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!

Part 6 is HERE

What If Coronation Street Was Archie Street? Part Four

Well, luvs, we've covered a lot of ground, and now we find ourselves in the back ginnel running between Coronation Street and Mawdsley Street.

The back yards are tiny, poky affairs, with outside lavvies (once the only lavs in each household). Of course, they're not lavs anymore. But the Ogdens' at No 13 was operating as a second lav in 1980 (and probably well beyond). We're not sure about the rest.

The kitchens jut out into the yards and... well... back in the day they shared the Street magic of being much bigger on the inside than on the outside.

The kitchen windows were low-set (are they on the 21st century exterior set?), but indoors had kitchen sinks beneath them. From outside, they were pantry-sized cubby holes.

No 9, with its lean-to glass extension, was the only house to differ.

The Corrie back ginnel as it was on the 1982 to early 21st Century set.

Ken and Deirdre Barlow at Number 1 had a posh kitchen extension in the mid-1980s. This was downright peculiar at first.

The kitchen having expanded, exterior shots showed that the old back room window was now no longer. But it remained inside for ages - before the design team twigged and it was turned into an interior window, giving 'borrowed light' from the kitchen.

Deirdre, Ken and Tracy, embroiled in their late 1980s saga of brillo perms, shoulder pads, Wendy Crozier, and listening to Bros cassettes upstairs, noticed nothing odd of course.

Come on, Tracy luv, join in: 'You're a slave to fashion and your life is full of passion...'

The backyard dividing walls could be odd. Sometimes they moved. Elsie Tanner's yard might be quite large one week, with the yard wall by the Ogdens' back window, but another week the Ogdens' yard might be larger, with the wall by Elsie's back window. And so on down the terrace.

The real back ginnel between Archie Street and Clement Street was featured in the Coronation Street titles for a while back in the 1960s. The Corrie ginnel is cobbled. The Archie Street ginnel was flagged.

Coronation Street backs on to Mawdsley Street - once home to Len Fairclough and Martha Longhurst - and home to Len Fairclough's builder's yard for many years (although it wandered off briefly in a 1976 map of Weatherfield featured in the TV Times). It was in Mawdsley Street, at the congregational chapel, that Emily Nugent married Ernest Bishop in 1972.

Archie Street backed onto Clement Street, named after St Clement's Church, a longer street which ran across the junction from the side of the church.

Len's yard popped over to Balaclava Terrace in 1976 in an officially sanctioned map. And then popped back to Mawdsley Street. It made a nice break.

An old mystery from the back of the Street is the Rovers stairs, running up the back of the premises from 1960-1986. After the infamous fire of 1986, they changed direction during the rebuild. That's because the original route of the stairs was a bit impossible. They would have run straight past the back parlour window.

Also, the part of the Rovers building that juts out to join the strange viaduct... well, it's an amazingly narrow jut-out. In fact, to me, it looks like a wall with a door and an upper window in it. Bet Lynch would never have got down it, even if she'd pulled her chest right in. And as for Fred Gee and Betty Turpin! What possible use is it?

Even in the super-spacious Street of the 21st century, there's still no room at the inn in the Rovers extremity.

Now we've reached Rosamund Street, site of the modern (and frankly bizarre) viaduct arch. In the Archie Street universe, we've reached Cavendish Street. Across the road is St Clement's Church. Coronation Street once had a church opposite it - back in the days of the indoor exterior set. It was called St Mary's, but - from 1968 onwards - that was a thing of the past, replaced by an occasional glimpse of a wall with gates set in it, and, from 1982, by a building which quickly became the Graffiti Club, wine bar and disco.

Echoes of reality: The church opposite the corner of Coronation Street on the 1960s set. Martha, Albert and Ena queue up to get their hair done at Valerie's in the foreground.

Rosamund Street in those days, was, of course, a long, straight road - apparently one of Weatherfield's main arteries (though it never seemed very busy). From the show's earliest days we'd tended to hare off down Rosamund Street at times. A Rosamund Street shop was part of the Street's action for decades. From the days of Swindley's haberdashery and Gamma Garments to the days of Len Fairclough's shop, the Kabin, Rosamund Street was a must-see.

