Back To The Ogdens'...

One of my favourite photographs of the Ogdens - happy in each other's company.

Thanks to Anonymous who came up with the answer to my quiz question - the Charles and Diana 1981 wedding plate hung at the Ogdens' house.

It did! I grew up with their back room, and looking back at it, I find myself smiling at memories of the Ogdens' and similar rooms I knew.

There were quite a lot of working class living rooms like that in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. And probably well into the 1990s.

The selected glories on Hilda's sideboard changed over the years. Look at those lovely candlesticks there! Real antiques, them! And that radio - that was the one Noah listened to weather forecasts on.

Nowadays, many people go for a carefully cultivated 'shabby chic' look, and ironically horrible wallpaper, but those were the days when people accumulated treasures - like Aunt Aggie's 'antique' ducks - and mixed and matched them with other treasures - like the battered chalkware mermaid they'd won on the fair in the 1940s, those lovely old 'silver' vases of Grandma's, and that lovely plate of Charles and Diana's wedding from 1981.

In fact, like the mural, Hilda had two different such plates. The first was a head and shoulders shot of the happy couple. It was there for several years from 1981 onwards, before being replaced. Perhaps Hilda knocked it off the wall while dusting it? I wondered. But then, if I remember rightly, the second plate disappeared and the first one returned. Gawd knows what 'appened there, chuck.

'Orrible Avril Carter, seen here with Hilda and Stan in 1983, was no good. She was after Hilda's late brother's chippie. Hilda's original Charles and Diana plate is behind Avril.

Moving on to 1986, and ain't young love grand- even with taches and mullets and bulldog clips? Well, yes - as long it's decent. The second 1981 Royal Wedding plate is on the wall, and Aunt Aggie's middle duck is determinedly pursuing its downward path on the 'muriel'.

Double take - Sally Dynevor and Michael LeVell on the reproduction set of the Ogdens' living room. The 1981 Royal Wedding plate isn't the same, but it's close enough. Hilda's light switch is missing, and the picture rail is a bit high over the door, but the set captures the atmosphere of Hilda's dear old room extremely well. The photograph of Bernard Youens on the sideboard, placed there by Hilda in the storyline after Stan's death in 1984, reminds us poignantly of how much Jean Alexander appreciated Bernard's contribution to the legend of the Oggies...

... as further illustrated by this 1986 photograph of Jean. A rose had just been created and named after Hilda. Jean took Bernard's photograph from the sideboard and brought it to the table as a tribute to Bernard and Stan.

Hilda, like so many, was susceptible to a bit of 'posh' one up-manship - and when lovable conman Eddie Yeats flogged her a mural, sorry, muriel, in 1976, she thought it looked fabulous in her cramped backroom, with the same wallpaper Mrs Walker had in her bedroom on the other walls.

Oh yes, very classy.

Hilda, Eddie Yeats and Stan with the first 'muriel'. Didn't last long - thanks to that flaming Suzie Birchall and Stan. Never mind, chuck. The next one would last for nearly a decade.

The trouble was there was no overall plan in rooms like that, no attempt to coordinate, no 'style'. Or perhaps that wasn't a problem. After all, the Oggies' backroom had a lot more character than dear Sally and Kevin's revamp when they moved in. Don't get us wrong, we loved the Websters' style, but it couldn't hold a candle to the Oggies' mishmash.

And a serving hatch? Great, Stan! Never mind that it's canteen sized...

Stan and Hilda's ruby wedding in 1983. I love the outdoor snap of Hilda in the background, which stood on the sideboard for many years. She looks as daft as a brush - but happy.

The first scenic mountain mural didn't last, of course. Firstly, Suzie Birchall lobbed a brick down the chimney and turned it into a slag heap with soot smuts all over it in 1977, then, in 1978, Stan fell asleep while running a bath, the overflowing water seeped through the ceiling onto the mural, and that was it.

Enter the new cliff and sea panorama in August 1978.

A few years ago, the Corrie production team attempted to reproduce the Oggies' backroom as a tribute to actress Jean Alexander, who had just died.

And didn't they do well? Hilda's mac hung on the door, Stan's photograph, the one Hilda had framed after he died in 1984, which she kept proudly on her sideboard, was all present and correct, and a 1981 Charles and Diana Royal Wedding plate hung by the door - not the same as Hilda's, but quite close to her second plate in appearance and near enough. 

