Monday 23 April 2012

Betty, The Rovers, Annie Walker's Will and The Barlow Twins...

  Annie, 1978: What she could have been saying...


"Of course, dear, the Barlow twins were born in April 1965, and next year they'll be turning fifteen. It really doesn't seem possible..."

Fiona has written:

I'm shocked that Coronation Street has tweaked the past with this terrible story about Annie leaving Betty the Rovers tenancy in her will. She left the pub and retired in 1983! This sort of tweaking would never have happened in the show's golden era - the 1970's.

Oh dear... I don't know how to tell you this, but this sort of tweaking first happened in the 1970s! The age of the Barlow twins was altered in 1978. Peter Barlow wanted to join the Navy and so his age was advanced by a year or two to make him almost old enough. Don't worry, the 1980s rectified the situation with Peter and Susan celebrating their joint twenty-first birthdays in 1986. The trend was picked up again in the 1990s when the age of Mike Baldwin's son was tweaked.

As for Annie and Bet, if Annie's will was an old one, written before she left the Rovers, I think she would have tried to pass the tenancy to her son, Billy. Also, if you watch the episodes concerned, you'll discover that Annie retired in 1984, not 1983.