Rita Littlewood, of course, was at first employed as manageress at the Kabin, but later married Len thus becoming part owner, and, upon his death, owner. The Kabin gave us years of wonderful, cherished scenes of Rita and her assistant Mavis Riley.

'I'm telling you now, Rita, that pineapple thingie's giving me the creeps! I can feel its eyes on me!'
'Get a grip, Mavis! There's a lot stranger things round 'ere...'

Next door, of course, baker Joe Dawson opened up a genteel little tea shop in 1978, causing the Kabin's café to close, and, in 1980, this genteel little emporium was bought by one Jim Sedgewick, who turned it into a rough and ready transport café.

In 1990, Rita sold the old Kabin and moved to a brand new one in Coronation Street. But Jim's Café continued to be featured. And here comes another mystery...

After a while, the old Kabin simply disappeared.

The doors to the Kabin and Jim's faced each other across a small, covered lobby.

The Kabin door remained for a while after Rita had decamped, seen from the interior of Jim's whenever somebody opened the door to enter or exit. But then, suddenly, without explanation, the old Kabin door disappeared, and was replaced by an advertising or community notice board. Jim's Café was suddenly at the end of a terrace of shops - and there was no sign of a covered lobby - or a shop next door where the old Kabin should have been - and no sign that part of the terrace had been demolished either.

Never mind, cock.

What a difference a decade makes! In 1984, it was Mavis, Rita and the pineapple thingie. In 1994, the old Kabin had vanished.

Next time I'll be takin' a look at the other side of the streets - Coronation and Archie - to delve more into't past and some of its oddities.

Anyway, I'm off to bingo and that new Pizza Hut in Esmerelda Street with Ida Clough tonight - so I'd better be makin' tracks. Should be a great night. You know worra laugh she is.

Part 5 is HERE

What If Coronation Street Was Archie Street? Part 2

So, luvs, welcome to Part Two of our little series on the differences between Coronation Street and its long demolished template, Archie Street in the Ordsall district of Salford.

Well, we often noticed the lack of chimneys. In Corrie, not Archie Street. This was obvious in longer shots of the exterior sets after the first set was moved outside in 1968, then recreated in brick in 1969 (backyards were added later). Coronation Street had no chimneys. So, how did Suzie Birchall lob a brick down one in a late 1970s episode? Lord alone knows. We only saw it in close-up, and afterwards it was gone forever. Coal fires were possible in the house interiors though, so I suppose nobody noticed the lack of the necessary up-above.

"Chimneys? Nay, lass, we didn't 'ave chimeys round 'ere in them days. We never noticed the lack
either. We didn't even 'ave whole roofs. AND the cobbles ran the wrong way. We just carried on. We were built of sterner stuff. You young 'uns don't know yer born..."

This strange state of affairs lasted until 1982, when suddenly Corrie had chimneys. And the graffiti littering certain walls, and general run-down appearance of the place, suddenly disappeared. And the house exteriors suddenly got bigger, and there was a building on Rosamund Street we'd never seen before - which became a disco and wine bar. We supposed it was all due to the fact that the 1980s were an expansive and upwardly mobile decade.

Archie Street didn't get bigger. It got demolished. The first families were moved out in 1968 and demolition followed in 1971. But Coronation Street had survived. And was booming.

Even in the new scheme of things, the Corrie exterior was still too small to accommodate what was supposedly inside.

In't '80s, the Street suddenly got chimneys, fully-structured houses, and even the cobbles ran the right way!

Next, we pause at Number 13, home to our beloved Stan and Hilda Ogden. Here lies the strange tale of the straightened wall.

