What If Coronation Street Was Archie Street? Part Six

Well, chuck, we've reached the final part of our little series comparing Coronation Street to its rough-template-real-life-counterpart Archie Street, which once stood in the Ordsall district of Salford. And as we stand outside Maurice Jones's posh 1989 Coronation Street development, what was on that side of Archie Street? More terraced houses, of a slightly different design, and a brick wall is the answer.

When Archie Street faced the bulldozers in 1971, Granada Television issued a press statement entitled THE BULLDOZERS FOR ENA? and Bernard Youens and Jean Alexander, our wonderful Stan and Hilda Ogden, visited the derelict street for a photo session.

The Ogdens survey the non-template side of Archie Street in 1971. Note the bay windows there had brick surrounds.

For years, it was put about - and Granada participated in this - that Archie Street had been replaced by high rise blocks, but it hadn't - simply by modern housing. St Clement's Church remained as a convenient orientation point when tracing the site. Just to confuse those not-in-the-know there's now another Archie Street in the district!

Coronation Street differs from Archie Street in that it is not real, and when I said a little while back that we should embrace some of the oddities thrown up by its architecture and changing environs over the years, I meant it. Since the Street was born almost sixty years ago, TV production has altered a very great deal. Hurriedly assembling sets back in the day led to occasional brow-creasers like Emily Bishop's back door leading into Albert Tatlock's yard on at least one occasion in the 1970s, and the cramped nature of the studio meant the frontages had to be tiny in the 1960s. So, Albert had to put up with having the Rovers loos in his house.

When the Street moved outside, a lack of chimneys and glimpses of interior scaffolding and interior grey sky were inevitable. But think about the improvement from the old studio set! It didn't solve Albert's problem though.

The old days - far too small, no chimneys and the Rovers loos are in Albert's house. "Funny old boozer this, in't it, Mrs Walker?!"

In 1982, we got to see Rosamund Street in a different light - no church opposite the street corner, as in the studio days, or high wall with gates in it - but the building which became the Graffiti Club. Once again, highly odd when viewed as reality but a major leap forward for the Street - as were chimney pots and a properly covered terraced.

Not to mention the size upgrade. Real size? No, as Jean Alexander said at the time, 'more real size.'

The 1980s.

And, in 1989, came the modern development on the community centre and factory site - bringing us the likes of '80s kids Des and Steph Barnes in February 1990.

The only thing I've ever really disliked is the strange Rosamund Street arch, which appeared at the turn of the 21st century. I've never seen anything like it in real life, but I can  imagine the production team were eager to block out the view of the Granada Studios - and having the Rosamund Street view beyond the arch was inspired.

With the latest set, we have another size upgrade and Rosamund Street is no longer a straight road. The Street's production team in 1960, unaware that the show would run and run, set an impossible task for the future: how on earth could you feature a busy main road? So, Rosamund Street became less busy, and with the opportunity to slot in more shops and a more realistic look for the latest set, I can imagine the temptation to alter the course of the road was irresistible.

Number 1 and number 3 Coronation Street. There's now room for hanging baskets outside - and the width of the halls can realistically accommodate stairs and the living room doorway inside.

I think the new Street looks a little too big in some ways - the houses more cottagey than Victorian/Edwardian urban terrace. The bay windows look positively palatial, but they make more logical sense. Again, in real life, I've never seen a street with neighbouring bay windows bolted together quite the way they are in Coronation Street. But that was born of necessity from lack of studio space back in 1960 and now the windows are at least large enough to have a properly sized room behind them.

The back of the Rovers could have been sorted out a bit better, and would there really be so many businesses in Victoria Street? I always imagined the Street nestling amongst other grotty, grey back streets off a main road, not in a funky area like that.

Two upstairs windows for the Rovers frontage instead of one makes perfect sense as the pub exterior was never big enough to accommodate the interior. The back, however, is rubbish.

But the pressure continues to produce more episodes and the new set reflects that. More stories and different settings are needed. The programme eats them up at a rapid rate.