Unfortunately, in the reproduction set, there was a 1980s video recorder under the telly, and Hilda never had a VCR (a lot of the UK population didn't, 5% of households in 1980, up to around 25% in 1985) but, that aside, the whole effect was like stepping back in time and I expected Hilda to walk through the door at any moment.

And most, importantly, the mural and the ducks - one, of course, hanging crooked.

But they couldn't reproduce the mermaid. The mermaid? Good grief, yes - we used to call her 'Miss Boobies' because she was... er... without upper attire and we were not politically correct. But it all made perfect sense to Hilda to have her in front of the muriel.

Water, mermaid, ducks... yep.

I suppose such a mermaid in the reproduction set would would have been asking too much. It was ancient tat in the 1980s, so goodness knows where you'd find one nowadays.

Hilda, seen  here in 1986, disapproved of that there Sally Seddon from Arkwright Street. But Sally and the shockingly topless mermaid (behind Sally in this shot), both living under Hilda's roof, seemed happy enough. Hilda, of course, soon revised her opinion of Sally.

The repro mural was, of course, not the original - the second of two Hilda proudly displayed - which adorned the wall for nearly a decade, but it's atmosphere that counts and the reproduction set certainly has that. Where was the gorgeous scene depicted on Hilda's pride and joy - what was the location? I think I know, but I'd love to hear others' opinions.

The ducks were inappropriate, of course, against that background, but, as Hilda said, they'd kept her hand off the gas tap a number of times, winging their way across there.

And this was how things worked. We had no World Wide Web, no great knowledge of the world compared to now, and for us, the bottom of the class system heap, well, we lived in very small worlds which we made the best of.

The Oggies and Eddie Yeats - faced with the prospect of eating Little Hilda in 1979. Oh dear. That radio is a bit more up to date, isn't it? Henry VIII had one just like it.

Were we happier? I'd say no. Different times, different problems. I had some of my most miserable times long before all mod cons and I see many problems happening alongside, and some courtesy of, all mod cons, now.

Of all the houses in the Street, the Oggies' decor and facilities were probably the closest to my family's. We had no telephone - like most people in our street (less than 50% of UK households had a landline until the 1980s and mobiles did not become available here until 1985 - at a price), no colour TV, a VCR was unimaginable and, of course, no microwave or central heating. When I left home in 1983, VCRs were just beginning to move into the ascendancy (slow but sure), and my mother rented one in 1984. She was one of the first in our street. Fat lot of good that was for me!

Of course, things changed radically with the credit boom of the mid-to-late 1980s, and technology was galloping on. But Hilda was set in her ways. A bit like my gran's cousin. You may not believe me, but she had no indoor toilet or bathroom and still did her ironing with flat irons heated by the fire to the end of her days in 1987. And she had gas lamps either side of her fireplace, which the gas board safety-checked every year. She had electricity and the telly, of course, but the gas lamps came in handy whenever there was a power cut and she had several boxes of mantles on standby.

Hilda left the Street at Christmas 1987. She was finally going up in the world to housekeep for posh Doctor Lowther - but she'd have swapped that for Stan any day.

In my family, we'd started the decade with a black and white telly (the horizontal hold was 'going' and the picture was a narrow band across the screen), a record player and a radio. At the end, we had VCRs, colour TVs, microwaves, and we all had landline phones (mobiles were new and too expensive - 'yuppie toys' we called them - although Del Boy was trying to flog a few cheap 'uns off the back of a lorry). My younger cousin was getting heavily into computers.

A sad time for Hilda - and us. I loved Stan. His needs were few and simple - leisure, grub, beer, fags, his pools coupon and the odd bet on the gee gees. Nothing that exorbitant, bless him. The mermaid smiled on. Personally, I think she was a bit doolally. I wonder if Eddie Yeats found her in one of his bins?

Looking back, the Ogdens' house looks so dated. But, as I grow older, my own house is becoming an increasingly eclectic collection of 'treasures' - loaded with sentimental memories. My Adam Ant mirror hangs alongside my posh turquoise, pink and yellow 1987 clock, and my sad-eyed 60's cat picture in its cheap plastic frame and my great grandmother's flying wall swallows and her ceramic plate pictures of Great Yarmouth Model Village are in the living room. Not to mention the gonk I've had since I was seven, and my wife's grandmother's vase (broken in 1992 but stuck back together - obvious mend, but never mind...) and...

Stan and Hilda's back room had one more lease of life, just after Kevin and Sally's new-look room debuted on the telly. The old set was featured on the brand new Granada TV Tour in 1988 - complete with mural, sideboard, mermaid, ducks, serving hatch and royal wedding plate. And a life-size effigy of Hilda, with a rather accentuated nose! I wonder why?! 