Now, Stan and Hilda didn't ever have much to boast about. They weren't even 'on the phone' (landline, of course - no cell phones back then). Actually, to go off on a tandem, sorry, I mean at a tangent, this made them far more natural back street denizens of that era than most other Corrie residents. It wasn't until the 1980s that 50% of UK households were on the phone, and Coronation Street always seemed a bit too populated with phone subscribers compared to real life humble back street dwellers like me. In my street of twenty houses, only one person had a phone by 1981. Yep, by not having a phone, the Ogdens were being more true to back street life, as I and my true life neighbours were living it, than Elsie Tanner!

But their house was a typically twilight zone Corrie dwelling in other respects.

However, from 1976 onwards, the Ogdens had one thing to boast about.

And I'm not talking about Stan's canteen-sized serving hatch.

Nope. I'm talking about Hilda's murals or 'muriels' (1976-1978 and 1978-1988).

And a wall which flattened itself to accommodate them.

The Oggies had a contoured or stepped wall which miraculously flattened itself when Eddie flogged them the first scenic delight. I think the 'muriel' would have been even funnier with the contoured wall, but there you go. The Oggies' house was obviously very obliging. At times.

'Ee, Stan, I'll 'ave to 'ave a polite word with that wall before Eddie puts me muriel up...'

'Naice' Wendy Nightingale - the first of two wanton Wendys in the life of Ken Barlow - was far too polite to notice the scaffolding, plank, and cold, grey sky in the Oggies' hall in 1976.

Clopping on down to the Corner Shop, we discover several mysteries.

The Corner Shop resembled its Archie Street counterpart (the Daniel Clifton off-licence branch) in exterior appearance more than any other Corrie property. Particularly when it became obvious the Corrie houses had adjoining bay windows (sometimes, early on). The adjoining bays moved the Street away from the template design.

Elsie Tanner and Ena Sharples go hell for leather outside Elsie and Christine Hardman's adjoining bay windows in 1961. By the time of  Ida Barlow's funeral later that year, the windows were having a trial separation. They'd done it before, too.

Mouse-like Florrie Lindley revealed an unexpected brave side when she had the shop frontage drastically altered in the mid-1960s. The shop door was moved from the Viaduct Street corner onto the street itself. This was fine. Logical. Once again, the shop was a little small on the outside to accommodate what was within, but it was when you looked upstairs at the shop flat that the real problems began.

The flat's interior had too many windows and sometimes had its own kitchen and sometimes didn't. Bet didn't seem to have a kitchen and slummed it with Renee and Alf when it came to meals. But the kitchen was very evident at other times - particularly when Kevin and Sally lived there. And the flat was pleasantly lighted - by several windows which didn't exist outside. Where WERE those windows on the exterior set, some of us wondered? In fact, we were surprised when a bathroom window was suddenly revealed in October 1980 to accommodate a story about Tracy Langton getting locked in the lavatory. Where had it been all our lives?

Intrepid Alf Roberts to the rescue - up a ladder to coax the door key from Tracy Langton who had discovered a toilet at the Corner Shop - and locked herself in.

"We've gotta get outta 'ere, luv," - Kevin and Sally Webster are freaked out by the sudden realisation that the Corner Shop flat has too many windows.

In the next exciting episode, we look at a few more mysteries of the terrace, the viaduct, Rosamund Street and the other side of the streets (Archie and Coronation).

Now, I'm off to't pork butcher's before they close. I like to give my family a proper cooked meal every night - none o' yer tinned rubbish. You can ask anybody. Ask Ida Clough.

Part 3 is HERE.

What If Coronation Street Was Archie Street? Part 1

Well, luvs, had a long break and things are all right here. Well, Ida's bought herself a new pair of neon pink fluffy mules, but apart from that. Talk about mutton dressed up as lamb...

Anyway, I was thinking about Corrie and its origins the other night and the long-gone template for the terrace, Archie Street, in the Ordsall district of Salford.

Of course, the terrace selected was just a template, and while Corrie used the actual Archie Street in its opening titles for a while, things soon began to alter.

Let's take a look (wi' a dash of humour, luvvie, cos we could all do wi' some), at how Coronation Street began and its original differences from Archie Street, then look at how things evolved...

