation Street appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

‣ Introduction by TONY WARREN who brought the street to television

WHERE is Coronation Street? My unfavourite question and one I am asked every day. Why my unfavourite question? Because I simply don’t know the answer.

I’ve been told for a fact that it’s in Salford, Manchester, Leeds — even Birmingham. I am always meeting someone who knows someone who lived there.

Seven terraced houses, a pub, a comer shop and a whole lot of people.

Everyone knows their own Elsie Tanner, half-admires their Ena Sharpies, makes excuses for the Minnie Caidwell in their lives: “When all’s said an’ done she’s very good to ’er mother.”

A canal, a viaduct, the memory of a tram, the reality of the bus-stop at the corner.

You can borrow a cup of sugar, get someone to lay a bet and if you’re ill you can be sure your windows will never go dirty and someone will stone your step. You’ll belong. Belonging, however, can have its drawbacks. Everyone will know all your business though they’d never admit it, and should such a thing as a plain van draw up at your front door there’ll be a stirring of seven pairs of lace curtains.

On bonfire nights there’s parkin and treacle toffee, at Christmas port and sherry and the same at funerals with ham and tongue, tinned cling peaches and cream horns.

This then is the Coronation Street that is being featured on this page.

But where IS Coronation Street?

The answer: Just where ever you want it to be.

All their yesterdays

‣ A glimpse into the past… what was Coronation Street like 25 years ago… what were your favourite inhabitants like… in 1936

CATCH a 181 bus outside the Town Hall and fourpence will take you to Coronation Street. Look out for the stop outside Bessie Street School, walk 100 yds., turn left and you’re in the street that millions visit twice a week.

But it’s only during the past year that it’s become well, overcrowded!

What was it like 25 years ago? What sort of picture would you have seen back in 1936?

You’d have come by tram, of course. You’d have turned left at the Rover’s Return — and you wouldn’t have known the difference.

The bricks and mortar were the same … the houses, the factory, the Mission.

The forest of TV aerials hadn’t even been planted, of course, and there wasn’t a frozen food locker in the corner shop or plastic piping in the pub — but they were on the way.

It was only a question of time.

On the way too were Christine Hardman, the Barlow boys, Doreen Lostock and Dennis Tanner.

Mind, if you’d told this to Elsie Tanner, the child-bride at No. 11, she’d have said you were flamin’ mad! As far as she was concerned young Linda, sucking her dummy in the pram outside, was the first — and the last!

Bored stiff, not caring much for the neighbours, Elsie sat and smoked and waited for the sea to wash her sailor husband home again — or at least for something to happen.

And, 1,000 miles away, a boy named Ivan Cheveski ran around the streets of Warsaw where they hadn’t any TV aerials either. He’d heard of England — vaguely.

Down the street at the Rover’s Return, Jack and Annie Walker were in their first year as landlords. It wasn’t what Annie was used to, but she tried to think it had possibilities.

Some of the customers weren’t up to her standard, particularly some of the women who came in the snug, but she had ideas about that, too.

She didn’t say anything to Jack, of course, because there were other things to be got out of the way first — like starting a family. It could all be dealt with in good time.

Down the other end of the street, at No. 1, Albert Tatlock struggled hard to keep a wife and two daughters on a municipal clerk’s wage of under £4 a week.

His wife didn’t like the street very much, and he wondered sometimes if she wasn’t giving the girls ideas, but he supposed it would all work out in the end.

A bit of a philosopher, Albert, they all said, and a big reader. They respected him for it but he didn’t have many close friends.

A family called Leeming lived next door at the time — the Barlows didn’t move in until 1940. Sam Leeming died at Dunkirk and his wife went back to her parents.

It was Mary Hewitt, Harry’s mother, who persuaded Ida Barlow to get husband Frank interested in the empty house. Twenty-five years later, Harry Hewitt stood in the rain and watched them carry Ida out.

The Hayes were at No. 5.

Mr. Hayes, a quiet scholarly man who had obviously come down in the world, lived in the street but never really became a part of it.

Neither did his wife, who was an invalid and seldom seen outside the house. It was Esther the daughter, then a quiet 12-year-old who represented the family to the street, along with her brother Tom.

“A good little lass that,” they would say, watching Esther hanging out the washing in the backyard, or scouring the front step.

But when Tom’s name was mentioned they merely shook their heads, sadly, and predicted a sorry future for this wild, undisciplined boy.

It was like that in the street in 1936. They lived the present vigorously, or placidly, according to their natures, and predicted the future as they saw, or hoped, or feared it would be.

Flashback

‣ Births, deaths, weddings, trips, crises … they all made up the first exciting year of television’s most famous street. Here in next week’s supplement, we recall some of the dramatic highlights as viewers saw them at the time.

DECEMBER

Trouble at the comer shop where Florrie Lindley, who has just taken over the business from Elsie Lappin and is determined to make a success of it, has her first brush with the law. She finds she’s been committing an offence by selling a packet of fire-lighters after hours — to a policewoman, too?

JANUARY

Tragedy has come to the street with the death of Christine Hardman’s widowed mother. But it is not long before a new face comes into her life when she meets a handsome plumber called Joe Makinson. In Snape’s Cafe a romance begins to develop that has everyone in the neighbourhood taking notice.

FEBRUARY

Memories of the blitz come flooding back to the people of Coronation Street when a gas main explodes and the order goes out that all the houses have to be evacuated. The Mission Hall is turned into a temporary shelter where the homeless families spend a sleepless night until the danger is over.

MARCH

There’s an even greater crisis when Ena Sharpies overhears a chance remark and spreads the scare that the street is scheduled for demolition. Only when old Albert Tatlock calls in a council official (centre) is it found that the rumour is unfounded — and all the residents can breathe easily again.

APRIL

Ena is out of favour with everyone and gets her marching orders from Mission Hall secretary Leonard Swindley. It’s a highly emotional moment for the doting Miss Nugent when he asks her if she would like to take over the caretaker’s job. But they soon discover Ena is not to be dislodged so easily.

MAY

The sun comes out again and the people of Coronation Street patch up their differences and take an away-from-it-all coach trip — to Blackpool. Even Ena has to smile when her old cronies from the Rover’s Return, Martha and Minnie, invite her to join them for an afternoon paddle.