Sadly, I didn't go on the tour until 1991 and it had gone. However, I did get to explore Jack and Vera's living room a year or two later. With their collection of tat - mostly from the 1950s and 1960s - their decor was very much 'THE OGDENS - THE NEXT GENERATION'.

Here's me (physog censored) in Jack and Vera's back room. Lovely, eh? Just look at that bar!

When Hilda left the Street in December 1987 she took her treasures - mermaid and ducks - with her but, sadly, had to leave the 'muriel'.

1982: Stardust Lil And Slim Jim - CB Radio Comes To Coronation Street, But Could Marion Really Talk The Lingo?

 "Breaker break, good buddy! Hope you're hearing me wall to wall and tree top tall!"

Or summat like that.

CB radio was one of my top fave crazes of the 1980s. It was a decade packed full of crazes, Rubik's Cube, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, deelyboppers, dancing flowers, Trivial Pursuit, to name but a few, however CB stands out as one of my fondest memories.

Citizens' Band radio was invented in America by a man called Al Gross in the 1940s, and it had been up and running there since the 1950s. In England, CB usage had been known on a very small scale since the mid-1960s, but it was illegal. Films and songs like Convoy heightened interest in CB in the late 1970s, and in 1980 an illegal craze went spiralling out of control.

In 1981, the illegal CB craze had grown to such proportions that it was wreaking havoc in some quarters, with a hospital claiming it was interfering with heart monitoring machines, and a fire brigade desperate to track down a chattering CB'er who kept "fanning out" onto their frequency via a faulty CB. The UK Government decided to legalise CB during 1980, but this did not happen until 2 November 1981. Then, shops sold out of CB's and the craze went wide. It was at its peak in 1983, with 300,000 licences sold.

In 1982, the craze reached Coronation Street where Eddie Yeats (Geoffrey Hughes), former lovable bad lad turned binman, met the love of his life via CB... over to the TV Times, 2-8/10/1982:

CB slang and the language of love

Actress Veronica Doran has a problem with some of her fans - she can't understand a word they say.

It all started a few months back when, as Marion Willis in Coronation Street, she was driving a florist's van for a living which was fitted with a Citizens' Band radio.

Under the romantic call-sign of 'Stardust Lil' she made contact with another CB fan, the far from skinny 'Slim Jim', alias Eddie Yeats. And as every fan of the Street now knows, the language of the airways became the language of love as they met, fell for each other and became engaged.

"I still get a lot of mail from CB users,' says Veronica, 'and lots of invitations to their get-togethers.'

But Veronica is the first to admit that before the Coronation Street part she had never used a CB radio and the esoteric language of CB fanatics was a total mystery to her. Most of it still is.

'I had to tell one person on the phone that I hadn't the faintest idea what they were talking about," she says.


The Eddie/Marion romance is still fondly remembered, and, of course, the two finally married in 1983. I loved the way The Street sometimes tapped into crazes of the moment for story-lines. This was one of the very best examples.

Geoffrey Hughes

The other week I was feeling thoroughly cheesed off at work (one of THOSE days!) when my mind did what I call a "retro lurch" and I heard a cheery scouse voice inside my head saying: "It's a lovely day for the race! What race? The human race!" My mind often experiences these retro lurches - they throw up all sorts of things from the past when I least expect them - visions of old fashions and ancient family occasions, prehistoric snatches of music and TV dialogue - you name it! The older I get, the more it happens. In this case, the lurch made me smile. The cheery scouse voice was that of Geoffrey Hughes in his role of Eddie Yeats in Coronation Street. It brightened my day a lot.

I was very sorry to read of the death of Geoffrey Hughes. Eddie arrived in the Street in 1974, was elevated to permanent character status in 1976, became a binman and moved in with the Ogdens in 1980, and met his wife-to-be on CB radio in 1982. He bowed out in late 1983, and popped back briefly in 1987. Today, we remember him as one of the Street's legendary characters. I loved Geoffrey as Onslow in Keeping Up Appearances, too.

God bless, Geoff. Thanks for all the viewing pleasure. You made me laugh and I'll always love Eddie and Onslow. Read our 1980s newspaper interview with Geoffrey here.

1983: Geoffrey Hughes On Eddie Yeats And Coronation Street

A slate loose? Eddie Yeats and Len Fairclough at Len's builder's yard in Mawdsley Street.