For a start, Archie Street had no corner pub. Nope. Not a single one. So, you'll just have to go to't Flyin' Horse, won't yer? Or nip down to the corner off-licence. No Corner Shop, but an off-licence, part of the Daniel Clifton chain. Not sure if Florrie Lindley would've fancied it, but then she used to work in a pub...

The Archie Street terrace also had more houses and single bay windows - which were represented in Coronation Street for a time. The trouble was, in erecting a studio frontage, space was at a premium, so the bays became joined in Corrie Land.

With no Rovers in Archie Street, we dispensed with some mysteries, of course. Like how the Rovers toilets led into Albert Tatlock's house (even the addition of a tiny entry on the 1982 set didn't really alleviate the embarrassment) - and why there was a huge Select with a stage which would have stretched right across Rosamund Street, the same being true for the back parlour and kitchen.

Eee 'eck, Mrs Walker!

"My dear! The things I have suffered!"

The great Rovers 1940s Show in the 1970s - with Norma Ford, Bet Lynch and Betty Turpin giving it their all in the mysterious Select. Look out, girls there's a bus coming!

At Mr Tatlock's, mysteries were fewer, though we did wonder - as we did with all the houses - why they were so much bigger on the inside than the out. The hall wall beside the front door was sometimes wider than at others (as with the rest of the houses) and Albert once sprouted a door at the top of his stairs which would have led directly into Emily Bishop's (REALLY, MR TATLOCK!), but never mind.

Unlike Archie Street, the houses in Coronation Street had hallways. In Archie Street, the front door opened directly into the front room. The stairs were accessible from the back room (kitchen with range) and ran up the middle of the house. Just how you got the stairs and hallway into the Corrie frontages was a bit of a mystery. But then the place was teeming with them.

Like that dreadful time the lorry crashed into the Rovers in 1979 and Emily's house temporarily grew a new wall which blocked off her stairs. Thank goodness there was an outside lavvy as well.

As soon as you turned your back, strange things happened in the Corrie houses.

But a day or two later things were back to normal. And nobody had noticed a darned thing!

Mind you, Emily's upper floor was obviously not a very hospitable place. Some writer once said there was no place colder than an English bedroom, and Emily and Ernest's was probably the very worst. When Minnie Caldwell's house went up for sale in 1976, we were treated to a view of the Bishops' bedroom window, curtains gently fluttering, and grey sky and scaffolding behind them. BRRR!!

Talking of upstairs, Corrie houses had incredibly high ceilings back in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. So high, you never saw them - just an expanse of wall above the picture rail. Very odd as that didn't match the exteriors at all, with the bedroom windows lying low over the bay windows...

Archie Street never had a house with a collapsing frontage. But Coronation Street did. Number 7 succumbed to that fate in 1965. Looking at the ruined frontage, it's odd that it seems to have widened at this point. And the houses either side have obviously made way for its expansion. The area was made safe and a bench was placed in the space. Very odd. That's all there was space for. As one letter-writer to a national newspaper wrote in 1981, when Len Fairclough was planning to build a new house there: 'The only people that could live there would be Marti Caine and the Thin Man!'

Look how far the front door is from the bay window!

Well, ducks, I'll be off now. That's it for the first part. There's another on't way. Just to say, all this is written with great affection as I loved Corrie back in its first three decades. And for all modern day fans - well mysteries like the sudden arch near the Rovers and the fact that Rosamund Street is no longer a long road running on a straight course through Weatherfield are nowt new.

Wonder what the residents of Archie Street would have said if their environs had been subject to the same Twilight Zone madness as Corrie's?

Part 2 is HERE.

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…'

Ena Sharples - 10th Anniversary Portrait

This lovely portrait of Violet Carson, in character as Ena Sharples, was one of a series commissioned by the TV Times magazine to celebrate Coronation Street's 10th anniversary in 1970. Other characters were featured over the ensuing weeks.