No. 13 – with the lid off

ONCE you’ve taken away the pub and the corner shop, the Mission Hall and the back wall of the raincoat factory, all that’s left of Coronation Street are seven very ordinary-looking terraced houses.

From the outside they are distinguished from each other only by the pattern of the curtains and the ways some of the doorsteps and windowsills have been subjected to more donkey-stoning than others.

But what are they like inside? Christine Hardman, who lives alone at No. 13, invites you in to see for yourself.

“I’m one of the lucky ones,” she says. “Most of the houses haven’t been touched since they were built, and that means when you want a bath you have to have it in a tin tub in the living room, and the only toilet is in that little outhouse at the back of the yard.

“But a few years ago my landlord had one of the three bedrooms converted into a bathroom, and it’s quite a posh affair.”

Besides the living room and the bedrooms, there are two other rooms — the front parlour, which is only used on very special occasions and, at the back of the house, the tiny scullery with a window looking out on to the yard.

For all this Christine pays a rent of 19s. a week.

‣ You don’t need o passport to visit Coronation Street. But to understand better what the natives are saying — especially in their more heated moments — non-Northerners would be well advised to study this TV Times digest of the local dialect. It has been specially compiled by Mrs. Elsie Tanner, who also posed for the pictures

Where they good old days?

‣ Continuing a glimpse into the past… what was Coronation Street like 25 years ago… and what were people doing… back in 1936.

THE cobbled streets of Lancashire, have worn well — and Coronation Street as well as any.

The bricks of the houses were soot-blackened in 1936. Today they are even blacker. But in the warm, steamy kitchens there was a sense of security which was a protection against grimmer happenings in the world outside.

Take the Hewitts at Number Seven. Matt Hewitt had a wife, daughter, and a stocky dark haired son Harr y— and none or them was very much aware of the changes going on in the world around them. If hard times came they probably couldn’t be any harder than those they’d already been through, especially in the depression years.

Matt had a steady job as a warehouse foreman. He earned enough to keep his family respectable and allow him the odd pint at the Rover’s Return.

Any night in the week, barring Sundays, Harry would be seen delivering papers in the streets round about. He shared the round with a pal of his from Mawdsley Street, a fair haired lad by the name of Len Fairclough.

On Saturdays, if they couldn’t get in without paying, they used part of the proceeds for football. The rest went on comics or pictures at the local Hippodrome. But they couldn’t wait to leave school and get working.

A few doors from the Faircloughs in Mawdsley Street lived Martha Longhurst. She lives there still, but in those days she had a railwayman husband and a daughter, Lily. The happiest day in Martha’s life was the day Lily got married. This was partly because they didn’t get on very well — Martha had never been one to suffer fools gladly — and partly because she’d made up her mind that Lily would get married the day her son-in-law-to-be put his feet under the front room table.

Martha’s husband didn’t long survive the wedding. But as Martha never tired of pointing out, he lived to see his life’s mission completed.

A friend of Martha’s, already a widow for some years, was Minnie Caldwell. She kept house for her mother in Jubilee Terrace. Because she had never had any children she took to loving cats — black cats, grey cats, smooth cats, in fact any cats in the neighbourhood that drifted her way.

Minnie might have married again, despite her mother (and the cats) but by the time her friends had convinced her of the reason for her Mr. Williams’ regular visits, he had long departed from the world.

Minnie’s great friend in 1936, and at indeterminate intervals ever since, was a rather fearsome woman by the name of Ena Sharpies.

“Whatever do them two see in each other?” people used to ask. They said exactly the same thing about Ena and her husband, Alfred, a frail man employed as timekeeper at a tailoring factory.

Alfred Sharpies died in 1937, and some said it was a merciful release. At the funeral Ena’s face was rigid as the stones which surrounded her, and remained so thereafter — at least in public.

A fortnight after his funeral she went to the Glad Tidings Mission for the first time. Two days later she moved in as caretaker.

If you ask people in Coronation Street which is the most important sound in their lives, some will say the distant hooters of the ships on the canal, others the church bells on Rosamund Street on a Sunday.

But in fact it is the bell on the door of the corner shop, which has jangled there so long and so often that everyone forgets it now. In 1936 a girl named Florrie who was staying with an aunt nearby called in the shop — she didn’t particularly notice it either.

The years went by and the faces in the street changed.

Some were born, and some died, and some just went away. Albert Tatlock will remember most of them and all their comings and goings. The arrival of Florrie and Concepta, Jed Stone and Jean, Doreen and Sheila. The departures of Billy Walker, Nancy Leathers, David Barlow … and his mother.

“Aye well,” says Tatlock, “that’s life…”

‣ The 25-year-old photographs appearing in on this page are from the albums of Violet Carson (Ena), Lynne Carol (Martha), Margot Bryant (Minnie), Ivan Beavis (Harry), Peter Adamson (Len), Pat Phoenix (Elsie), Doris Speed (Annie), Arthur Leslie (Jock), Daphne Oxenford (Esther), Jack Howarth (Albert).

NEVER before photographed – Coronation Street as it is on a typical Saturday morning. Everyone is here. Well, almost everyone. Kenneth Barlow shows his dad, Frank, a letter he’s just received from brother David. Len Fairclough, riding to work, stops outside the Hewitts’ to say hullo to Concepta and sympathise with Harry on his weekly window cleaning chore. Jack and Annie Walker are on their way back to the Rover’s Return after their early morning stroll while Elsie Tanner, collecting the milk, has a few choice words to say to Dennis on the perils of oversleeping. Christine Hardman, who is another late starter most Saturdays, gets a polite greeting from Leonard Swindley and his ever-faithful Miss Nugent. Florrie Lindley rests from brushing the pavement outside her shop to pass the time of day with Esther Hayes and Albert Tatlock, and on the corner Minnie Caldwell and Martha Longhurst are gossiping as usual. No prizes for guessing the missing face. Our photographer was told that Ena Sharples was away on a day trip, making one of her rare visits to her daughter and grandson.

Flashback

‣ Continuing a month-by-month review of some of the dramatic highlights in the lives of the people you meet in television’s most famous street. The pictures reproduced here show scenes as viewers saw them at the time.

JUNE

A happy event is awaited by Linda Cheveski and her Polish husband Ivan, who are now happily settled in No. 9. Before the month is out the street is celebrating the arrival of baby Paul — and Elsie Tanner, enjoying the idea of being a grandmother is seen in a novel light — as an expert on baby care.

