April 1965, and Coronation Street's newest arrivals, Peter and Susan Barlow, grace the cover of the TV Times. But in 1978 they were apparently born in 1964. Or perhaps even 1963.
Regular readers of my little blog (bless you both, I adore you!) know that I love the Bill Podmore era of
Coronation Street. In the main. I found the show stodgy, miserable fare in the early-to-mid 1970s, but when Bill took the reins in 1976, the
Street suddenly seemed to rediscover its lost youth and became so enjoyable I was glued to it.
Shake Up In The Street - there's going to be a lot more fun! proclaimed one tabloid headline. And there was. Bill Podmore's reign totally rejuvenated the
Street. I have doubts the show would have lasted without him.
But even the most glittering reign has a few fake gems, and Mr Podmore's was no exception.
When was the
Street's first retcon? Its first twisting of established fact to fit in with a modern storyline? I'm not talking continuity errors here - I'm talking planned, purposeful twisting of
Street history to cynically shoehorn in a storyline?
1978 is the answer.
It all began when Peter Barlow came to see his father and wanted to join the Navy when he left school. Now, Peter Barlow, like me, was born in 1965, but in those episodes he was older (one stated he'd be turning fifteen in April 1979, others made him seem perhaps even older). My mother immediately noticed: 'I was pregnant with you when Val had the twins. This is a botch-up!' Matters went thoroughly public when the tabloid press got hold of the story and a friend of my mother's, another dedicated
Street follower, wrote to the archivist, Eric Rosser, about it. She showed us the letter, and I remember she had ended it with the words:
What would Ena say?
Mr Rosser wrote back, on a manual typewriter. Mum's friend showed us the letter and it was perhaps indicative of Mr Rosser's feelings on the subject that the middle of several o's was missing - minute holes in the paper. Was it just the quality of the paper, or had he punched the typewriter keys extra hard in his vexation, we wondered? He made it very plain that he had voted against the retcon (although we didn't call them that then).
Valerie and Ken Barlow with their twins, Peter and Susan. It all seemed so simple back in the 1960s. But in the 1970s their age would become subject to sudden inexplicable change...
This was a rare instance of the Bill Podmore era beginning trends which were unwelcome to some fans - trends which are common nowadays. The whole point of investing in a long-running saga, it seemed to me back then (and today), is that you get to know the characters and their histories. And you have contemporaries born within the span of the show as it goes on - like me and Peter and Susan Barlow, all born in 1965. If you start twisting the facts, then why bother having an archivist? The Peter Barlow storyline would have been fine a couple of years later anyway. Why spoil continuity to shoehorn it into 1978?
The age of the Barlow twins remained vague but corrupted for a few years. Susan taking Mike Baldwin up on an offer to get work in a licensed bar in 1981 is indicative of this - the plot reality should have been that she was only sixteen-years-old.
All this gave me the uneasy feeling that watching the show was a bit pointless. Would a plot I was currently enjoying be tweaked into nonsense in the future, I wondered way back in 1978?
But in 1986 sanity was restored with the Barlow twins celebrating their twenty-first birthday.
Coronation Street producer Bill Podmore with Eric Rosser, the show's archivist, in the 1980s.
In 1980, the Podmore administration did it again: showing a complete disregard for the show's history, it introduced a new grandson for Elsie Tanner called Martin Cheveski. Elsie's grandson, Paul, had been born in 1961, but we'd never heard of Martin, who was apparently a few years younger. He certainly hadn't been with his parents, Linda and Ivan, when they'd visited the
Street in the late 1960s, although Paul had.
Martin didn't stay that long, and the demographic he represented, not long out of school and unemployed, was topical - although in the
Street, of course, he soon found work with Len Fairclough. But it was all very strange - although not, I thought, as bad as the Barlow twins debacle.
As far as I'm aware, 1978, 1979 (Ivy Tilsley's family - but, as she was up to then a peripheral character, perhaps forgivable) and 1980 apart, the Podmore administration didn't tweak characters' ages, or create new relations for them out of thin air again.
But, in 1978, for me, the
Street had
committed another sin - one that was indicative of future trends, and which unashamedly went for increasing the male totty pin-up ratio, not character depth or acting skills.
This was the introduction of young Brian John Tilsley. He met Gail Potter at a party at No 11, and soon they were an 'item'. Now, of course, Ivy had once stated she hadn't been able to have children, but with the Tilsleys being introduced as
Street residents in 1979, moving into No 5, this was all altered.
But doing a few retcons as a peripheral character moves to centre stage is not such a sin.
However, introducing her son as a blond-haired, unblemished body builder WAS, in my humble opinion. Back in the late 1970s, gym workouts were not the norm for working class guys. I'm sorry, but they weren't. This really came about in the 'fit for business, fit for life' mid-to-late 1980s and the narcissistic 1990s.
Vera: 'She couldn't 'ave kids yer know, well, only their Brian - and she don't like to mention 'im. I mean, can yer blame 'er?'
But actor Chris Quinten, who played Brian, was a gymnast and Brian, who didn't attend a gym and didn't even have some dumb bells at home, wasn't - and nor did he have a physically-demanding job. He was a garage mechanic. When Terry Duckworth arrived in 1983, not only was he heavier on character but his job at the abattoir would have given him the bit of muscle he had.
The
Street had always had its male and female heart-throbs. Think Terry, Ray Langton and Suzie Birchall, for instance. But these characters were not OTT attractive and seemed like natural backstreet denizens.
For me, Brian did not. He seemed an obvious and rather cynical attempt to up the female/gay 'PHWOAR!' factor and I found him wholly unconvincing as a character.
Wow - fashion! Our Brian in the 1980s. He was killed off in 1989.
I don't mean to sound too 'down' on Chris Quinten, as time went on I think his acting ability improved, but he was never a
Street natural.
As for the future of the
Street, retcons went out of fashion in the 1980s, but returned in the 1990s. Then, a storyline I'd followed in 1983 - in which Maggie Dunlop had a son by Mike Baldwin, was retconned back a couple of years so Mike's son, Mark Redman, could attend the school Ken Barlow taught at a couple of years too early.
His own children had suffered similar age revisions, but Ken, caught up in the production team's web, was blissfully unaware of anything amiss.
Meanwhile, give or take an occasional Tyrone Dobbs, muscle hunks are all the rage when it comes to young male
Street characters. But then workouts are so much more a part of everyday life now.
Oh well...
Despite my moans here, Bill Podmore's era was an absolute godsend for the
Street. I hold his memory in high esteem. Nothing is ever perfect.
Shortly after Brian arrived, Steve Fisher, a lad who, as Betty Turpin said, any mother would be proud of, was dispatched to work at Mike Baldwin's London factory - and never mentioned again. A sensitive, interesting character (a bit soft though - putty in Suzie's hands), exchanging Steve for Brian seemed rather sad.