Geoffrey Hughes was hugely popular as petty criminal Eddie Yeats. Eddie contained echoes of a previous Street bad lad, Jed Stone (Kenneth Cope). Both characters were Liverpudlians, had a heart of gold, and wore distinctive headgear - Jed a flat cap and Eddie (in his early years) a shapeless woolly hat!

In 1980, Eddie turned over a new leaf - he took up full time employment with the local council's refuse department - becoming a bin man, and moved in as a lodger with his long-term pals Stan and Hilda Ogden at Number 13.

Interviewed in 1983, Geoffrey Hughes commented that his favourite Street story line occurred in 1981 - when the Ogdens' washing ended up at the local tip. Hilda had put the washing in a plastic bin liner, and Eddie, acting in his professional capacity, carried it away.

It was the real-life early 1980s craze for CB radio which led to Eddie finding himself a wife. Citizens' Band Radio had been invented in America way back in the 1940s, but usage had only been known in England (in a very small way) since the 1960s. The film Convoy in the mid-70s increased interest in CB radio and jargon, and in the late 70s illegal usage in England, although still very small, slowly began to rise. In 1980, the number of illegal CB'ers swelled enormously and in November 1981 CB was legalised.

CB radio had been illegally dallied with in England (on a very small scale) since the 1960s. The illegal usage of the equipment increased tremendously in 1980 and 1981 (the newspapers of those two years contain some hilarious stories of CB misuse!) and CB was finally legalised on 2 November '81. Leading to big changes in the life of Mr Edward Yeats in 1982.

In early 1982, Eddie Yeats began using a CB radio in his bin wagon (his handle was "Slim Jim") and made contact with a young lady called Marion Willis (handle "Stardust Lil")(played by Veronica Doran). The two had an "eyeball" and fell in love.

In 1983, Geoffrey Hughes announced his desire to leave Coronation Street. To accommodate his departure in the story line, Marion fell pregnant, she and Eddie married, and then Marion's mother fell ill, necessitating a move to Bury. Eddie visited The Street briefly in 1987, but apart from that never darkened those cobblestones again.

Below is an interview with Geoffrey Hughes from the Daily Mirror, June 16, 1983.

There's nothing Eddie Yeats likes better than a greasy fry-up followed by a bucket of beer at the Rovers.

And away from the set Geoff Hughes is just as fond of his food and drink.

"You don't get to be seventeen and a half stone by worrying about what you eat and drink," he says.

"I don't worry about my weight. I'm still very active and I feel fit."

His tastes are a little more refined than Eddie's, however.

"I don't drink as much beer as Eddie, but I love good wine and a few glasses of port."

Coronation Street food is barely edible, Geoff says.

"They cook it in the morning and leave it in a warming oven until we're ready to do the scene. It's nearly always cold and rubbery. So when you see me and Stan tucking into pie and chips with great big smiles on our faces, we're doing a good bit of acting."

The pints of beer Eddie knocks back at Annie Walker's bar are in fact shandy. Once he was ill through drinking in the line of duty.

He says: "We were doing a pram race when we had to stop off in every pub. This kept going wrong and I had to knock back four pints each in one gulp. I went greener and greener and the lads put a bath outside for me to be sick in. I needed it."

Geoff's first part in Coronation Street was in 1965 - not as Eddie but as bricklayer Eric Fairbrother.

He appeared in three episodes - and in one of them he beat up grumpy Albert Tatlock. For this he expected a few abusive letters.

"All I got," he recalls, "were two saying I should have killed him."

It was in 1974, when the show's happy-go-lucky layabout, Jed Stone, had to be replaced, that Eddie Yeats arrived.

Geoff says: "They brought me in for a couple of weeks and then offered me a six months contract. I wasn't sure I wanted to stay, so I took six months off to think about it. Then I came back, did a six-month contract then another one. I've been there ever since."

Into The '80s...

Coronation Street celebrated its 2,000th episode on 2 June 1980, and TV Times published a souvenir magazine to celebrate.

The landmark occasion was reached on the same day that Elizabeth II celebrated twenty-seven years as Queen. On the cover of the magazine were Ena Sharples (Violet Carson), Elsie Tanner (Pat Phoenix), Albert Tatlock (Jack Howarth), Ken Barlow (William Roache) and Tracy Langton (Christabel Finch). The souvenir included an introduction by Len Fairclough, a copy of the script of the very first episode, street party scenes and photographs of a trip to Singapore, featuring the producer and several cast members.

