Pat Phoenix - Designer Clothes And The Magic Of Elsie Tanner

Elsie, in a knock-out outfit, welcomes her grandson, Martin Cheveski (Jonathan Caplan), to No 11.

I don't know what it was about Pat Phoenix...

We've all read things about how the actress liked to dress way beyond Elsie Tanner's means. It's noticeable that Elsie, at least from the late 1960s onwards, was often very smartly (or flamboyantly) dressed.

The clothes Pat often wore as Elsie were definitely things Elsie could simply not have afforded. Not that we, the working class TV audience, of the 1960s to mid-1980s knew much about designer clothing. But we did know that Elsie often looked striking.

Elsie herself once commented that she liked to "spend a bob or two on clothes," but she still couldn't have run to some of the outfits she sported.

Bill Podmore recounted a few "Elsie dresses up" instances in his book, Coronation Street - The Inside Story (1990), including her memorable return to the Street in a designer raincoat in 1976.

Pat said that her appearance gave hope to women viewers of her age, but Mr Podmore questioned how they could possibly have afforded to emulate her?

At the end of the day, it mattered not. Whenever Elsie appeared on-screen, I was utterly convinced by her. The integrity and passion of Pat Phoenix's portrayal of 'er from No 11 somehow transcended her often way upmarket dress sense.

Miss Phoenix somehow managed to make Elsie real, whatever she was wearing.

I think, if Elsie had waltzed downstairs in 1983, in full Joan Collins Dynasty rig-out, shoulder pads, the lot, I would have been taken aback.

But if she had sat down at her table, picked up a letter and said something along of the lines of "I see the postman's been. Flamin' Nora - the gas bill, that's all I need!" I'd have been convinced that Elsie was real and struggling along on the breadline.

I rarely watch soaps now. But when I do see them, I see actors and actresses dressed in far more convincing garb than Pat Phoenix when it comes to their characters' income bracket.

But none of them seem as convincing, or as downright watchable as Elsie.

Pat Phoenix was, in my very humble opinion, absolute magic!

1983: The Mystery Valentine...

Sunday People, February 13, 1983:

ELSIE'S SHOCK

Valentine's Day will set hearts in a tizz down Coronation Street tomorrow.

Marion Willis gets a card from fiance Eddie Yeats, but Elsie Tanner is surprised to find her lodger, Suzie Birchall, also has received one.

The card was pushed through the door with no name on the envelope, says Suzie. Inside the saucy message reads:

"With your gorgeous red hair and sexy looks,

"You'll always be Number One in my books."

But red-head Elsie, alarmed, has her doubts. She exclaims: "No name on the envelope, you said? How long have you been the only one round here with red hair?"

And Marion agrees: "It could be for any one of us."

No wonder the Street's red-heads are all of a flutter!

Who remembers the outcome of this story-line? Which of the lovely Number 11 ladies of 1983 was the card intended for?

Coming Soon...

Eee, flamin' Nora... When you look back...

I were just thinkin' last night, whilst Jack were in't cludgie, about the time Ernie Bishop went to a stag night - complete with strippers... and one of 'em, "Miss Rising Blood Pressure 1976" seemed right taken with 'im...

Sadly, Ernie were married to "Miss Victoriana 1976" and she weren't best pleased to find out what he'd been up to...

Flippin' 'eck!

More soon...

Ena Sharples And The High Rise Photograph - The Details...

I had an e-mail the other day that said some very charming things about this blog.

Very appreciative indeed it was.

So, I chortled in reply:

"My dear! But of course - this is The Annie Walker, The Gatsby, The White Swan, The... er... Laughing Donkey of retro Corrie blogs. Nothing is spared, no expense spent, in our quest to bring you somethin' you might fancy 'avin' a bit of a read of every now and then."

And every word of what I wrote to my appreciative audience of one is absolutely true.

And so, in our great tradition of sheer ruddy brilliance, we bring you the full details of the Ena-Sharples-on-a-high-rise balcony-in-the-1960s photograph.

Ena found her tenure as live-in caretaker at the Glad Tidings Mission Hall threatened in 1966. So, where would she live now? In a high rise block, perhaps?

Photographer John C Madden took the high rise photograph of Ena. The so-called "slum clearances" in Manchester were well underway by the mid-1960s.

In Moss Side, the area near Cornbrook Street had begun its transformation in the early-to-mid 1960s. The first new high rise blocks were named after the old streets they were replacing - Pickford Street, Clifford Street and Grafton Street were commemorated as Pickford Court, Clifford Court and Grafton Court.

And so there in Moss Side it was that Violet Carson posed as high rise Ena. With the rest of the old neighbourhood still intact and the gloriously industrial-looking Hydes Brewery in the background, this was the ideal setting for Weatherfield, which, as you will recall, succumbed to a few high rise flats, but not many.

The wide, busy road in the Ena photo was Cornbrook Street. And it's absolutely vanished.

Ah, you screech, but Cornbrook Street still exists - so how could it have vanished? Well, actually, lovey, part of Cornbrook Street still exists. It used to continue on the other side of the junction with Chorlton Road and ran up to Moss Lane West.

The part of Cornbrook Street seen below Ena is now parkland and modern housing.

The religious-looking building in the photograph was St Bride's Church of England Primary School, and the street with the replaced roof tiles was Dudley Street.

The chimney pots and brewery on Moss Lane West can be seen in the smoggy distance.

It was a different world.

1983: Fred Gee, Bet Lynch, Betty Turpin, A Car And A Lake...

