Coronation Street - My Favourite Characters Of The 1960s, 1970s and 1980s... Number 20: Mr Swindley

'Oh, Mr Swindley! Is it going to go off?'

Here we go, chuck, I'm now going to bore you all rigid with my own personal countdown of the characters I think made Corrie shine especially bright in its first three decades. Together with a few glances at missed opportunities - minor characters I thought could have been built up into major ones!

This will be my own personal Top Twenty of my fave Street folk from way back then (one or two who are still around!) and I hope you enjoy it. I do me best here to make things entertaining. You can ask anybody. Ask Ida Clough.

Here we go then, Number 20 is... Leonard Swindley - played by Arthur Lowe in the early-to-mid 1960s.

Mr Swindley ran his Rosamund Street 'emporium' - a small haberdashery shop - with the devoted Miss Emily Nugent - who merged her baby linen business with his.

Mr Swindley was a lay preacher and held great sway at the Glad Tidings Mission Hall in Coronation Street, but not with its resident caretaker, Mrs Ena Sharples, who once described him as 'a puffed up little fish in a dirty little pond'!

She were lovely, our Mrs Sharples.

But, to be honest, Mr Swindley was, basically, a pompous windbag who meant well.

When his business was taken over by a chain called Gamma Garments, Mr S was immediately in awe of his new boss - Mr Papagopolous. This terrifying vision of 1960s capitalism was always kept off-screen (rather like Arthur Daley's 'Er Indoors' years later), but his telephone calls and threatened visits to his Rosamund Street branch were enough to send Mr Swindley - and, indeed, Miss Nugent - into a severe attack of the screaming 'abdabs.

Apart from Miss Nugent, Mr Swindley found his staff - namely Miss Doreen Lostock, of the Corner Shop flat in Coronation Street, a great disappointment. On one occasion, when Mr S called 'Forward one' to summon a member of his staff to assist with a customer, Miss Lostock actually asked: 'What number am I, then?'

Well, I ask you!

Poor old Leonard - jilted by his beloved Miss Nugent, terrorised by the sinisterly-unseen Mr Papagopolous, spun out of the Street and into a couple of spin-offs - and actor Arthur Lowe into even greater fame in Dad's Army.

Fab indeed.

'Whatever does that mean, Miss Nugent?'

'I've really no idea, Mr Swindley…'