It's all a far cry from the little girls playing outside the Corner Shop on the old studio exterior set at the start of episode one, and the days when the inspiration for the architecture became known as Coronarchie Street.

Roll end credits...

The Down-Side Of The Bill Podmore Era: The Barlow Twins Retcon, A Plastic Toy Boy And Elsie Tanner's New Grandson...

April 1965, and Coronation Street's newest arrivals, Peter and Susan Barlow, grace the cover of the TV Times. But in 1978 they were apparently born in 1964. Or perhaps even 1963.

Regular readers of my little blog (bless you both, I adore you!) know that I love the Bill Podmore era of Coronation Street. In the main. I found the show stodgy, miserable fare in the early-to-mid 1970s, but when Bill took the reins in 1976, the Street suddenly seemed to rediscover its lost youth and became so enjoyable I was glued to it.

Shake Up In The Street - there's going to be a lot more fun! proclaimed one tabloid headline. And there was. Bill Podmore's reign totally rejuvenated the Street. I have doubts the show would have lasted without him.

But even the most glittering reign has a few fake gems, and Mr Podmore's was no exception.

When was the Street's first retcon? Its first twisting of established fact to fit in with a modern storyline? I'm not talking continuity errors here - I'm talking planned, purposeful twisting of Street history to cynically shoehorn in a storyline?

1978 is the answer.

It all began when Peter Barlow came to see his father and wanted to join the Navy when he left school. Now, Peter Barlow, like me, was born in 1965, but in those episodes he was older (one stated he'd be turning fifteen in April 1979, others made him seem perhaps even older). My mother immediately noticed: 'I was pregnant with you when Val had the twins. This is a botch-up!' Matters went thoroughly public when the tabloid press got hold of the story and a friend of my mother's, another dedicated Street follower, wrote to the archivist, Eric Rosser, about it. She showed us the letter, and I remember she had ended it with the words: What would Ena say?

Mr Rosser wrote back, on a manual typewriter. Mum's friend showed us the letter and it was perhaps indicative of Mr Rosser's feelings on the subject that the middle of several o's was missing - minute holes in the paper. Was it just the quality of the paper, or had he punched the typewriter keys extra hard in his vexation, we wondered? He made it very plain that he had voted against the retcon (although we didn't call them that then).

Valerie and Ken Barlow with their twins, Peter and Susan. It all seemed so simple back in the 1960s. But in the 1970s their age would become subject to sudden inexplicable change...

This was a rare instance of the Bill Podmore era beginning trends which were unwelcome to some fans - trends which are common nowadays. The whole point of investing in a long-running saga, it seemed to me back then (and today), is that you get to know the characters and their histories. And you have contemporaries born within the span of the show as it goes on - like me and Peter and Susan Barlow, all born in 1965. If you start twisting the facts, then why bother having an archivist? The Peter Barlow storyline would have been fine a couple of years later anyway. Why spoil continuity to shoehorn it into 1978?

The age of the Barlow twins remained vague but corrupted for a few years. Susan taking Mike Baldwin up on an offer to get work in a licensed bar in 1981 is indicative of this - the plot reality should have been that she was only sixteen-years-old.

All this gave me the uneasy feeling that watching the show was a bit pointless. Would a plot I was currently enjoying be tweaked into nonsense in the future, I wondered way back in 1978?

But in 1986 sanity was restored with the Barlow twins celebrating their twenty-first birthday.

Coronation Street producer Bill Podmore with Eric Rosser, the show's archivist, in the 1980s.

In 1980, the Podmore administration did it again: showing a complete disregard for the show's history, it introduced a new grandson for Elsie Tanner called Martin Cheveski. Elsie's grandson, Paul, had been born in 1961, but we'd never heard of Martin, who was apparently a few years younger. He certainly hadn't been with his parents, Linda and Ivan, when they'd visited the Street in the late 1960s, although Paul had.