JULY

Dennis Tanner, Elsie’s layabout son, is hypnotised by the overnight successes of young men with the same haircut as himself and decides it’s time he earned a living. Fixing his sights on fame among the bright lights he buys a guitar and keeps the street awake at night as he gets to grips with the mysteries of the pulsating rhythm of rock ’n’ roll.

AUGUST

After a quarter of a century in Coronation Street, Annie and Jack Walker are asked to leave to take over a new hotel. But they turn it down when they find plush furnishings and taped music a poor substitute for the beer-stained tables and homely gossip they are so used to in the Rover’s Return.

SEPTEMBER

The world of post-office sorter Frank Barlow and his university-educated son Kenneth is shattered when news is broken that well-loved Ida Barlow has been killed in a bus accident, and Frank’s sorrow is further deepened by the non-appearance at the funeral of his other son, David. The whole street goes into mourning.

OCTOBER

Smiles again at the wedding of widower Harry Hewitt and the perky Irish barmaid from the Rover, Concepta Riley. Harry’s 11-year-old daughter, Lucille, is bridesmaid and his dart-playing pal Len Fairclough acts as best man. For the honeymoon they fly off to spend a fortnight in the Isle of Man.

NOVEMBER

Tempers rise in a kerbside brawl and Ena Sharpies goes on the offensive after Elsie Tanner publicly accuses her of being the writer of a poison pen letter she has received. Doors and windows fly open and the whole street comes out to watch as the long expected battle finally gets going.

See what their lucky stars foretell

‣ Ever since Ena Sharples had her hand read at Blackpool during the summer, fortune-telling has been the top talking-point among the women of Coronation Street. To find out what the stars have in store for them in 1962, TV Times has called in JOHN NAYLOR the world famous astrologer. Here are his predictions starting with Ena herself

ENA SHARPLES

Birthday: Nov 14. Number: nine. Stone: bloodstone. Colour: violet.

The Spring of 962 brings benefits which result from changes made around your 1961 birthday. Do-it-yourself talents are put to good use and lead to the development of a new hobby or interest because others admire your work.

MARTHA LONGHURST

Birthday: Sept. 2. Number: two and five. Stone: topaz. Colour: grey.

Sudden and unexpected events next March affect future prospects. Despite a stroke of luck in July a discontent prevails which stems from two causes, lack of ready cash and envy of successes others achieve! Late 1962 early 1963 brings an increase in income however.

MINNIE CALDWELL

Birthday: Sept. 30. Number: six. Stone: sapphire. Colour: rose.

Usually gentle and long-suffering, you’ll become impatient with two people, both much loved, whose demands and quarrels make life a burden. Health may give trouble during May. A delightful spending spree becomes possible late in 1962 — due to an unexpected windfall.

ESTHER HAYES

Birthday: May 10. Number: six. Stone: turquoise. Colour: light-blue.

A long-held business ambition will be achieved April-June. This helps you push recent emotional up-sets into the background. April brings a chance to undertake a trip with someone you get on well with; late in 1962 you spend heavily on your home.

ANNIE WALKER

Birthday: Aug. 11. Number: one. Stone: diamond. Colour: gold.

A critical year; a hard-working year. Psychologically, you experience a feeling of loneliness, are easily depressed. Early 1962 brings business problems, much responsibility, troublesome holdups. Prospects brighten mid-1962. A new relationship transforms your life late in the summer months.

ELSIE TANNER

Birthday: March 5. Number: seven. Stone: amethyst. Colour: green.

Everything goes with a swing! More money, better prospects, a relationship now growing in important to you is put on a lasting basis next spring. A fortunate meeting with someone important brings benefits because they take to you.

CONCEPTA RILEY

Birthday: Jan. 15. Number: eight. Stone: garnet. Colour: chocolate brown.

An enjoyable success to start the year off and it stems from something you have done in the past! The achievements of a loved one give much pleasure in the summer. July-September sees much coming and going involving a relative.

FLORRIE LINDLEY

Birthday: June 12. Number: five. Stone: Topaz. Colour: primrose-yellow.

More prosperous conditions, a favourable decision, quickly disperse late 1961 anxieties. The autumn finds you deeply involved in a relationship which starts in May. In November an ambitious venture is started which necessitates a heavy outlay but offers glittering prospects.

The post TV Times guide to Coronation Street appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

MARGOT BRYANT scratched Nizam’s ear affectionately. “They’ll never believe me back in Coronation Street, you know,” she told the tiger. Nizam took the news with disdain, and offered a striped flan to be stroked.

A 40st., 10-year-old Royal Bengal tiger gets used to human incredulity, I suppose.

We were in the House of the Big Cats at Belle Vue Zoo Manchester — because Margot Bryant, who plays cat-loving Minnie Caldwell in Granada’s Coronation Street wanted to see the biggest cat in the world.

Nizam, retired circus star, and the tamest of tigers seemed a contender for the title. “If you aren’t the biggest, you must be the sweetest,” Margot told him.

Praise like that from Margot is praise indeed. Her passion for cats is not restricted to her living-room on the television screen. Cats, in fact, have been padding in and out of her life since her childhood.

Her father was a doctor in Hull and his home seemed to attract cats. “Our back garden was a sort of mustering ground for them,” said Margot as we moved on to the leopard’s cage.

“One cat used to call only when she was expecting kittens. Very sensible of her, I suppose. It’s always best to have a doctor around at times like that.”

She turned her attention to Tony the leopard, who, not to be outdone by Nizam, rolled on his back playfully. “Another scene stealer,” said Margot. “Bobby’s a terrible scene-stealer. too. Most cats are.”

Bobby?

“His real name’s Toby, but I call him Bobby,” she said. “He always reminds me of another cat called Bobby I once knew, but she was a lady.”

Toby is the marmalade tom featured in recent episodes of Coronation Street. “He had an easy time of it at first,” said Margot. “All he had to do was sit around. Now he has to do walk-on parts as well.”

In the cage next to Nizam’s lives Rita the tigon. One of the rarest of all big cats, she has a tiger for a father and a lioness for a mother. She didn’t respond to Margot’s charm at all. In fact, she positively snarled.

“We mustn’t hold it against her,” said Margot. “I expect she’s all mixed up.”

