Remembering Margot Bryant

Margot Bryant, Minnie Caldwell in Coronation Street from 1960 to 1976, was a great real life character - and the complete opposite to Minnie, great fictional character though she was!

Here we feature some quotes about the lady from people who knew her, and a few from Margot herself.

Whilst Minnie stayed in her home town of Weatherfield and, over the years, looked after her mother, Jed Stone and Bobby the cat, Margot had a great spirit of adventure. And whilst Minnie was gentle and whimsical, if something displeased Margot, she didn't mince her words...

"I'm tough. Very tough." - Margot Bryant

"We flew from one place to another in old Dakotas made of cardboard. Often they'd say, 'This plane is unsafe, you'd better change to another plane.' It was great fun and terribly exciting."

- Margot on her experiences in World War II as an entertainer with ENSA. She travelled through Europe and the Middle and Far East.

"Of course cats understand me. Cats are super-intelligent animals. It depends on how you treat them. If you never spoke to a child, it would never learn anything. It's just the same with cats. If you speak to them all their lives, then they understand you."

- Margot Bryant. The one thing Margot had in common with Minnie was a tremendous love of cats.

"Margot was barmy about cats. A friend of mine once telephoned me and said, 'Now I've seen everything. I've seen your Minnie Caldwell, on holiday, in Venice, feeding stray cats from a huge pile of tins, wearing a mink coat.' So I said to Margot, 'I didn't know you had a mink coat,' and she said: 'Oh, that's nothing - I've got a tiger's whisker, and what's more I went in the cage to get it!' So, anything that had four legs and whiskers... Well, obviously, we couldn't give her a tiger, so we gave her Bobby."

- Tony Warren speaking on the 1988 tribute show Minnie Caldwell Remembered.

Margot has had a strange love for animals ever since she was a child and first heard the Bible story of Daniel in the lions' den. At Belle Vue Zoo, Manchester, she went to have some publicity pictures taken with a lion cub - and ended up the best of friends with a fierce Bengal tiger which flopped down beside her like a great fur coat at her feet when she stroked him tenderly on the neck and tickled him behind an ear. Nobody else but the zoo-keeper would go near the beast.

- Ken Irwin, author, The Real Coronation Street, 1970.

Her appearance can be deceptive. Behind that gentle, old lady look there lurks a dragon of a woman. And she chuckles quietly to herself at the thought of the deception she often portrays in the meek-and-mild role which has guaranteed her a comfortable retirement in her old age.

- Ken Irwin, The Real Coronation Street.

... and so Minnie Caldwell became the character who earned so much sympathy from the viewers. What they did not know was Margot's ability to forget key words in her dialogue and substitute others that frequently made no sense. "My father had a dog once," she said. "It was a ferret..."

- Jean Alexander (Hilda Ogden) in her 1989 autobiography, The Other Side Of The Street.

I had only been in the studio a couple of days when, opening the door of the Green Room, I heard a little Minnie Caldwell voice saying, "And the car was so filthy I wrote F**** on the bonnet with my finger!" I could hardly believe my ears. "Did Margot Bryant say that?" I asked somebody. "You haven't heard the half of it!" I was told.

- Jean Alexander, The Other Side Of The Street.

She [Margot Bryant] had a way with words which was at times distinctly unladylike, and what's more she couldn't have cared less who happened to be listening.

- Bill Podmore in his 1990 autobiography, Coronation Street - The Inside Story.

"I liked her. We had our rows. Oh, we had our ups and downs. I once told her she was ruder than Ena Sharples was ever meant to be - because she'd been rude to some people that had come to watch an episode. They said, 'Hello, Minnie, my flower," and she said, 'How dare you call me Minnie, you oaf!' I was livid when I got to the dressing room. I said: 'Margot Bryant, you're ruder than Ena Sharples was ever meant to be!' And, with that, I swept off!"

- Lynne Carol (Martha Longhurst) appearing on the 1988 tribute show Minnie Caldwell Remembered.

"And Minnie was meek and docile - rather sweet, easily squashed... Margot was very sophisticated, rather arrogant, and could be very provocative..."

- Doris Speed (Annie Walker), Minnie Caldwell Remembered.

"What a pity it isn't a kitten!" - Margot Bryant to Eileen Derbyshire (Emily Nugent/Bishop) when the actress brought her new baby into the studio.

- The Other Side Of The Street, Jean Alexander.