Martin didn't stay that long, and the demographic he represented, not long out of school and unemployed, was topical - although in the Street, of course, he soon found work with Len Fairclough. But it was all very strange - although not, I thought, as bad as the Barlow twins debacle.

As far as I'm aware, 1978, 1979 (Ivy Tilsley's family - but, as she was up to then a peripheral character, perhaps forgivable) and 1980 apart, the Podmore administration didn't tweak characters' ages, or create new relations for them out of thin air again.

But, in 1978, for me, the Street had committed another sin - one that was indicative of future trends, and which unashamedly went for increasing the male totty pin-up ratio, not character depth or acting skills.

This was the introduction of young Brian John Tilsley. He met Gail Potter at a party at No 11, and soon they were an 'item'. Now, of course, Ivy had once stated she hadn't been able to have children, but with the Tilsleys being introduced as Street residents in 1979, moving into No 5, this was all altered.

But doing a few retcons as a peripheral character moves to centre stage is not such a sin.

However, introducing her son as a blond-haired, unblemished body builder WAS, in my humble opinion. Back in the late 1970s, gym workouts were not the norm for working class guys. I'm sorry, but they weren't. This really came about in the 'fit for business, fit for life' mid-to-late 1980s and the narcissistic 1990s.

Vera: 'She couldn't 'ave kids yer know, well, only their Brian - and she don't like to mention 'im. I mean, can yer blame 'er?'

But actor Chris Quinten, who played Brian, was a gymnast and Brian, who didn't attend a gym and didn't even have some dumb bells at home, wasn't - and nor did he have a physically-demanding job. He was a garage mechanic. When Terry Duckworth arrived in 1983, not only was he heavier on character but his job at the abattoir would have given him the bit of muscle he had.

The Street had always had its male and female heart-throbs. Think Terry, Ray Langton and Suzie Birchall, for instance. But these characters were not OTT attractive and seemed like natural backstreet denizens.

For me, Brian did not. He seemed an obvious and rather cynical attempt to up the female/gay 'PHWOAR!' factor and I found him wholly unconvincing as a character.

Wow - fashion! Our Brian in the 1980s. He was killed off in 1989.

I don't mean to sound too 'down' on Chris Quinten, as time went on I think his acting ability improved, but he was never a Street natural.

As for the future of the Street, retcons went out of fashion in the 1980s, but returned in the 1990s. Then, a storyline I'd followed in 1983 - in which Maggie Dunlop had a son by Mike Baldwin, was retconned back a couple of years so Mike's son, Mark Redman, could attend the school Ken Barlow taught at a couple of years too early.

His own children had suffered similar age revisions, but Ken, caught up in the production team's web, was blissfully unaware of anything amiss.

Meanwhile, give or take an occasional Tyrone Dobbs, muscle hunks are all the rage when it comes to young male Street characters. But then workouts are so much more a part of everyday life now.

Oh well...

Despite my moans here, Bill Podmore's era was an absolute godsend for the Street. I hold his memory in high esteem. Nothing is ever perfect.

Shortly after Brian arrived, Steve Fisher, a lad who, as Betty Turpin said, any mother would be proud of, was dispatched to work at Mike Baldwin's London factory - and never mentioned again. A sensitive, interesting character (a bit soft though - putty in Suzie's hands), exchanging Steve for Brian seemed rather sad.

What If Coronation Street Was Archie Street? Part Five

As we cross Coronation Street to the 1989 development, let's pause for a minute and think about the inhabitants of Archie Street and Coronation Street. Any similarities? Well, sadly, the residents of Archie Street did not appear onscreen to entertain the nation twice weekly for decades, so it's hard to tell. And, judging by the comments of some of them way back then, Coronation Street was really not doing Archie Street justice at all, and they disliked the association and publicity.

But there was one similarity: Manchester United football player Eddie Colman, one of Busby's babes tragically killed in the Munich Air Disaster in 1958, lived in Archie Street. David Barlow, Ken's younger brother, also had a brief professional football career.