Our search to find the biggest cat in the world unearthed one of the cutest.

The name was Tundra, the five-month-old lion cub belonging to lion-tamer Luigi Gerardi at Belle Vue Circus.

Tundra didn’t understand English. But that proved no problem for Margot. She faced language difficulties before — with Meeko.

“He was a French cat and a terrible flirt,” she explained.

Talk about cats with Margot and the name of the Earl of Hammersmith is certain to be dropped. “Between ourselves, he isn’t really an earl,” she confided. “His name is Sandy, but he’s such a majestic cat I felt the title was justified.’’

The earl is probably the most intelligent cat Margot has met. “He’s a bit of a bully, too,” said Margot. “Whenever I get home late at night he waits up for me, and tells me off”

The post Cats… Minnie Caldwell loves ’em all appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THIS is the story of Mr. Robinson, and the night he was snatched from the lip of the grave by Patricia Phoenix — Elsie Tanner of Coronation Street.

You won’t know Mr. Robinson. He was just another mongrel pup of obscure parentage, scrawny, sick and starving — the sort of stray you would find wandering around the centre of any big city in Britain.

The city in Mr. Robinson’s case is Manchester, where he was picked up and taken to a home for stray dogs. Life wasn’t too bad for him for a while. He had a place to sleep and some good, solid food.

But the dogs’ home can’t afford to feed stray dogs forever. And as no one had come along to claim him. Mr. Robinson faced execution.

That was when Patricia Phoenix came into the picture.

Pat had just lost one of her own two dogs, Scamp. He had been knocked down in the road outside her home — and her pedigree corgi, Mr. Smith, was pining for him.

“At first I thought of buying another pedigree dog like Mr. Smith,” said Pat. “and then I remembered how much fun we had had with Scamp.

“He was a mongrel I found outside the studios, being led away to a dogs’ home and eventual execution, too.

“So I decided to get in touch with the home again and find out if there were any other mongrels due to be destroyed.”

There were indeed. A number of dogs, including Mr Robinson, were destined to be killed the following day.

The home closed at five o’clock that evening, and Pat couldn’t get away from the studios in time to get there.

In view of the exceptional circumstances, however, the authorities agreed to waive their rules and let Pat visit the home in the evening to choose a dog.

And it didn’t take her long to select Mr. Robinson.

Why?

“I couldn’t leave him there to die,” said Pat, when I met her the other day, exercising an exuberant Mr Smith and a regenerated Mr. Robinson.

“It was the way he looked at me — like the saddest little dog in the world.”

Mr. Robinson, I’m told, is settling down very comfortably in Pat’s elegant Cheshire home. And life, it seems, isn’t always such a dog’s life, after all. Even for stray dogs.

“It was a pity we couldn’t save all the dogs that were due to be destroyed, though,” said Pat. “You’d think there would be enough people in a place as big as Manchester to find homes for a handful of strays, wouldn’t you?”

The post It’s a (gay) dog’s life for Mr Robinson appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

SAID the voice from the snug of the Rover’s Return, indignantly: “I can’t stand traditional jazz!” An argument about traditional jazz? In the heart of Ena Sharples’ territory? It seemed unlikely. I had to investigate.

More shocks — in the snug.

The combatants turned out to be Miss Nugent (Eileen Derbyshire) and Valerie Tatlock (Anne Reid). And the argument had been raging through the lunch-break during rehearsals of Coronation Street.

The gentle Miss Nugent — actually arguing?

“People don’t realise,” said Eileen, spiritedly, “I’m not a bit gentle off the set. I like a good, meaty argument. Particularly when it comes to traditional jazz.”

Anne bristled. Any reference to traditional jazz is distasteful to her. “I’m a modern jazz fan,” she said.

“When did you decide to become an actress, Eileen?” I asked, hastily.

“On a double-decker bus,” said Eileen. “I was a drama teacher at the time.

“One night I was travelling home to Urmston when I saw the posters outside the Chorlton Repertory Theatre, Manchester. I don’t know what happened. I just got off the bus and asked if I could join the company.”

Eileen did an audition.

“They offered me a job — but told me the theatre was in danger of closing.

“Three months later the theatre shut its doors and I was out of work.

“I tramped round the repertory companies — and eventually arrived at the Century Mobile Theatre, at Nantwich, Cheshire,” she said.

They gave her a job.

Eileen worked with several repertory companies all over the North before joining Coronation Street.

Eileen leads an active, outdoor life.

She likes walking — “preferably in wild country,” said Eileen.

“I also do a lot of reading. And I go to concerts — all kinds of concerts.

“The Hallé — and jazz concerts, of course. I suppose you could say that as far as music is concerned I am something of an extremist.”

“Yes,” said Anne Reid icily. It seemed time to talk to Anne.

She was born in Newcastle upon Tyne. By her mid-teens she was a seasoned traveller. Her father is a journalist and his work takes him all over the world.

Anne told me: “I was 13 and at an English boarding school. Someone rang me to say that my father was arranging to have me flown to India to join him — in a Maharajah’s private plane.”

Anne made the trip alone — “I was terrified,” she said.

Anne studied for two years at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and when she took part in the yearly public show at Her Majesty’s Theatre, she was awarded a bronze medal.

She got her first break when she worked in several sketches with Benny Hill.

“I did lots of different parts — but I like the part of Valerie Tatlock, Albert Tatlock’s niece, best. I think she’s a lot nearer to the real me.”

Anne Reid and Eileen Derbyshire have one thing in common. Both are mezzo-sopranos.

Eileen sang in a pantomime at Southport — and Anne sang in a pantomime at Dudley.

We were discussing that dangerous subject, music, again.

“We’re good friends, you know,” said Anne “But Eileen’s views on ‘trad’…”

Eileen was bristling again.

It was time to leave.

The post Shocks in the snug at the Rover’s Return appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IF they should put you in Tussaud’s Blackpool Waxworks, you can safely tell your friends you’re famous. And if Marlene Dietrich has to be moved to make room for you in the top position between Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra you can describe yourself as fabulous.

That is the position allotted to that terror of Coronation Street, Ena Sharpies.

“She’s been a name on people’s lips ever since her part was created last December,” said the firm’s “personality gauge,” Bill Cartnell, when I spoke to him about Ena.

