Speak Easy - 2 - When Was The Golden Age Of Coronation Street? Reality Bites - It WASN'T The 1970s!

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Christine has been reading up on Corrie history on-line and writes:

I keep reading that the Street's "Golden Age" was the 1970s, I even read it on some DVD blurb, but I disagree. Does nobody remember how bad the first half of that decade was for Coronation Street, and how the show tumbled in the ratings?

Well yes, Christine, I do. Some people seem to feel the need to make out that the 1970s are the be-all-and-end-all in a variety of ways, and I don't quite understand why.

Street historians also need to back up their assertions with more than "a lot of people think the 1970s were Corrie's Golden Age," which is something I've recently read on-line. Why do they? Is it really that many people? Is the belief based on reality? Was it? What do the ratings and media of the time tell you?

Personally, I find the majority of episodes from around 1970-1974 very painful to watch! It was the low point of the Street's career in my humble opinion. And the ratings dropped disastrously. The show's ratings were consistently higher in the 1980s than they were in the 1970s, too. Bill Podmore wrote of the problems the Street was experiencing before he became producer in his 1990 autobiography, Coronation Street - The Inside Story.

My own favourite era is the 1960s - I'm too young to remember, but I've thoroughly enjoyed all the episodes I've seen from that decade. My favourite era as a viewer was from 1976-1983. Things don't have to neatly fit into decades!

And the disappearance of the last of the original 1960s characters marked a new Corrie low point for me.

I run a few blogs - including some about recent decades, and the amount of nonsense I've come across whilst researching the 1970s you wouldn't believe!

It's as though the 1970s are also the 1960s and 1980s.

Strange how some people delude themselves. A lot of what we believe is based on hot air and hype.

And sadly the WWW. has not helped.

Mind you, lovey, here you get only the best information. I mean, would we seek to delude? By the way, the boiled ham's very nice today, and I think I've got some sweet piccalilli in't back...