Ena Sharples made her final appearance in Coronation Street in April 1980. There was no big send-off as Violet Carson did not intend to leave at that point and several long absences during the 1970s had familiarised viewers with lengthy spells without the Hair-Netted One.

In the storyline, Ena threatened not to return, but she'd done that before!

Violet had not been in the best of health for years, and had at times seemed somewhat disenchanted with the character of Ena, but I remember reading a newspaper article headed something like I'll Be Back, Vows Ena, complete with a lovely photograph of Vi at home in Blackpool, revealing her determination to don that famous hairnet again.

Sadly, this was not to be. Violet died on Boxing Day 1983.

Tracy Langton is in the lead in the egg and spoon race - and rules are made to be broken! Look at the blatant egg-gripping going on!

"Ooh, flamin' nora - fellas!!" Party animal Mike Baldwin sleeps it off.

What was happening to Len Fairclough in 1980? Well, the year had begun badly with Rita lambasting him after he'd slipped off to Molly Coggan's New Year party with a few of the lads, leaving Rita high and dry at the Rovers.

Early in 1980, Rita walked out on him, seeking to take up her nightclub singing career again. Len hit her and she left for Blackpool.

Len begged her to return and she did, but she made two things plain - Fairclough's selfish ways and the pig sty they lived in would BOTH have to change.

Other happenings of 1980 included Eddie Yeats moving in with Stan and Hilda Ogden, Renee Roberts meeting a nasty end in a road accident, and Bet Lynch and Elsie Tanner clashing over womanising lorry driver Dan Jackson.

He wasn't worth it.

-Talking of Len, here's a newspaper advertisement from 1980. Video technology had been around for yonks, but domestic VCRs only a few years. In 1980, only 5% of UK households possessed a video recorder - they were far from cheap to buy outright at that point, and renting was a financial commitment many could do without in those hard-pressed times. The video revolution had to wait until a bit later in the decade to take hold.

The Magic of Coronation Street, Distant Memories - 1960-64.

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The very first Coronation Street video was released in late 1982 and was produced by Granada Video. It contained six full episodes, including the first, and specially filmed sequences with Doris Speed, Pat Phoenix and Peter Adamson in character as Annie Walker, Elsie Tanner and Len Fairclough. My family didn't have a video recorder at the time, nobody I knew did, but I thought video was the "coming thing", so bought the Coronation Street video.

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The Magic of Coronation Street later returned to the shops in different packaging - courtesy of Vestron Video - as two separate releases, each containing three episodes.

-This photograph from the Daily Mirror, 27/2/1982, shows an excited Hilda Ogden pointing at the new, under-construction, No 13 Coronation Street.

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Hilda had already experienced two new No 13 exteriors. The Ogdens arrived in the programme in 1964 and in those days the Street's exterior set was actually in the studio.

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In the late 1960s, an outdoor set was constructed - of lath and board - on the Grape Street lot near the studio. A single English winter played havoc with the flim-flam facade, and permission was granted for the Street's frontage to be built in brick. The back yards were added later.

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For reasons of space, the outdoor facade was built far smaller than life size, as had been the case with the original studio set. But few viewers noticed anything wrong as, when seen through the TV cameras, the Street looked much larger.

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In 1982, the Street was rebuilt, closer to life-size than it had ever been, and an entry was inserted between the Rovers Return and Albert Tatlock's bay window. For years, viewers had been writing in to say that the Rovers loo doors led directly into Albert's. They did, and the show's producer Bill Podmore used to joke: "Perhaps that's why he's always so grumpy!"

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So, with a little bit of extra space for the ladies' and gents' conveniences (though, outside of soap reality, probably not enough), 1982 was a happy year for Albert!

- 5 May 1982 - and there's some Royal visitors at the Ogdens! The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh visited the new exterior set and met members of the cast and production team.

The "Coronation Street" cast, all dressed in their characters' best clothes, waited to greet the VIP visitors by their respective front doors. Jean Alexander, in Hilda's best frock, was actually curler-less (yes, Hilda would take them out on special occasions!), Stan (Bernard Youens) wore his best cardie and jacket, but Geoffrey Hughes, as Eddie Yeats, was wearing a donkey jacket over his smart suit - as befitted Eddie's role as a binman.

Giggling, gap-toothed Scouser Eddie was a long-term pal of the Oggies, and became their lodger in 1980. He met his true love, Marion Willis (Veronica Doran), in 1982. The couple were caught up in the CB radio craze and carried the "handles" "Slim Jim" and "Stardust Lill". They met over the airwaves. In 1983, Marion and Eddie married and left the Street.