“And in my view,” he said, “she’s likely to be the biggest draw we’ve had here since Mae West ”

Wondering what Violet Carson, who plays Ena, would have to say about this comparison. I went to her home in Fleetwood-road, Bispham.

She had just got home from judging a local beauty contest. Such is the price of her new fame.

“Gercha!” was her Ena-ish comment about the Mae West comparison. She was much more excited by her first view of the photos you see here, which I had with me.

“It’s me father!” she exclaimed — “without the hair on it is, anyway. Look, mother” (and her 80 year-old mother came into the room): “What have I always said? I’m just like Daddy, aren’t I?

“Look there! I’ve even got that bald look that Daddy had.

“And to think it’s only been done from a picture. It’s marvellous. It really is!”

After a cup of tea had revived her from the shock of seeing herself in bits and pieces, she could only say: “God bless Ena Sharples.” And she said it over and over again for a few seconds.

Then she expanded.

“I’ve always been lucky.” she said. “I was lucky to get my first job playing the piano in Manchester’s Market-street cinema at the age of 13.

“And when the talkies came.” she continued. “I was able to switch to radio as a pianist and singer without much of a struggle. I was lucky, too, to be a part of that howling success Have a Go for six years.

“But as radio began to die I began to think of retirement and growing roses. I was getting on. I’m 56, you know.

“Anyway, the next peak in my life, with two peaks in it, grew up suddenly one day last November.

“I had just arrived home from London after playing a Shakespearian role for TV. The phone rang and the part of Ena was offered to me.

“I didn’t hear anything about it being a serial part. So in spite of the fact that it was a bit of a social comedown playing such an old fire-eater, I accepted.”

Now Violet Carson is too much of an actress not to enjoy playing a rich, rewarding part like Ena — even if it has meant neglecting her roses.

And when she made complaints about the penalties of being a national character, I couldn’t detect any lowering of her high-spirited nature.

“Those people who say Lancashire women don’t wear hairnets don’t know ’em like I do. You see, I was born in Coronation Street.

“It was really called Corporation terrace, in Ancoats, Manchester. But I couldn’t make Ena live like she does if I hadn’t lived near such Enas all my life.

“But I must get some gardening done, luv. Do you mind?”

And off she went to work in a garden that is likely to suffer a lot of neglect in future.

The post At last a model Ena – in wax! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IN the shadow of a 16th century thatched cottage a slim, attractive woman in slacks and sweater was spending part of her holiday weeding a bed of Spanish iris. She looked up as I approached. “Delighted to see you,” she said in a voice cultivated by years at Roedean School.

It was to this cottage on the Essex-Cambridgeshire border that I was invited to meet 43-year-old Noël Dyson of the Coronation Street cast. She is probably better known to viewers as Ida Barlow.

“It’s all rather different from the industrial North West.” she said. “But I need to spend a few days away from Manchester now and again I’m sure it helps me to be a better actress.”

Manchester-born Noël is the daughter of a cotton broker. After Roedean she went to a finishing school in France, then trained for the stage in weekly repertory.

“I used to think repertory was really hard work.” she said. “But that was before Coronation Street came along.

“Working on television serials is probably the hardest job there is in show business.

Fortunately, in Coronation Street we have a great team — executives, technicians and actors. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”

Forty-six-year-old Frank Pemberton, who plays Frank Barlow, Ida’s husband in the show, was also taking a breather — invited down to spend the day at the cottage at Duddenhoe End, near Saffron Walden, Essex.

The sun beat down on Ida’s magnificent garden. Coronation Street was a million miles away. Frank and I stretched out in deck chairs. We were amid a profusion of flowers which would not have disgraced Kew Gardens.

Lupins, violas, peonies, oriental poppies and thousands of roses. That’s Noël’s garden. She’s got the lot.

Before Frank had time to tell us a tale — he’s an ex Navy type — Noël called us indoors for tea.

“’Ave a cuppa, luv.” she said. The Roedean accent had developed more than a tang of Coronation Street. She poured the tea and asked: “What do you think of it, all this like?

“Not bad, is it? Not considering it cost us only £900. That includes nearly an acre of land. ’Course, the roof needed re-thatching, but a local lad did that. He liked the look of us, thought we would take care of the old place, and charged us rock bottom.

“Then there was the garden. It was a jungle of nettles when we took it over, but you wouldn’t think so now, would you, luv?

“My husband (Noël meant her real-life husband, actor Kenneth Edwards) is a keen gardener, and so am I. We did it all ourselves. It nearly broke our backs, but it was worth it.”

I asked if the Duddenhoe End villagers knew she had become a national character on ITV.

“I don’t think the people down here realise it’s me.” she said. “In the North, of course, it’s another story.

“I dare not go into a big departmental store in Manchester — unless I’ve got the time to answer hundreds of questions. Everybody in the North seems to know me.

“In a Market-street store in Manchester a few weeks ago, a nice little woman came up and asked me, ‘You Ida Barlow?’

“I nodded. ‘Ow’s your mother, luv?’ she asked.

“‘She’s fine,’ I said. ‘Why?’ Then it dawned. The woman meant my TV mother, who had been reported ill in a recent episode.

“I recovered quickly — hiding the shock that something might be wrong with real mother — and said: ‘Oh, she’s much better, thank you, luv.'”

Noël finished her tea and showed us round the low-beamed cottage. We were pounced upon by three madly frisky toy poodles — Lucy, six, Emily, three, and tiny Polly, nine months.

“Meet the rest of the family,” said Noël. “You know, there are few women with a family like mine. Between Coronation Street and real life I have two husbands, two mothers, two sons, a stepdaughter and three dogs. Then there are Jean Marlow, Frank Pemberton’s real wife, and their two-year-old daughter, Penny. They’ve almost become part of my own family. I’m lucky. Yes, really lucky, luv.”

Jean, who is a disc jockey with a Continental radio programme, smiled. They were like sisters.

As I drove away from Rose Cottage I felt that although the setting was in complete contrast to the late-Victorian starkness of Coronation Street the people were the same. Real, warm, homely people.

The post Ida’s ideal home appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THERE is a rumour going round that the wedding between Harry Hewitt and Concepta Riley isn’t coming off. All over the country people have been arguing about it and ringing Granada at all hours for the facts.

I have been down to Coronation Street to ask them. I made for “The Rover’s Return.”

