Just a brief round-up of some recent e-mails received. The Corrie 1980s Anti-Thatcher post I wrote yesterday and posted in the early hours of this morning has already sparked a response from Colin, who tells me:
Yes, fine, there was no full employment in the 1970s, and Bet Lynch was talking cobblers in 1986. Some thick-witted scriptwriter doing a spot of soap-boxing was probably the culprit. But do you remember the pro-Tory propaganda in the show in the 1970s? I particularly remember Ken and his girlfriend saying how the working classes had taken all the money from the middle classes, now had more money than they did, and were basically sitting pretty. I lived in conditions of great poverty in the '70s and sometimes found Corrie's stance incomprehensible and offensive.
The conversation you mention took place between Ken Barlow and Wendy Nightingale in 1976. It was bizarre, I thought. My family was on the breadline, we lived in a council house with a 1950s crumbling prefab kitchen tacked on, and there was a cold, mouldy wall in my bedroom.
It was very odd indeed as, with inflation rampant and unemployment spiralling, things were very difficult for many working class people. I'm not sure how interested people are in Corrie politics, but I'll certainly write more on the '70s Tory "thing" when I return from Hunstanton.
Meanwhile, Grace asks if we can have more Albert Tatlock?
I've loved the Albert-themed posts. Jack Howarth was brilliant!
Yes, there will be more Albert in our 1976 Revisited posts, coming soon!
2 comments:
2 instances here proving that soap opera writers should leave politics to the people and the politicians. The 1976 Ken and Wendy scene sounds just as stupid as the Bet comment of 1986! Here's a tip: your average Corrie web skimmer doesn't give a damn about politics and these sort of posts will win you few fans. The average Corrie web skimmer likes a bit of Corrie history, but most of all likes to suck up all the misery and gore in the modern day series like a hungry sponge.
For many years I have been a great fan of Coronation Street since the late sixties & the early seventies.
Last year when Coronation Street is celebrating 50 years on ITV and chance to look back at the highlights over the years with the infamous bar brawl fight with Len Fairclough & Kenneth Barlow
Mike Baldwin crossed the picket line with the workforce,Ernest Bishop is shot in wage snatch,
The Notorious Coach Crash in Windermere,The Platts party when Teresa Bryant stormed in and broke the ipod,Stan Ogden & Albert Tatlock lock in at the Rovers Return and Ken,Deirde & Mike love triangle top the ratings.
Coronation Street is the great soap opera on Granada Television since records began.
Terry Christie
From Sunderland
Tyne & Wear
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