"Certainly, she did project a sort of female WC Fields attitude, you know: I do like children, yes - on toast. I was unbelievably touched when she arrived one day and almost in a sort of shamefaced way, said: 'I've made you this.' And she had made me this little shirt for him, you see, which nobody would ever believe... I've treasured it now for twenty years and shall always treasure it because it was one of the loveliest presents I was ever given. But nobody would believe that, because never in a million years would Margot make a shirt for a CHILD, you know, a CAT yes, but..."

- Eileen Derbyshire remembers an unexpected gift, Minnie Caldwell Remembered, 1988.

There was a time when she [Margot Bryant] was having a few problems with her bank manager and he took her to lunch to sort it out. They went to a restaurant in Brighton, near where she lived, and a funeral party happened to be eating at the other side of the room. The chief mourner came solemnly over for the inevitable autograph and said, "I've just buried my wife." Margot looked at him very firmly and said, "Did anybody see you do it?"

- Bill Waddington (Percy Sugden) in his autobiography, The Importance Of Being Percy (1992).

And finally, for Minnie Caldwell Remembered in 1988, Doris Speed recalled how Margot, at that point not playing Minnie as a permanent Street character, visited her dressing room in 1960:

"She came to my dressing room, and she said, 'I've come to say goodbye.' And she wasn't looking one little bit arrogant, she was looking very sad. So I said: 'Oh, Margot, what nonsense, you'll be coming again - you were very, very good - which she was. And she said: 'Was I really?' And she welled over with tears. So there was a little bit of Minnie there, wasn't there?"

Bobby The Cat

An unusual screen-grab request from Mr Niggle:

Please can you upload a screen capture of Bobby the cat on his own?

Yes, certainly - you see above Bobby The Second, pride and joy of Minnie Caldwell (Margot Bryant) settling down for a sleep in the early 1970s. If you haven't already read our tribute to Minnie and Bobby, it's here.

Bobby Header Pic Enquiry

Dave asks via e-mail if the cat featured in our header pic is really Minnie Caldwell's Bobby?

Yes, Dave, although it's not Toby, the original Bobby, but, I believe, the second cat to take the role, used from the late 1960s onwards. I'm not sure how many Bobbys there were in total!

I got the Bobby image from this pre-printed Margot Bryant Corrie card, which was sent to me by Granada Television not long before Minnie departed from the Street in 1976.

Read our Minnie and Bobby article here.

Minnie Caldwell And Her Bobby

Was there ever such a sweet and gentle soul as Minnie Caldwell, who moved into No 5 Coronation Street from nearby Jubilee Terrace in 1962? Already well known in the Street as a Rovers regular, the widow Caldwell had cared for her invalid mother for years, and was a long-time friend to Ena Sharples, who lived in the vestry at the Glad Tidings Mission Hall, and Martha Longhurst of Mawdsley Street.

The three old ladies were, on most days, to be found in their second home, the Snug bar at the Rovers, drinking milk stout, keeping an eye on their neighbours, and gossiping. Well, that is to say, Ena and Martha gossiped - Minnie would usually sit there, smiling obliviously, and chipping in with occasional, often inappropriate, comments. A bit "away with the fairies" was our Minnie.

Whereas Ena and Martha's views on life and human nature were pickled in vinegar, Minnie beamed sweetly on all and sundry, seeing life as something rather lovely.

Margot Bryant, the actress behind Minnie Caldwell, was a member of the original Coronation Street cast, and made her on-screen debut in episode two.

Jean Alexander (Hilda Ogden) recalled how the character of Minnie originated and developed in her 1989 autobiography, The Other Side Of The Street:

Her introduction to Coronation Street was as an extra - an old lady who never said a word but submitted to Ena Sharples's withering comments on her intelligence. Then she was occasionally given the odd line which, in her inimitable way, she made funny; and so Minnie Caldwell became the character who earned so much sympathy from the viewers. What they did not know was Margot's ability to forget key words in her dialogue and substitute others that frequently made no sense. "My father had a dog once," she said. "It was a ferret..."

In the story, Minnie had always loved cats and the wedding present from her husband, Armistead, was a small, tabby kitten. Minnie and Armistead were not blessed with children, much as they would have liked them, and so the Caldwell household always included a cat for Minnie to dote on.

When she moved into Coronation Street, she brought with her a large ginger tom called Bobby. As Street producer and writer Harry Kershaw observed in his 1977 Corrie novel, Early Days, Minnie would have "cheerfully died before inflicting the slightest pain on Bobby"!