Harry Hewitt (Ivan Beavis) was as usual propping up the bar. Concepta (Doreen Keogh) was polishing glasses I asked: “Ivan, is the wedding coming off?”

Concepta suddenly stopped polishing and Harry cocked an aggressive eyebrow.

“People never call us by our real names any more” said Ivan.

To save further confusion I decided to fall in with the majority — even though the career facts I gathered refer to their real-life careers.

“Did I ever tell you how I got started in this acting game?” he said. “I was convalescing at the time. I’d been ill for about 20 months.

“I wanted something to do. My brother and sister in Liverpool were winning prizes for elocution, but I didn’t fancy my chances at elocuting. so I decided to try acting …”

I interrupted. “About this wedding…” Harry grasped my shoulder. “Ask Concepta when she started acting.” he said.

“My mother told me I started the day I was born.” said Concepta.

“Yes. I was born in Dublin and studied at the Abbey Theatre school. Later I acted at The Gate Theatre.”

I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “we’ve had a lot of telephone calls about your wedding…

“Ask Harry how he turned professional,” said Concepta.

“I was an accountant,” said Harry. “Had been for years. But I didn’t like auditing. It always seemed like you were succeeding by finding other people’s mistakes.”

Harry got his break with Coronation Street after he played a northern part in Knight Errant Limited.

“Very interesting,” I said. “Now about this…”

“Ask Concepta how she got her break,” said Harry, serenely.

“I was playing the part of an Irish wife in The Citadel,” said Concepta. “It was a serial, you know. I started off with five children and ended up with about nine.”

“Never got over it,” said Harry. “There we both were at the first rehearsal we attended. I was supposed to be in love with her, and she with me, and we couldn’t even recognise each other.”

I cut in quickly. “I’m glad you mentioned that…” and prepared weakly for another attempt.

“Tell him about the wedding present,” said Harry.

“We’ve had our first wedding present, you know,” said Concepta. “A little girl gave us a tiny china figure. It was lovely.”

Harry cut in again. “There’s even a rumour that the wedding isn’t going to come off, ” he said. “Fancy spreading a rumour like that.”

The post Popping the question in Coronation Street appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

BULLETS were whining across the oasis. Bombs were being lobbed over battlements. The British were advancing remorselessly.

And the Arabs were dodging from palm tree to palm tree, making a desperate last stand.

There were all the ingredients, in fact, of a rattling good television script. Which was what made the whole thing all the more ironic. Because one of the four officers leading that real-life desert sortie was a handsome, red-haired young man destined to find fame on the television screen.

The name was Bill Roache — who plays Ken Barlow in Granada’s Coronation Street.

But Bill had no ambitions to go into television at that time.

He was serving as a captain with the Royal Welch Fusiliers in a remote sector of Oman, on the Persian Gulf — and intended making the Army his career.

“Our job was keeping down tribal warfare in the area,” explained Bill. “And on this occasion we were called in to move a band of marauders who had taken the Buraimi Oasis from Sheik Zaid. We had four British officers and about 200 Arabs.

“Rather unsportingly, we decided to attack in the morning — while the enemy were still saying their prayers.”

Bill grinned at the memory.

“It was the most confused action I’ve ever seen. You didn’t know which Arabs were friends and which were enemies.

“Men would surrender — and then suddenly produce guns and start taking pot-shots at you. Things got so confused at one stage that I thought we were going to be overcome.

“But luckily the enemy surrendered, so everything worked out fine.”

Bill, who is in his late 20’s, was with the Regular Army for five years, and saw service in Jamaica, Arabia, Germany and British Guiana.

“We moved into Guiana when there was a threat of a Communist coup,” he said.

“We arrived with loaded guns expecting anything, but the minute we turned up they pulled down all the Communist flags and ran up Union Jacks instead, so we went shooting crocodiles instead of rebels!”

While serving abroad with the Army, Bill made up his mind to try acting as a career.

After leaving the Army, he spent eight months trudging around repertory companies, looking for work. He realised that desperate measures were called for.

“So I went to an agent, lied like a trooper, and told him I had just finished two years with a leading seaside repertory company,” he said. “I got a job.”

Repertory, film and television work led him eventually to Coronation Street.

Married now, and living in a cottage in Rawtenstall, Lancashire, Bill is still looking eagerly to the future.

His ambitions of the moment?

“I want to raise a herd of Highland cattle,” said Bill. “And write a novel — just like Ken Barlow is doing.”

The post To Coronation Street – via an oasis appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

WHAT makes a girl give up the security of a nine-to-five office job to go into the theatre? What makes a girl defy the advice of her family for a profession as unpredictable as acting?

Ask any actress — and you’ll probably get a different answer every time. We all have our own reasons.

My reasons?

Well, I suppose they were mixed.

First and foremost, I had a compulsive need to act. I always have had — and I hope I always will have.

Then, of course, I’m an explosive, emotional person — and if my exploding emotions can be channelled to entertain people on stage or in front of a camera, then so much the better for everybody.

And finally, I am an ambitious person. I was determined to get to the top, right from my early teens. And the theatre seemed to be the most likely way of getting there.

I suppose it’s odd, really. You see, I’m not a “theatrical type”. I loathe those theatrical parties where people call you “dahling” and drown you in insincere flattery, then stab you in the back the minute you turn round.

I loathe people who “gush”. I loathe the falseness which is so prevalent in many parts of the theatre today.

That’s why I enjoy Coronation Street so much. Not one of our team is the theatrical type, either. Maybe that’s why they play their homely down-to-earth characters so convincingly.

When I decided to become an actress in my early teens, that aspect of theatrical life was, of course, as foreign to my experience as the moon.

I was wide-eyed, naive and innocent — and all that I could see were the bright lights of fame ahead, just waiting to announce my name.

I got my first professional break on radio in Manchester — and I think I got it, as so often happens, by sheer cheek. I was 14 at the time — and had written for an audition.

They agreed to hear me — but I couldn’t find a speech that I thought was suitable. So I wrote one for myself — as Lady Jane Grey, speaking from the scaffold.

I think they were so taken aback at my nerve that they gave me a part in a play. And a number of broadcast plays followed.

My full-time professional career as an actress started when I was 18 — with a company, called Manchester Arts Theatre, doing one-night stands in Service bases all over Britain.

