1983: The "How Should Len Fairclough Die?" Competition...

By September 1983, the news that actor Peter Adamson had been sacked from his role as Len Fairclough in Coronation Street was public knowledge. And a sad Corrie time it was (see our post on Len here).

But with Len on his way out, and the character already absent from our screens for several months, conjecture started about how he was was to meet his end.

The Sunday Mirror, September 11, 1983, tapped into the issue and presented a competition:

It's the question millions of Coronation Street fans have been asking: "How will Len Fairclough be written out of the series?"

Peter Adamson, as Fairclough, is as much a part of The Street as the Rovers Return. He was one of the first characters to appear when the series began 23 years ago.

So how do the scriptwriters get rid of him?

Len has dropped a few bricks in his time. He has been in more than a few punch-ups, and has never been slow to voice his opinions.

He has a son from his previous marriage, so he could be involved in his father's permanent disappearance. There hasn't been a street "death" since Ernie Bishop was shot [oh yes there had - Renee Roberts in 1980 - Andy], so Len might easily be involved in something equally dramatic.

He was last seen in the series on May 1 [it was actually May 11 - Andy], when he was working on Mike Baldwin's new Graffiti Club.

If you were a Coronation Street scriptwriter, how would YOU end Len's days? Write to us, telling in no more than 150 words how YOU think Len should be written out.

The writer of the entry we think best will win a super Ferguson Video cassette player worth £560.

The winner will also receive a marvellous Granada video cassette called The Magic Of Coronation Street...

Weren't VCRs EXPENSIVE?!! No wonder only 5% of the UK population had them in 1980 and around 25% by the middle of the decade!

Brilliant prizes - The Magic Of Coronation Street was the show's first EVER home video release, from 1982.

So who won the competition? Let's press on a week...

LEN GOES - LEAVING A PINT BEHIND

Let Len go with dignity. That's the demand of thousands of Sunday Mirror readers over the fate of Coronation Steet's tough-guy star.

We asked YOU to write the script for the Finish Of Fairclough.

And there is only one word to decribe the response to our great competition. Staggering.

Your letters came by the sackful.

Nearly all of them were caring, most were dramatic, many were gory and some well... fiendish!

Lots of you "killed" Len off in a car crash, or a fall from the Graffiti Club roof, or from electrocution when he drilled through cables.

Others had him mugged, killed in an explosion, drowned - and even sucked down into sewers.

But some of the more bizarre endings had him choking on an oyster, drowning in a vat of Newton and Ridley's bitter, killed by space invaders, bitten by a rabid dog at Sharon's kennels or eating a poisoned pie given to him by Bet Lynch!

Len has to go because Peter Adamson, who plays the character, has been sacked.

He last appeared on May 1 [11th - Andy] at work on Mike Baldwin's new Graffiti Club. Granada have said that Len is not to be brought back to the studios to act out his final scene. They want him killed off.

The winning entry, described as "simple and dramatic", went like this:

It is lunch-time at the Rovers. In walks Rita Fairclough...

Rita: "A vodka and a pint for the old man. He'll be here in a bit - he's just finishing some soldering."

Fred pours the drinks. At that moment an explosion shakes the building. The talking stops. Dust flutters down.

Fred: "What the 'ell were that?"

The door bursts open, Eddie rushes in.

"It's the yard. Fairclough's yard, the whole lot's blown up."

Rita: "Oh my God. What about Len? Have you seen him?"

She rushes out.

Next scene: Fairclough's yard. Fire engines, lots of noise, shouting, hustle and bustle, flames and smoke.

Fireman emerging from smoke speaks to waiting ambulance man: "Only one body. Didn't stand a chance. Looks like a Propane bottle blew up."

Camera pans to a shocked Rita.

Flashback to the Rovers bar... Len's untouched pint. Fade-out.

One of the competition's runner-ups suggested that Rita should receive a letter from Len:

Dear Rita, I hope some day you can understand why I had to do this even though I still love you.

Eight months ago I met a woman who'd just been widowed. I felt sorry for her and somehow we started having an affair and now she's pregnant. She's not a young independent dolly bird, and she needs me to look after her. And it is my kid too. So Jean and I are moving down South to start a new life.

The yard is being put on the market and I've had the Kabin legally transferred to you. The solicitors will be in touch about the divorce. At least you've got the house and the Kabin, so I know you'll get by without me. Jean and the baby can't.

God only knows how sorry I am for doing this to you. - Love Len.

I like that ending.