Bobby first appeared in The Street in 1962, and was originally to be called "Skippy", but Margot changed the name to Bobby. The original Bobby (left) was actually called Toby!

Toby died in 1968, and Margot Bryant was deeply upset. In the story-line, Minnie's Bobby disappeared. She thought she spotted him up on the viaduct and Stan Ogden rescued him, getting scratched in the process. Sadly the viaduct moggy was not Bobby. However, the cat was a stray and Minnie adopted him, calling him "Sonny Jim" (or "Sunny Jim", if you prefer!), which had been her affectionate nickname for her lodger, Jed Stone.

In 1969, with a little nudge from Ena Sharples, Minnie renamed the viaduct stray "Bobby".

The new Bobby did not endear himself to Albert Tatlock when he ate Albert's pigeon, Gilbert, in 1975!

Unlike Minnie, Margot Bryant never married, but, just like Minnie, she absolutely adored cats. When Eileen Derbyshire (Emily Nugent/Bishop) brought her new baby into the studios, Margot commented: "What a pity it isn't a kitten!" She took cat food out to feed the hungry strays of Venice, and grandly dubbed her own large ginger tom "The Earl of Hammersmith". She adored him so much, she gave him a life peerage, and was devastated when he died at the age of eleven.

"Of course cats understand me," she once said. "Cats are super-intelligent animals. It depends on how you treat them. If you never spoke to a child, it would never learn anything. It's just the same with cats. If you speak to them all their lives, then they understand you."

Oh dear - Minnie's in trouble! Another happy evening in the Snug at The Rovers with Ena and Martha. Ena (Violet Carson) ruled the roost, Martha (Lynne Carol) constantly sought to usurp her, but never succeeded, and Minnie, at first glance, seemed the helpless focus of barbed comments from her two "friends". But the situation, according to Harry Kershaw, was a little more complex than that. He once wrote that Minnie saved her biting wit for appropriate moments, and then her barbed comments had an edge that even Ena envied!

But despite this, a worrying weakness for gambling, and a prominent stubborn streak, Minnie was mainly sweet, meek and mild. However, Margot Bryant was exactly the opposite. "I'm tough. Very tough," she once said. Miss Bryant was well known for her tendency to prove this statement, and for her usage of what Corrie Producer Bill Podmore called "barrack room expletives". Ken Irwin in his 1970 book The Real Coronation Street, entitled his chapter on Margot Bryant The Pussy-Cat Lady... With Fangs Of Her Own.

Many are the stories detailing Margot's "tough" side and I must say when I first read of it, I was stunned. Her playing of Minnie Caldwell was so effective, the character's air of simplicity and meekness flowing out of the TV screen so strong, that I found it hard to believe Miss Bryant's own character was so different.

I can only put it down to superb acting!

Born in Hull, doctor's daughter Margot followed her sister onto the stage. During her years as Minnie Caldwell, she bought a flat in Brighton (or Hove, according to one source), rented another in the Hammersmith district of London, and displayed a strong spirit of adventure - travelling all over the world. Her love of travel came about during her time as an entertainer with ENSA during World War II. Of the Coronation Street cast, she was probably most friendly with Jean Alexander - who shared her love of cats!

Back to the on-screen story: Jed Stone was a cheeky Scouse lad, out to make a bit of brass, and not too choosy about how he went about it. Of course, he had a heart of gold and was devoted to Minnie. He called her "Ma", she called him "Sonny Jim", and he moved into No 5 as a sort of lodger/substitute son figure.

Minnie was heartbroken when he went to prison for receiving stolen blankets in 1966.

Kenneth Cope, who played Jed, presented the Margot Bryant tribute programme Remembering Minnie Caldwell, after her death in 1988. In the 1990s, he said: "I think Margot liked Jed because it gave her a good story-line. If she had a lodger she suddenly wasn't one of a trio, she had a background which was not necessarily involved with the three of them in the Snug. I found playing with her smashing because I could rabbit on quickly and she'd bring me back with the slowness of it all."

Eek!! December 1970, and Minnie and Bobby were held hostage by American serviceman Joe Donnelli (Shane Rimmer). Joe had murdered Steve Tanner in 1968. Lodging with Minnie in 1970, he pulled out a gun and confessed. It was a messy affair - far different from the usual evenings at No 5, with Bobby lazing by the fire whilst Minnie told him the day's events. Stan Ogden became involved and, finally, Joe turned the gun and shot himself.