It was an incredible nonstop life of acting, eating and sleeping. But I loved every minute of it. It may not have been the glamorous theatrical life that I had imagined, but it was different, and it was exciting.

The going could not have been tougher. The producer was magnificent — but ruthless. Nothing mattered to him but the theatre.

Remorselessly he analysed every failing that I had. I used my hands too extravagantly, he said. So I had to rehearse with them tied behind my back.

I stooped too much when I was registering emotion, he said. So I had to wear a harness that bit into the skin of my throat every time I leaned forward!

It was with that company that I learned the lesson which every real actress must learn — absolute dedication to the theatre.

Life on tour had its lighter side of course.

I remember one night, at Cirencester, leaning against a piece of scenery just before the curtains opened, while a stagehand was making frantic last-minute adjustments to the set behind me.

The curtains opened, I moved away from the wall — and left my dress behind me. The stage-hand had nailed it to the floor!

The first real challenge of my career came after about a year with that company, when I was asked to play a 38 year-old woman in Clemence Dane’s Granite.

People outside our company laughed when they heard about the casting, and said that I couldn’t do it. I hadn’t got the guts, or the stamina or the ability, they said.

I’m glad they did. I couldn’t have asked for anything more likely to inspire me to succeed. The part was a roaring success, and as a result I was invited to play it at Chorlton Repertory, Manchester.

In the years that followed I worked in repertory all over the provinces. I never made the big-time in the West End — but I got more than my share of success in the North, and I played most of the parts that actresses dream about playing.

My favourites?

Blanche in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, and Sadie Thompson in Somerset Maugham’s Rain.

Not all the parts I’ve played have been dream-parts, mind you. Some of them have been nightmares.

Like most actresses I was usually short of money, and that meant doing small parts in films — usually horror films.

It was a most unnerving experience, getting mixed up with werewolves and vampires and monsters from the other side of the solar system.

Particularly as I invariably found myself getting eaten up by one of them before the end of the picture!

On one occasion, in Wales, mind you, I nearly found myself in the middle of a real-life ghost story. It happened when I moved into new theatrical lodgings.

I went downstairs for the first meal of my stay and was halfway through my boiled egg when the owner of the house suddenly hissed at me and told me not to move.

“There’s a ghostly hand poised right above your head and you’re surrounded by a pink aura,” he said.

I got out of there in a hurry. He was, I discovered later, a leading spiritualist!

The post Turning the corner to Coronation Street appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

EYES that have launched a thousand glares widened in disbelief. The most famous hair-net in Britain shook in amazement.

“l just can’t understand it,” said Violet Carson, who plays fire-eating Ena Sharpies in Granada’s Coronation Street.

“I wouldn’t have believed that so many people could be so concerned about what happened to a bad-tempered, vindictive old woman like Ena.”

Violet’s surprise is perhaps understandable.

After more than a year with one of Britain’s top television programmes, she has come to accept fan-mail as routine. But even she has been taken aback by the reaction there has been to the collapse of Ena Sharpies in the Mission Hall a few weeks ago.

“There have been letters, get-well cards, flowers,” said Violet.

“People have telephoned from all parts of the country inquiring about Ena. I’ve been stopped in the street dozens of times and asked how I was.

“Two little girls even wrote to tell me that they were praying for my recovery!”

But Violet is not the only member of the cast who has found herself in this sort of situation.

The programme has taken such a hold of the national imagination that thousands of people all over the country absolutely refuse to disassociate the actors and actresses from the characters they play.

You couldn’t meet a more amiable chap than Peter Adamson, who plays Len Fairclough, for instance. “But I can’t walk down a street in Manchester now without finding people glaring at me with hatred in their eyes,” said Peter.

“It started when I thumped Kenneth Barlow in the snug of the Rover’s Return,” he explained.

“And it’s got even worse since I had a fight with Harry Hewitt about Concepta.

“Threatening letters arrive for me every day. I’ve been called everything from a beer-swilling moron to a thug. To tell you the truth, I love it. If people are reacting as violently as this, my performance must be doing something to them.”

After his skirmish with Len in the Rover’s Return, Bill Roache, who plays Kenneth Barlow, was flooded with letters.

“Two hundred schoolgirls signed one letter, telling me that they agreed with everything that I said about Len Fairclough and the people in the street,” said Bill.

“One frantic father wrote to tell me that his little girl hadn’t stopped crying since seeing me knocked down.

“She refused to be convinced that Peter and I were only acting, and the father begged me to write her a letter telling her that I was, in fact, all right.”

Bill wrote the letter.

Frank Pemberton, who plays Kenneth’s father, still receives sympathetic inquiries from all over Britain. “And many of them now want to know when I’m getting married again,” said Frank.

Wherever they go, Ivan Beavis and Doreen Keogh, who play Harry and Concepta Hewitt, can’t get away from the fact that Concepta is expecting a baby.

“People have sent us presents for the child — bootees, a matinee jacket, a lovely model of a stork with a baby hanging from its beak,” said Doreen.

“A midwife rang the studios to offer her advice and services when the time came.

“And wherever I go, I’m offered a seat for the sake of the baby.”

Minnie Caldwell’s love of cats brings in regular invitations for Margot Bryant to visit cats and cats’ homes.

“I accept as many invitations as I can,” she said.

Arthur Leslie, who plays landlord Jack Walker, could get a job as a licensee any time he wants.

And Doris Speed, who plays his wife, is constantly being asked by people to stop nagging her easy-going husband.

“I’ve given up trying to convince them that it isn’t me who’s nagging him but Annie Walker,” said Doris.

Elsie Tanner, of course, has half the country agog at present over her relationship with Len Fairclough.

“There’s nothing in it,” said Pat Phoenix, treating me to a Tanner-sized wink.

“We’re just good friends.”

The post Get well Ena! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

GRANADA’S Coronation Street is being sniped at by a number of viewers – to judge by readers’ letters in recent issues of TV TIMES.

It’s not true to life, complains a woman in West Wickham, Kent.

In the Coronation Streets of 1961 the women do not (like Ena Sharples) wear hair nets all day, says an Oldham viewer. No kindness among neighbours, says a protest from Lowestoft.

And from Walkden, Lancashire, comes this: “The show gives a bad impression of family life in the North.”

