Drake asks:Can you date the Coronation Street mug I recently bought on-line? It's at least twenty-years-old I believe and shows the Corner Shop, the sign over it reading "ALFRED ROBERTS".
I had one of those mugs, Drake - they dated from the mid-1980s and I believe were sold into the early 1990s. I seem to recollect seeing them on the Granada Studios Tour. There were two mugs, The Rovers Return and The Corner Shop. I had both circa 1985.
The image of the Corner Shop depicts the establishment in the early-to-mid 1980s: Alf Roberts had his deceased wife Renee's name painted out on the shop sign, replacing it with his own, in late 1981 - over a year after her death in 1980. The shop looked like the image carried on the mug from late 1981 until 1985, when a grand transformation took place and the shop became a mini market.
Woe to the Corner Shop - destroyed in 2010 by a tumbling tram to celebrate the 50th anniversary.
Sheesh!
But there were many happy days there in more gentle soap times and the mug is a charming piece of '80s Corrie nostalgia, dating from the days that Alf Roberts revelled in being Mr Green the Grocer.
And, as he stated in 1988, he actually believed that the Corner Shop had a soul!
If so, perhaps it will make it to Corrie heaven?
2 comments:
What really amused me tonight was that one of the climactic 50th week episodes was written by Peter Whalley, one of the creators of Albion Market - the failure soap you often write about!
I loved Albie! :)
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