April 1976, and Rita Littlewood (Barbara Mullaney) had a bit of a gob on her because of yet another hitch in her stormy love life. Because of this, she was uncharacteristically hard-hearted when Minnie dithered over choosing an Easter egg for a friend's great-niece. Rita told her, quite forcefully, that she really hadn't the time to stand there whilst Minnie agonised over two eggs which were basically the same.

The Kabin scene occurred in Margot's penultimate Corrie episode, broadcast in April 1976, and was, I believe, the very last time Minnie was bullied in Weatherfield!

Minnie was absent for some months, and the story was spun that she was away staying with an old friend called Handel Gartside (Harry Markham), who had appeared in the show some years before. In October '76, Handel turned up in the Street to tell Ena that Minnie was staying with him. The reason for Minnie's non-return to say her farewells was, apparently, that she wanted to give Ena no chance to persuade her to stay at No 5.

The real-life reason behind Minnie's absence from her own on-screen farewell was that Margot Bryant had been in increasingly poor health for some years and was having great difficulty in remembering her lines. Street Producer Bill Podmore wrote in his autobiography, Coronation Street - The Inside Story (1990), about Margot's return to The Street after a period of illness:

Margot came back for a while, but it became increasingly difficult for her to memorise her lines. She began cutting them from the script and sticking them to the back of her handbag. But when it became obvious to everyone that she was reading during a recording, it had sadly reached the stage where it would have been unfair to ask her to carry on a moment longer. She wasn't at all well. There were more periods of illness, until finally we found her a place in a beautiful Cheshire nursing home where she spent the remainder of her days happily and in comfort.

Back to Minnie's final departure in the story-line of 1976, and Handel Gartside told Ena that Minnie would like her to have some item of her personal paraphernalia as a keepsake. Ena selected a picture of a cat (of course!) which had hung in Minnie's living room for many years - one of several!

"Take care of her for me..." - Ena, speaking to Handel Gartside.

Despite her bullying ways, particularly in the Street's early years, Ena cared a great deal for Minnie. And Minnie had said, back in 1969: "I wouldn't like to live to be a hundred. Ena mightn't be alive. And I wouldn't want to be alive if Ena wasn't alive."

The two women had been friends for many years and, when times were hard or personal problems pressing, had always been there for each other.

Ena closes Minnie's door for the last time. When she next visits the house, it will belong to a brash London businessman called Michael Vernon Baldwin.

Things certainly changed, as Mike's brief time at the house - shared out of wedlock with Rovers barmaid Bet Lynch - was followed by the Langtons' - Ray, Deirdre and baby Tracy's - brief "happy families" era (before Deirdre was attacked under the viaduct and Ray had an affair), then by the turbulent Tilsleys.

Minnie - and, of course, her Bobby - faded into Street history. And, in today's Coronation Street of explosions and serial killers, a very distant piece of Street history they seem!

This blog post is dedicated to the memory of Margot Bryant - 1897-1988.

The Original Coronation Street Opening Titles Cat - The Mysterious Moggy...

What is the history behind the first cat seen in the Coronation Street opening titles? Well, a little detective work indicates that the cat was actually filmed around spring 1969. The moggy was caught on camera whilst a Granada film crew was out filming scenes of back streets and high rise blocks in colour - to be used for The Street's new opening titles when the show made the transition to colour later in 1969.

But the cat scene was not selected for the new title sequence - and did not make its screen debut until 1976!

Bill Podmore, who took over as the show's producer in 1976, wrote in his book Coronation Street - The Inside Story (1990):

When I took charge of the Street its opening sequence niggled me. The quick-changing views over the slated rooftops of Salford, where the imaginary Weatherfield is supposedly set, seemed to be out of time with the slow, haunting refrains of Eric Spear's signature tune.

I asked to see all the sequence film, shot years before in the backstreets of Old Trafford and Lower Broughton. Although much of it lay on the cutting room floor, it was reassembled into a continuous film. Suddenly, on walked that wonderful cat. When it curled up in the spring sunshine I knew I had found the perfect clip. It looked exactly as though it had contentedly sat down to watch the programme, and from that day the Coronation Street cat became almost as famous as any character on the show. It provided us with an enduring mystery, too. Any number of people, impostors all, insisted they were the owners, but its true identity was never discovered.

Minnie Caldwell (Margot Bryant), with her beloved cat, Bobby. Many viewers thought the cat in the opening titles was Bobby! This lovely snap is courtesy of Flaming Nora over at the Coronation Street Blog. Ta, chuck! Over here at Back On The Street, we have more Minnie, Margot and Bobby in the pipeline.