Eddie Colman, the sporting celebrity from Archie Street, died at the age of 21.

Frank Allaun, the MP for East Salford, was sometimes regarded as Coronation Street's MP, he was tireless in his praise for the show - and Archie Street was dubbed by some 'Coronarchie Street'!

Coronation Street creator Tony Warren with Frank Allaun on a visit to Archie Street in 1961.

Anyway, back to our walk round, and standing on the side of Coronation Street redeveloped by Maurice Jones in 1989, we take a trip back in time to 1960 to look at the situation then.

In those days, this side of the street was dominated by Elliston's Raincoat Factory and a woman with a mission - Mrs Ena Sharples of the Glad Tidings Mission Hall, next door to the factory, to be precise.

Detail from a Coronation Street Christmas card produced by Granada for cast members to send to fans in 1961. This particular card was from Doreen Keogh (Concepta Riley/Hewitt). The Street has single bays, the 'tin pot' structure of the Glad Tidings Mission Hall can be seen, and part of the raincoat factory.

The Mission Hall backed on to the Street and Ena's vestry entrance was there. The raincoat factory, which switched to funky PVC in the mid-1960s, was apparently a gloomy old Victorian building - but never wholly seen. We did get the odd glimpse, but the exterior's starring moment came when Christine Hardman climbed up onto the roof in a suicide attempt in 1962. We still didn't see much of the building, but a certain small area of the roof is now faithfully recorded.

The interior, of course, saw more action - including the introduction of one Miss Elizabeth Theresa Lynch in 1966.

The late 1960s saw the Mission Hall and the factory demolished and a row of horribly modernistic maisonettes built in their place. Gosh, weren't they ugly! And somehow they never quite keyed into the street and few residents were seen. Effie Spicer, an old acquaintance of Jack Walker, lived there briefly, as did Ena and the Barlow family.

But, in 1971, after Valerie Barlow electrocuted herself with a hairdryer and caused a fire at the maisonettes, they were demolished.

They were replaced by a community centre and a warehouse. The Glad Tidings Mission had dabbled in community work in its latter years, so the new community centre on the site was rather like 'out with the new, in with the old' - particularly when Ena became live-in caretaker there. It was a peculiar building, looking rather like a shed with gothic windows. And why did Ken Barlow and Karen Barnes, a young woman he assisted with her reading, emerge from Ena's flat when Ken saw her off the premises in 1979? Goodness alone knows. I'm sure Ena would not have been keen on them traipsing their way through. Then, in 1980, the front of the centre was rebuilt due to problems with the foundations, and looked rather more real.

The Street with its groovy, space age '60s maisonettes.

The warehouse suffered a disastrous fire in 1975, and was bought by Mike Baldwin the following year. It was a grim building, fit for purpose only. As Connie Clayton said in 1985: 'The view of that factory don't grow on me.' The factory, of course, boasted a sewing room, several offices, and a packing department which we never saw. Did it need a dedicated packing department - after all, it wasn't that big a concern? Search me, luvvie. Of course, in the 1980s, Acorn Antiques also had a packing department.

Coronation Street, circa 1985 - just before Alf Roberts had the Corner Shop modernised.

The 1980s, of course, were a time of change. The decade was hugely controversial - heaven or hell, darling? With all the shouting going on (which still goes on when the 1980s are discussed to this day) it's hard to tell. Maybe it was both, but it certainly left its mark on Coronation Street.

1989: A glimpse of what would become a charity shop, then the hairdressing salon. 

When Maurice Jones demolished the factory and community centre to make way for a spanking new development of houses, shops and industrial units, the 'dark side' of the Street finally moved into the modern day and the cheap-but-stylish development was a revolution.

You know, luvvie, from certain vantage points the development looked a bit like toy town. I mean, I wouldn't have fancied living there - although, like the old terrace, the area's strange magic worked to make the interiors bigger than the exteriors.

Now all that's solved (well, just about) with the move to the new exterior set.

