1989: Rita Fairclough And The Huge Blue Shoulder Pads...

Watching past Corrie episodes is a delight, reflecting as they do many of the trends and fashions of the times in which they were recorded: Ken Barlow off on a Ban The Bomb March in the early 1960s, hippies at No 11 during the same decade, skateboards and rising youth crime in the 1970s, the CB radio craze and unemployment in the early 1980s. And HUGE shoulder pads as the '80s went on.

And I do mean HUGE.

I've just watched an episode from 1989, and the lovely Rita Fairclough (Barbara Knox) waltzed into the Rovers Return, wearing a bizarre bright blue jacket thing, with what looked like about a dozen tea towels stuffed into each shoulder.

Talk about Popeye!

I backtracked to a 1980 episode. The shoulders were quite ordinary. Miniscule in fact. Fast forward to '89 again and WOW!

I was used to shoulder pads at the time, even favoured them myself - in my Miami Vice-style linen jackets (big shoulders detract from big belly) - but seeing them now...

Good grief!

The mid-to-late '80s were a different planet!

Those fashions...

At the time I thought: "Brill!"

Now I think: "bleeurgh!"

Alec Gilroy (Roy Barraclough) is confronted by a huge blue shoulder pad in the Rovers Return. Will his nerve break?