A tongue-in-cheek clever runner-up suggested:

The regulars in the Street discover that Len had been snapped up by a commercial TV company to play a major role in a series about life as it really is in a typical street in the north west.

Everyone in the Street is very jealous because they also find out that the actors in the series, which has been running for some twenty years, earn incredibly vast amounts of money, as befits the stars of a programme which regularly finds itself in the top two positions in the TV ratings.

Len, as would most people finding themselves in his position, has forsaken the Street for the bright lights of showbiz. The Street will never be the same...

For all those concerned that Rita (Barbara Knox) could be on the way out too, the article contained words of great comfort:

Will Len's wife, Rita, become a merry widow once she has recovered from the shock of his dramatic death?

Granada TV chiefs aren't giving much away about her future, though Barbara Knox, who plays her, has been guaranteed a place in The Street's events.

But a Granada spokesman did drop this hint that there could be a new man in Rita's life:

"It's true that a lot of real-life widows find second partners, and Rita COULD find somebody else."

Tantalisingly, the spokesman added:

"Viewers will have to wait and see what happens to Rita, and how she copes after Len's death."

Len, of course, finally met his end in a road accident in December 1983. And Rita was further devastated by the discovery that he'd been having an affair.

Goodbye, Len Fairclough - And Some Thoughts About Men In Coronation Street

1980 - Rita gives Len, who was going through a slobbish phase, a right lambasting.

Len Fairclough (Peter Adamson) was one of the Street's legendary male characters from 1961 to 1983.

Who could forget his on-off romance with Elsie Tanner (Pat Phoenix) in the 1960s, his marriage to Rita Littlewood (Barbara Knox) in the 1970s, and his late-in-life stint as a foster parent in the early 1980s?

In 1983, the character was killed off in a road accident. There were backstage problems for Peter Adamson, but I regretted the end of the character.

Len was a real working class man of the times, and was one of the few men in the Street who could hold his own against those wonderful womenfolk.

The Street was always a matriarchal society, and I loved the fact, but nowadays it seems to me that the show's women are seen as a thoroughly superior species, whatever their wrongs, whilst the men are... well... lesser beings.

The last time I tuned in, it was to witness a woman shrieking at Roy Cropper (David Neilson) that he was the only man in her life that had never hurt her.

Wow! All the men in her life had hurt her... her father, her uncles, her neighbours, her teachers, her employers, her friends, her lovers...

What beasts we are!

But Len, flawed though he was, was also a man to be relied upon. Brash and handy with his fists in the early days, Len was still a good guy.

And he stood shoulder to shoulder with the glorious Street women as somebody we viewers could recognise and emphasise with.

Whatever Len did wrong, and there was plenty (in 1980 he even gave Rita a "good 'iding" - but then she had given him one a few years earlier) we knew he was likeable. And complex - like most human beings, regardless of gender.

Street writer Peter Whalley declared in a 1990s interview that the Street's men were shiftless, idle and untrustworthy because of the original template laid down by the show's creator Tony Warren in 1960.

But that's not true. Jack Walker (Arthur Leslie), Harry Hewitt (Ivan Beavis), Frank Barlow (Frank Pemberton) and Mr Swindley (Arthur Lowe) were all dependable, hard working characters. Albert Tatlock (Jack Howarth) may have developed into a bit of a grouse and penny pincher after the first few weeks, but this was also a man who had worked all his life, and fought in the First World War.

The Street doesn't do Len Faircloughs any more.

Or Harry Hewitts, or Frank Barlows or...

And I think it's a shame.

In the modern day Street, I wouldn't trust a lot of the male characters with a jar of Bovril, and the women tend to be sexist martyrs.

Reality?

Not where I live.

Thankfully.

1977: The Mystery Woman At Len And Rita's Wedding...

The wedding of Len Fairclough (Peter Adamson) and Rita Littlewood (Barbara Mullaney, now Knox) in April 1977 was occasion enough for a TV Times special souvenir magazine.

On-and-off like a flippin' light switch the relationship between them two... flamin' nora.

Then, in 1977, with the songbird from the Kabin about to fly off on a singing engagement abroad, wedding bells were suddenly in the offing.

And this time their relationship was definitely on.

What a grand wedding it was - complete with slap-up reception at the Greenvale Hotel.

Mrs Annie Walker commented: "What amused me was all that church business. Really! I mean, when all's said and done, he is rather uncouth. Still, I suppose they're well-suited."