Ten years is a long time, and for Ena they had not been easy: she had faced the sad loss of her daughter Vera Lomax and her longtime friend and Rovers Snug companion Martha Longhurst; she had been buried in rubble when a train crashed off the viaduct; she had almost been killed in a coach crash; she had fought many battles with the fiery Elsie Tanner; her vestry home at the Glad Tidings Mission Hall had been vandalised and later demolished...

In the opening years, Ena was rather a scary figure and not terribly pleasant to have around (well, not for the other residents of the Street, but a WOW for viewers!). However, as the 1960s had continued, she had mellowed and, although still capable of epic battle, had become a much-loved and respected figure, a soap legend.

Violet Carson commented in 1970:

"Ena's still the battleaxe she was ten years ago, but she does have a heart of gold, and the mellow side of Ena has come out much more lately. Over the years I have tried not to let Ena's character overwhelm me. I've done my best to keep Ena and me well apart. Otherwise, by now, she would have taken me over."

Pat Phoenix - "It's The Elsie Tanner In Me!" - 1966

Lovely Pat Phoenix was a legend as the Street's Elsie Tanner. We've found an article written by her from The Weekly News, March, 1966. Pat and Elsie were, of course, already national figures by this time. Here are some extracts from the article...

IT'S THE ELSIE TANNER IN ME!

The trouble with me is - I'm a straight talker. I can't pay lip service. I've got to mean what I say. What's worse, now and then I can't resist a "grand gesture". When I see a scene building up, my sense of the theatrical gets the better of me.

Couple the two together and you can see why I spend a good half of my life up to my neck in hot water from one cause or another.

There was the time I was playing in pantomime and the manager added some extra matinee performances.

We all thought we should be paid for doing them. The manager dragged us all into his office and read us a long lecture on the ingratitude of actors.

They were fine when things were going well, he told us. But when a show was making a loss you didn't find any of them coming along and offering him a fiver.

I couldn't resist. I was carrying my unopened pay packet. My pay for the last week's show.

With a dramatic sweeping gesture I handed it to him. The wretch took it and kept it!

I managed to scrape together just enough money to pay the rent and then I was broke.

I'm the sort of fool who gets all hot under the collar about injustice and starts shouting about principles. Once it got me the sack.

I was playing for a company which changed management at the end of season.

The new managers got rid of the other actors but decided to keep me on.

I was highly incensed at what I thought was unfair dealing and said so in my usual forthright fashion.

After standing there like Joan of Arc delivering a lecture on loyalty, I found myself sacked with the rest of them.

On the other hand, I much prefer people to tell me the truth. It may hurt at the time but I appreciate it in the long run.

You can buy flattery but you can't buy the truth.

I lost a trusted friend recently. She told me a lie. It was over a silly thing really. But I'll never believe a word she says again.

I can't tell a lie even to save myself embarrassment. Sometimes I wish I could for my own sake. 

An actress friend usually wore very feminine hats. Then one day she arrived in one which, I thought, made her look dreadful.

She asked what I thought.

I tried to avoid answering, but she insisted, So I told her I didn't like it. It wasn't nearly as nice as the hats she usually wore.

She was a bit taken aback at first. But afterwards she thanked me and told me that at least she got the truth. She'd decided not to wear the hat again.

Usually in a situation like that I wreck something or knock my best china ornament flying or create some other diversion. I don't believe in offending people. I try not to answer, or find some little detail I can admire with easy conscience.

My mother usually tells me she wishes I'd kept my big mouth shut. Which is a bit much. It was her training that brought me up to abhor lies. She considers liars just about the worst thing in the world.

The way I think has a good deal to do with my mother.

Andy interrupts: There was one point about which Pat did allow herself a little lie though, as the article illustrates:

I was born at Portumna, Co. Galwey, though I came to Manchester as a small child.

In fact, Pat was born in Manchester. So, why the untruth? It all stemmed from Pat's mother, who thought Ireland sounded more romantic (or something) than Manchester. Pat put it in print in the first volume of her autobiography All My Burning Bridges.