Well, love, in't final part I'll give my final opinion on the Street's architectural oddities past and present. Tarah for now, cock. I'm poppin' round Ida's for a brew. With a bit of luck I might get a gipsy cream with it - but I won't hold me breath.

Flamin' Nora! They're well past their sell-by!

Coronation Street: Feminism, The Gay Creator, Misandry And Rita Fairclough The Liar...

The scriptwriter of a Coronation Street episode in the early 1990s had no qualms in rewriting history to make our Street favourite Rita Fairclough out to be a victim of an insensitive husband, while actually making Rita seem like a downright liar, touting for sympathy, to those of us who knew the plot.

Back in 1981, Rita suddenly discovered a strong maternal instinct. True, she had looked after Harry Bates's kids some years before, but streetwise Rita had always seemed quite happy without kids of her own, telling Mavis there would be no patter of tiny feet at No 9 after she married Len.

In 1980, when Rita walked out on Len, her concerns were for a 'decent' house and a dishwasher - not kids.

But in 1981 Rita babysat Nicky Tilsley, and suddenly went all broody. She told Len she wanted to adopt, and Len, at first stunned and incredulous, very quickly agreed. Then the couple found out they were too old, and fostered instead.

But in the early 1990s, Rita told Sally Webster that by the time Len had agreed on adoption, they were too old.

A huge difference.

Corrie making victimised heroines out of its female characters is farcical. The women are at their best when being strong, human and frequently awful, seeing the faults of their spouses and partners, not their own. Audrey telling Alma she'd married a 'big baby' in the 1990s was a classic example of this. Our beautiful Aud had been selfish, childish (locking herself in the loo in a sulk after she and Alf had been forced to move into the Corner Shop flat when the chain on the house they were hoping to buy collapsed) and generally a lazy shopaholic for years. And we loved her for it. The fact she could see none of her own faults made us love her more.

I have to say that many of Coronation Street's women are at their best when following the template laid down by the show's creator, Tony Warren, himself a gay man and not averse to a bit of camp.

Let's hear Mr Warren on the subject: 'I'd known all these queens [gay men with a penchant for camp] in the village. Some of their dialogue was too good not to use. I remember giving Elsie lines that they would say. When you think of some of the things she came out with, how many straight women have you heard say that?'

The original template - women talking like camp men. The genius - the late Mr Tony Warren.

The original scripts, with their apparently ordinary but slightly tweaked dialogue (witness Ena in the Corner Shop in 1960!), were very much this man's tribute to northern English femininity. But far more evocative of a witty evening in a gay pub with a number of camp men present than ordinary female conversation. The world was really not ready for a soap about gay men!

Coronation Street has become self consciously feminist - and as that ideology is now being questioned far and wide (men oppressed women - oh, really?!) is straying far from its roots and has been growing progressively worse since the 1970s (the Susi Hush era). Ideologies are not facts.

The Street went from being a lovely matriarchy (as many such streets are) to being the misandry mile. A great difference, relying on warped Feminist dogma to score points and create female victimhood.

So, Rita, love, don't tell lies, eh, chuck? Don't forget your marriage was under the microscope on our TV screens - we were there too - so it really doesn't wash.

For years, Feminism was not questioned. But now it is. Chivalry should not allow riding rough shod over facts and demonising an entire gender, and the facts about the vote - suffragettes bombing and harming working class, vote-less men with acid, the SCUM Manifesto, the Duluth Model and the horrors experienced by Erin Pizzey in the 1970s are being examined at long last. As are the true facts about the gender pay gap and the workplace death gap.

About time too.

So, pack it in, eh, Corrie?

The misandrist nonsense (often created by 'white knight' chivalrous men) still goes on and was one of the things which drove me away from the show many years ago.

Remember your roots.

Questioning Feminism? Heresy, eh? Misogynistic or not? Not. Read what Karen Straughan has to say on the subject and just how this hate ideology has infested every nook and cranny of our lives: 
https://antifeministpraxis.com/2017/03/31/feminism-was-never-not-rotten/