But we, the viewers sat at home, liked it. Here's the happy couple at the altar... and there's the aforementioned Mrs Walker watching from her pew and... who's that curious blank-faced woman behind Albert Tatlock? She looks weird... no face... strangely outlined... like something out of this world...

Was Len and Rita's wedding being subjected to a Close Encounter?

Nay, lovey, rest assured.

The mystery woman was none other than Pat Phoenix as Elsie Tanner.

But Elsie did not attend Len and Rita's wedding, only the reception, I hear you say. Quite right. Pat Phoenix was ill and unable to attend the filming at the church. So Elsie had to miss the wedding. But the TV Times photographs of the event had been set up specially sometime before the actual filming of the wedding scenes, and as the original intention of the scriptwriters was that Elsie should attend the wedding, there she was, large as life, in the TV Times photographs.

So, when Pat Phoenix didn't make it to the church, and Elsie missed the wedding on-screen, some hasty editing of the TV Times photographs had to take place. As Elsie did not make it to the wedding ceremony on the telly, she certainly couldn't be seen to have made it to the wedding ceremony in the TV Times magazine.

Way back then, in those prehistoric, non-computerised days, correcting the situation was not easy. Pat's presence on a group photograph outside the church was eradicated with a simple snip and splice. But this was not possible with the church interior pics, so Pat, although still visible, was simply blanked out as best as possible.

1976: Aggro At The Gatsby

In answer to Flaming Nora's request for some screen caps of Miss Rita Littlewood in her nightclub singer heyday, here's the lady herself in full flow at Ralph Lancaster's Gatsby Club (with its retro Upstairs, Downstairs decor) in 1976. This was a little cracker of a story-line.

Elsie Howard (as was) and Len Fairclough were in the audience, as were Ray and Deirdre Langton. Elsie was not impressed with Rita's performance. Not usually the jealous type, Elsie would happily get the claws out for Rita. She hadn't wanted Len herself when marriage was offered back in the '60s. But she certainly didn't want Rita to have him.

Len thoroughly enjoyed having two women at odds over him, and told Elsie: "You know, if you'd worked your cards right, you could have married me!"

"Ooh, you don't begrudge me one little stroke of luck, do yer?!!" grinned Elsie.

Apparently Elsie didn't reckon much to Len's potential as a husband (and recalling his marriage to Nellie, perhaps it wasn't surprising), nor did she fancy working for him as Rita did.

Elsie tried some heavy sarcasm: "You know, there's nothing I'd like better than to work for you - for insults and peanuts. Mind you, she [indicating Miss Littlewood] deserves it!"

Rita was on great form that night and had some news for Len: she'd been offered a month's singing contract in Torquay; Len made it plain that if she took it, she'd lose her job and the flat over The Kabin. To put it simply, the green eyed monster had claimed Len that night, just as it had Elsie: he was worried that Rita might fall under the spell of her agent or some other handsome devil whilst away from his earthy aura.

Rita began to seethe as Len told her not to expect a job when she got back - "and you'd better take your bits and pieces with yer, 'cos they're gonna be on the street when you get back!"

"Go on, take a poke at me!" Len goaded.

So, she did, knocking him from his bar stool to the floor, where he lay unconscious.

"Will you get a doctor, somebody?!" cried Ray.

"Oh my god!" said Rita.

Nowadays, the whole incident would have been recorded on CCTV installed at the club, and Rita would have been hauled off down the police station, charged, and on the DNA Database before you could say "Ooh, 'eck! What's Mavis going to say?!"

But this was the 20th Century and the whole incident was simply put down to Rita having a "red headed" moment.

Which I think was rather a better way of going about things!

Piecing It All Together...

One of a series of jigsaw puzzles from c. 1963 featuring characters from Coronation Street. Note the street featured on the box, which is actually Archie Street, Ordsall - the original template for the Coronation Street architecture. English folklore has been greatly enriched by the addition of television soap opera characters like fearsome old dragon Ena Sharples and the glamorous and fiery Elsie Tanner.

The Street began on 9/12/1960, the creation of one Tony Warren, and continues to entertain a mass audience to this day.

The characters featured in this jigsaw have long departed. Ena Sharples (Violet Carson) left in 1980, and moved to Lytham St Anne's; Martha Longhurst (Lynne Carol) died in the snug of the Rovers Return in 1964; Minnie Caldwell (Margot Bryant) left to keep house for an old friend in 1976; Elsie Tanner (Pat Phoenix) left in 1984 to live in Portugal with an old flame; and Len Fairclough (Peter Adamson) died in a car crash in 1983.

Archie Street was demolished in 1971.