More 1960s Pat soon.

The Once Around Weatherfield Challenge - Part 1 - THE WINNER!

 Gabrielle Daye - 1939 Spotlight entry.

Absolutely chuffed to little mint balls with this response to my first Once Around Weatherfield Challenge. This is a new feature where I pick a bit-part or recurring character from the Street's past, stick a photo of him/her on here, and ask you lot to tell me about the character and the performer. The first chosen was the marvellous Beattie Pearson, Albert Tatlock's mean and prickly daughter (played by Gabrielle Daye) and the entry to the Challenge I received below has bowled me over because it's so insightful and detailed. I never expected owt like that! So chuffed am I, I'm going to award a special prize - an Alfred Roberts Corner Shop mug from 1985 to the winner, SUE BENNETT, and to Sue - I say CONGRATULATIONS AND MANY THANKS! I received two other entries - many thanks to Colin and Pat for those. Please keep trying! There'll be more Once Around Weatherfield challenges (and prizes!) soon.

And, without further ado (I've got to fix a hole in't cludgie roof this afternoon), here's Sue's biography of Mrs Beattie Pearson and actress Gabrielle Daye!

Regarding your Once Round Weatherfield challenge, the answer is actress Gabrielle Daye, who played Albert Tatlock's daughter, Beattie Pearson, in the Street as a recurring (occasional) character from 1961 to 1984.

Beattie took after her old Pop in that she was mean with the brass, but Albert had a kindness and generosity of spirit under his crusty facade that was not so obvious in his daughter. She was married to Norman, who, in rare appearances, seemed to be a bit under her thumb. Early on, it was stated that Norman and Beattie had children, but this seemed to be rewritten very quickly. 

Albert was critical of Beattie, and although he stayed with her and Norman on occasion, was actually much closer to Ken Barlow, who had married his niece Valerie in 1961. Even after Valerie's death in 1971, Albert stayed close to Ken, who spent long spells living with him.

Albert was also close to Ken and Val's twins, Peter and Susan, his great-nephew and niece, who were born in 1965. He often visited them in Glasgow and was delighted on the rare occasions they visited the Street.

A chance remark of Beattie's in the '80's revealed that she charged her father a bit "for his keep" when he stayed with her.

When Ken married Deirdre in 1981, Beattie was concerned that she would be left to look after her father and made waves. She was highly relieved when the Barlows finally opted to continue living with Albert.

As Albert grew older, Beattie became concerned about her inheritance, No 1 Coronation Street. As she said in the early 1980's, it was the house she had been "fetched up in", and she faked some kind of sentimental attachment to it - which was a thin cover for her concern for the bricks and mortar value of the place. After Ken married Dierdre Langton and Albert offered them the house, Beattie was furious and stuck her nose in, creating bad feeling. In the end Albert accepted payment for the house from Ken, though less than its market value. Beattie reproached Ken about that, but Ken told her it was all Albert would accept. Beattie remained concerned about her inheritance - fearing that Albert would spend the money before he died and she'd get nothing.

Albert died while staying with Beattie and Norman in May 1984. Beattie redeemed herself slightly by presenting Ken with his Military Medal.

Gabrielle Daye did not appear in Coronation Street after 1984. The last mention of Beattie Pearson I recall came in December 1988, when the Barlows were going to pay her a visit, which indicated they had stayed in touch.

Born in 1911, Gabrielle Daye was an accomplished actress who appeared in numerous films, TV and theatre roles. Her TV work dates back to the genre's early years - the 1940s. She died in 2005.

The Elsie Tanner Guide To Coronation Street English

When an American friend of mine visited England in 2010, he was bemused at the variety of accents and variations of the spoken language he encountered. He took in Newcastle, the Lake District, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham, the Cotswolds, Cambridge, Dorset and Norfolk and was well fuddled by the end of it. "There are so many variations of spoken English in England!" he finally told me. "For a tiny country like yours, it's amazing! And I've never known why your toffs and royalty insert inappropriate r's into words. 'Orff'. That's stupid"

Speaking as somebody without any inappropriate r's whatsoever, but a man who calls a pudding a "pudden" and, furthermore, a man well acquainted with "Dickie's medder", I couldn't help him.

