1985: An Unfounded Rumour - And Was The Street "Out Of Touch With The '80s"?

The 1980s saw UK soap operas change radically - the arrival of Brookside in 1982 and EastEnders in 1985, both shows featuring gritty story-lines and social issues never seen before, sent out shock waves which rattled and shook the village of Beckindale and the borough of Weatherfield.

And Corrie was also battling the loss of several of its longest running characters.

The ratings remained high, but some of the tabloid newspapers had a field day - was the end of Coronation Street nigh?

I recall reading a rumour that Corrie was to end after the ITV strike of 1979. It had been off-air too long for viewers to regain interest was the rather potty logic of that particular tabloid story.

In 1985 former Street story-liner Esther Rose was in the news with a similar story:

The Sun, April 15, 1985:

Coronation Street will NOT be axed, angry TV chiefs said yesterday.

They denied a claim by Esther Rose, the Street's veteran scriptwriter, that they plan to end the TV series in December, its 25th birthday.

The show, starring Jean Alexander as Hilda Ogden, has been slammed as "out of touch with the Eighties."

Of course, the Street was not taken off during its 25th birthday month, and has outlived the Eighties, the Nineties and most of the Noughties!

Eric Rosser - Coronation Street's Original Archivist

From the Daily Mirror, June 18, 1983:

Two souvenir brass plates on the wall of Eric Rosser's office were used on the coffins in the TV funerals of Ernie Bishop and Cyril Turpin, late of Coronation Street.

Not that Eric needs any reminders. He knows everything about everyone in the Street. Eric, 58, is Mr Memory, the programme's official archivist.

Off the cuff, he can recite births, marriages and deaths or the name of an actress who had a two-episode part in 1963. His encyclopaedic knowledge is at his finger tips in his files, card index and bound story volumes.

Mr Rosser saw the first episode of the Street during a lengthy stay in hospital in 1960. "I was hooked," he said.

In 1970, he wrote a Coronation Street script.

Harry Kershaw, then executive producer, was amazed by Eric's knowledge. He put him under contract as a consultant.

Every week Eric sits in on the final rehearsals and the recordings of two episodes. He still watches every Monday and Wednesday night.

Once, while Eric was on holiday, the studio props man provided an egg-and-bacon breakfast for Stan Ogden.

Regular viewers knew, of course, Stan is allergic to eggs.

Eric said: "I felt myself go hot in my chair. I knew we'd get lots of letters."

He still shudders over the script in which Annie Walker complained that her grandchildren were noisy. She has none.

Now Eric helps vet scripts and regularly meets the writing team. He reminds them of anniversaries and bits of Street history.

Storyline writer Esther Rose said: "He knows more about the Street than anyone else. He's a gold mine of information. Absolutely invaluable."

Bill Podmore with Eric Rosser in the 1980s.

Personally, I always appreciated the tremendous attention to detail in the Coronation Street saga. The fact that the events we were watching would be catalogued and could influence events years into the future added tremendously to the reality of the show, as did the details Mr Rosser kept on file concerning the characters - their backgrounds, likes and dislikes, birthdays, etc.

The archivist was very much behind the scenes, the press clipping featured here is a great rarity. But Mr Rosser's contribution to the sense of reality in the show was absolutely massive.