The majority of viewers, however, enjoy the programme and from personal experience I say the criticism is rubbish. For Coronation Street has close ties with my constituency of East Salford and I’m proud of it.

Those shots of terraced houses opening each instalment were taken in Archie Street, near Salford Docks, which the people there have since nicknamed Coronarchie Street.

I live with my family only a couple of miles away in Manchester and, like millions of other Northerners, we are all Coronation Street fans.

To my surprise, the programme is very popular in the South as well as the North. I am told that when it was screened at 7 p.m. it had the largest viewing public ever known for any item at that hour.

Even now, at its new time of 7.30 p.m., it is challenged only by the long-running series Emergency – Ward 10.

Why this tremendous popularity? Because it is so true to life.

These Coronation Street men and women are real people… people we meet every day of our lives. The dialogue, the events, the characters are are convincing. The acting couldn’t be more realistic.

In fact, viewers talk about the characters as though they were neighbours, not creatures conjured up by a scriptwriter.

The other day, as I travelled to the House of Commons by bus from my London digs, I heard two young secretaries talk about the show throughout the journey.

They were discussing what happened to Ena Sharples, Christine Hardman and the others in the previous night’s programme… for the serial reflects life not only in the North but in back streets in all parts of the country. Personally, I’m tired of the old drawing-room type of drama dealing exclusively with the small set who live in country houses. I’m fed up with plays in which working people are treated as morons.

I suppose this is one of the main reasons why I enjoy Coronation Street so much. It does not assume that because we speak with a Lancashire accent we are necessarily clots.

It doesn’t introduce the common man just as a bit of comic relief. You know the kind of thing so frequently encountered on the stage the housemaid who drops her aitches, and also the dishes. Nor does the show go wrong in the other direction by portraying workers pimps, prostitutes, crooks. Teddy Boys or “Room-at-the Top” types as so many contemporary plays do.

Coronation Street is populated by ordinary, decent people, of the sort who rally round to help whenever a neighbour is in trouble.

These Coronation Street folk are the real people of the back streets. With all their faults and virtues. The good and the bad. The wise and the foolish.

Such as Elsie Tanner. What a warm, lovable woman she is. A real human being.

Some critics say the characters are harsh and bickering. But, at times, aren’t we all? Tony Warren, the brilliant young creator of Coronation Street who lived for many years on the borders of Salford, portrays working people truthfully. I feel more attention will be given to their problems in future as a result of this programme.

One half of the world doesn’t know how the other half lives. The folk from our great industrial cities have been ignored for too long. They’ve never had a square deal. But maybe Coronation Street will help them to get one. Most of these rows of two-up-and-two-down houses were built at the time of Queen Victoria’s Coronation in 1837. Some are even older, and the conditions are a disgrace.

In 1961, in the age of space travel, automation and atomic energy, five out of 10 houses in Salford have no bath, no hot water and no inside toilet. Perhaps something will be done now that millions of people are meeting TV counterparts of these houses in their own homes twice a week.

As for the future, I’d like to see more of the Coronation Street people at their jobs. It would provide new scenes and fresh ideas, and help to give the series a new dimension.

I would like to introduce Tony Warren to a bunch of lively engineers, dockers, clothing workers, shop stewards and apprentices from Salford who would give him plenty of interesting themes.

And if their problems at work are treated as realistically and sympathetically as their problems at home, Coronation Street will grow greater still.

The post Coronation Street’s MP speaks up appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

TONY WARREN toured pubs in greater Manchester for two months. It was in the cause of television. He even worked as a barman. The result of his researches can be seen in a new fictional serial, Coronation Street, next Friday.

“Apart from listening to people in pubs and clubs,” Warren told me in his office in Granada’s Manchester studios, “I also ‘kept observation’ in an off-licence, talked to people in buses and trains, wandered through street markets, made three trips to Blackpool illuminations and went on a ‘mystery’ coach outing, which turned out to be a fourth visit to Blackpool.”

“Coronation Street” – four miles from Manchester in any direction – is a collection of seven terraced houses, an off-licence, a little general store on the corner. The back wall of a raincoat factory, a pub called “The Rover’s Return” and the Glad Tidings Mission Hall.

The houses of “Coronation Street” are representative built more than 60 years ago, with no gardens. They have six rooms… parlour, living-room, scullery, and three bedrooms, one of which has been converted into a bathroom.

Yet it is home to the 20 people who live there, and most of them would not like to change their worn surroundings for something new but less humanised.

Like all communities, the people of “Coronation Street” have their problems. There is the young man who has won his way to university and now finds his background something of an embarrassment.

One of the characters will be as new as viewers to “Coronation Street.” She has just taken over the shop on the corner, and, like viewers, she must get to know her rich assortment of new neighbours.

“The Rover’s Return” is like any pub that serves a small close-knit community.

It is not so much a pub as a communal parlour where people can tell each other their troubles, joys and hopes, as well as have a drink.

To the garrulous Ena Sharples, the kindly ex-barmaid who looks after the Mission Hall, “The Rover’s Return” is more like home. She does her job at the Mission Hall, but she is not wholly in character with the place, and, off duty, she much prefers the easy, comfortable atmosphere of “The Rover’s Return.”

The truth is that Ena is a bit of an embarrassment to the Chapel Committee but, at 70, she is the only person who will look after the hall in return for a free house and coal supply.

Warren, slim and 6ft 1in tall, paced his office, paused to stub out a cigarette and said: “Three months ago, I decided to write a serial about the North.

“I started with one household. It became two, then three, and then a whole street, and I had to add a pub, an off-licence and a place of worship.”

He emphasised: “I am not having a joke at the expense of the people in the North. What I have aimed at is a true picture of life there and the people’s basic friendliness and essential humour.”

Warren is a Northerner himself. He was born in Eccles, and has lived in Pendlebury all his life, apart from five years in London as an actor.

The acting phrase of his career ended when his height increased and he was no longer suitable to play the son of the house. “Nobody wanted a son towering above them,” he explained.

A producer described him as “a bean-pole with a baby face.” So Warren took up writing. Now 24, he is still boyish-looking.

He lit another cigarette, and said: “I knew what I wanted to write, but going into pubs and clubs was the only way I could check its authenticity.

“Northerners have an enormous curiosity about everything. They’ll also tell their life story – as long as the listener is prepared to do the same.”

The post The street where they live appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.