When Coronation Street was launched in 1960, it must have been puzzling for people in other parts of the country to hear that wonderful Northern version of the language which I personally hold very dear (my dad hailed from "up North"). So, in 1961, the TV Times appointed Mrs Elsie Tanner of No 11 Coronation Street (who, as a native, spoke the lingo fluently) to enlighten the rest of us poor saps. Here's what she had to say, with specially posed photographs of Pat Phoenix as Elsie and, in one of them, Philip Lowrie, her unfortunate son Dennis....

Been feeling a bit mithered meself lately...

So there are you are. Cheers, Elsie! And if anybody can fill us in on the origins of 'flamin' Nora' and 'flamin' Emma', our cup of happiness would runneth over...

The Coronation Street District - Weatherfield, 1961

TV Times celebrated a year of Coronation Street in 1961, with a series of articles and illustrations. The above pic is an aerial view of the Coronation Street neighbourhood in 1961. Of course, it differs from what we might expect. Arkwright Street, family home of that upwardly mobile little madam Sally Seddon in the 1980s, hadn't been invented, there was a cinema just round the corner, and St Mary's Church was just opposite the corner of Coronation Street! Rather like St Clement's Church was opposite the corner of Archie Street, the street which provided inspiration for Corrie's architecture. A further attempt to depict the neighbourhood in a 1976 TV Times also had its problems as it moved Len Fairclough's yard out of Mawdsley Street! But then mistakes happen and in recent years soap history is often rewritten anyway.

I love the map above - take a stroll round Weatherfield as it was then envisaged - call in at Gamma Garments - where Miss Nugent is no doubt admiring Mr Swindley's antimacassars, note the posh bay window at the side of the Rovers Return (Annie Walker must have been chuffed to little mint balls!), and do a shift at Elliston's Raincoat Factory, having a Corner Shop barm cake for your dinner break. But be warned - I'd avoid the vestry at the Mission Of Glad Tidings if I were you!

Ena Sharples After A Few Milk Stouts Too Many?!

Titbits, June 1968. What a wonderful cover - Mrs Sharples looking super jolly with a thick coating of lippy! The article inside centres on the serious consequences of real-life gossip, but the cover is so flamin' funny we've filed it under "wot a laugh, lovey!"

What If... Coronation Street had 21st Century Style Story-lines In The '60s, '70s and '80s?

"That new couple from Mawdsley Street seem nice. She works in't kitchens at Imperial Hotel. He's a dry cleaner by day, serial killer by night."

Imagine if 21st Century-style Corrie story-lines had run rampant in the show's early years, wreaking a trail of explosions, serial killers, dark secrets and ghostly visitations across the first three decades.

Would viewers have switched off in droves, or been desperate for more? Here's how a few TV listing magazine synopsis for our favourite soap may have looked in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s:


1960s:

Myra Booth's marriage is in trouble. She decides to murder Jerry - and the pot dog on the mantelpiece may be the perfect weapon.

Len murders Nellie and says she has run off with the insurance man.

Florrie Lindley has a nervous breakdown and blows up the Corner Shop.

Jack Walker continues to psychologically abuse Annie.

Stan suspects that Alan, Elsie's new boyfriend, is the serial killer.

Evil young builder Ray Langton meets a nasty end when Lucille Hewitt gets on his case.

The Vestry is devastated by a huge explosion. 



1970s:

Shock for Emily...

A power cut is the perfect time for a serial killer to strike...

Pulled from the flaming rubble of her maisonette, a dying Valerie Barlow confesses to Emily Bishop that Ernest is the father of the twins.

Renee Bradshaw admits that Suzie Birchall is her long-lost daughter.

Sick to the back teeth of men, Bet decides to kill Stan Ogden. She goes to prison, but is released quickly on a technicality, and returns to the Street to continue her reign of nastiness.

It's not snowing anywhere else in England, but the Street has a white Christmas.

Steve Fisher reveals his dark side (typical man!).

A flying duck ornament becomes a murder weapon.

Where was Ken when the murders took place?

Rita is taken hostage at the Kabin.


1980s:

Eeek - Mavis turns.

Deranged Fred Gee drives Annie Walker into the canal.

As the factory blows up, Mavis murders Derek and Victor, and decides to use the explosion to cover her actions.

Curly buys a gun.

The Claytons beat a hasty retreat before Connie's terrifying secrets can be revealed...

Nasty Alan Bradley comes unstuck when his business is blown up by a deranged ex-girlfriend.

Hilda is comforted by a visit from Stan's ghost.

As Percy tries to find out who sat on his Christmas pudding, he begins to suspect that it might have been a serial killer.

Driven mad by Corner Shop assistant Sally Webster's nasal twang and smug ways, Alf Roberts picks up a tin of pineapple chunks and...

Ida Barlow, Ena Sharples, Elsie Tanner And More About The Bay Windows...

Sky Clearbrook has been in touch again about the issue of bay windows in early Corrie. Were they joined in pairs (apart from Albert's) or single? We know that originally they were joined - see here. But Sky has sent the screen cap of Ida Barlow's 1961 funeral to illustrate the point he is making.

I know it doesn't conclusively prove my point (I'll have to trawl through some of those old episodes to source some screen grabs), but I just know there some examples to support my argument. I believe this funeral scene is indoors - the cobbles and pavement are painted on the studio floor by the looks of it. Having said that, the fact they've got it raining in this scene is a harder one to explain away, but either they're pouring water indoors or they're super-imposing another piece of film with rain!

Fascinating, Sky! And the pillar box looks wet, doesn't it? I suppose the set was joggled around at times in the early days, but at the time of Ena and Elsie's classic poison pen confrontation in 1961, the bay windows were still joined, as they were on 9 December 1960 for the very first episode (although establishing shots, in reality Archie Street, showed single bays). Albert's disappearing bay window I think occurred at some point during the first thirteen episodes, in a scene involving Harry Hewitt and Concepta Riley. There suddenly seemed to be an alley beside the Rovers!

See Ena, Elsie and the 1961 joined bay windows below in a classic clip from YouTube.

Coronation Street - Joined Up Bay Windows In 1960...

Recently we featured this lovely drawing by the Street's original designer, Denis Parkin, which featured on the Street cast's Christmas card in 1961. The pic shows the Street, complete with Corner Shop, the Glad Tidings Mission Hall and Elliston's Raincoat Factory. In the original blog post I wrote:

Note that the bay windows in this early sketch are not joined together in pairs, and echo the architecture of Archie Street, which provided the rough template for the Street's terrace. The reason that the windows were joined in the show was because of lack of space on the original exterior set, which was built in the studio.

Sky Clearbrook, an old and valued friend of this blog, has written:

Andy, this is a superb find. Nice to get a glimpse of both sides of the street - especially the walls of the factory.

Full bay windows were a feature of the early version of the indoor set (eg as seen at Ida Barlow's funeral cortege). I think this version of the set was condensed to form joined windows some time in 1962.

Great to hear from you, Sky - I've missed ya! Actually, photographs of the original Street set before the first scene was shot in 1960 show that the windows were joined from the very first. There's one of these in HV Kershaw's book, "The Street Where I Live", taken whilst the little girls in the very first scene outside the Corner Shop were receiving last minute instructions (see below). I think that Ida's funeral scene was a piece of location filming - perhaps in Archie Street. All the best for Christmas and 2011, matey, keep in touch!

Caption from HV Kershaw's book, "The Street Where I Live" (1981): A historic photograph: three little girls receive their last instructions from the floor manager before Coronation Street's very first shot.