Sunday Mirror, May 1, 1983:

Looking ahead to the week's TV:

Coronation Street, (ITV, 7.30). It's time for a Bank holiday spree. Fred Gee (Fred Feast) takes Bet Lynch (Julie Goodyear) and Betty Turpin (Betty Driver) out for a whirl around the countryside and a picnic lunch. But it doesn't work out quite as it should.

One of my favourite Coronation Street story-lines of the 1980s was the "Car In The Lake Outing" of May 1983.

Rovers potman Fred Gee (Fred Feast), trying to be a wow with barmaid Bet Lynch (Julie Goodyear), tempted her with an afternoon out - a picnic somewhere "nice". He'd take her in his Rover 2000 motor car - the one which had once belonged to Rovers landlady Annie Walker (Doris Speed).

Bet was quite keen on the idea of a picnic, but not at all keen on being alone with "Fred Face", and so invited her trusted colleague Betty Turpin (Betty Driver) along for the ride.

And a "ride" it certainly was, with the Rover ending up rolling into a lake - with Bet and Betty inside it.

And when Bet finally made it back to dry land, it wasn't that dry either - because dear old "Fred Face" dumped her down in a cow pat!

Of all the women Of Weatherfield in 1983, Betty Driver and Julie Goodyear were the most called upon in the courage and endurance stakes.

Recalling the filming of the "Car In The Lake" scenario in the book The Coronation Street Story (Daran Little, 1995), Julie Goodyear said:

"I had on a pink skirt, a jacket and a very flimsy T-shirt and some plastic beads and a pair of white high-heels, and they gave me a brown plastic bin-liner with two holes in it for my legs. I stepped into that and it was tied round my waist. And of course the water went up as soon as we went in and the bag was immediately filled with lake-water. The car sank and we were both waist-deep in very, very cold lake water."

Betty Driver gave her account of the watery saga:

"Now, me wellies were full of water to start with, and I said to Julie, 'There's a stickleback in the water here, dodging all around me. I hope to God it doesn't go anywhere else!' We were terrified and there was a swan swimming by and every time it passed the window it hissed at us and I thought it was going to attack us."

The sequence took two days to film, and Julie Goodyear and Betty Driver received congratulatory bottles of brandy from producer Mervyn Watson, with notes thanking them for their hard work.

1981: The Arrival Of Alma Sedgewick...

The Sun, Monday, June 22, 1981.

Alma Sedgewick (Amanda Barrie) made her Coronation Street screen debut in 1981. And all I can say is, that cafe on Rosamund Street had gone right downhill.

Flippin' 'eck!

It had started out in the late summer of 1978 as quite a nice little place, lovey. Owned by Joe Dawson (Peter Schofield), and staffed by Emily Bishop (Eileen Derbyshire) and Gail Potter (Helen Worth), the food was a little on the pricey side - so pricey in fact that Ena Sharples (Violet Carson) declared on her first visit that she'd come back when she was married to a Rothschild - but it was a nice stop-off for a cuppa and a fancy cake. Mind you, the crusty loaves sometimes looked a little overdone to me, although Mr Dawson was a baker by trade.

Sadly, all this changed in 1980, when Jim Sedgewick (Michael O'Hagan) bought it and turned it into a transport cafe to take advantage of trade from the new lorry park at the back of Canal Street.

Emily, horrified by the ruffians and the jukebox, beat a hasty retreat, Gail stayed and Elsie Tanner (Patricia Phoenix) became manageress.

Then, in 1981, Jim Sedgewick's wife, "Alma The Alligator", put in her first appearance.

Describing Alma in her early days, Amanda Barrie once said: "She was a frivolous, heartless, work-shy, person who wasn't interested in anything except herself."

But people, and Corrie characters, can and do change. Alma was an occasional visitor to the cafe and the show until late 1988, and then settled down to become a Street regular and favourite.

The Sun newspaper's 1981 TV feature on Amanda and Alma read:

Actress Amanda Barrie takes a sentimental journey to Coronation Street tonight.

Although she now lives in London, Amanda comes from Manchester and made her first stage appearance there.

Amanda will be a regular in the Manchester-based Coronation Street (ITV 7.30) for a short spell.

She plays Alma Sedgewick, wife of the owner of Jim's Cafe, who has to do the cooking now that Elsie Tanner (Patricia Phoenix) has been sacked.

Amanda says: "We used real food and I ended up feeding anyone in the cast or film crew who felt peckish."

Kathy Jones - Coronation Street's Tricia Hopkins - Sings "Down Our Street", 1976

I have just enjoyed a YouTube clip of Kathy Jones, Coronation Street's Tricia Hopkins, singing a song called Down Our Street in 1976.



Late '70s and early '80s little 'uns will probably remember another venture Kathy was involved with for a while - the Granada children's programme A Handful Of Songs. A girl, a guy and a guitar, pictures and requests sent in by youngsters, and there you had a successful formula which certainly kept my two little sisters and their friends glued to the screen for the ten minutes or so that each instalment was on.

Below is some YouTube music - Tommy Steele, singing A Handful Of Songs, when it was a chart hit back in 1957. Lots more Handful of Songs '70s/'80s TV series details can be found here.

Said In The '70s - Part 3

1976: Tricia Hopkins (Kathy Jones) and Gail Potter (Helen Worth) are working together in the Corner Shop. Ena Sharples (Violet Carson) has just come into the shop to make a purchase, and the recently-returned Elsie Howard (Pat Phoenix) is the subject of conversation.

Tricia thinks that Gail is jealous of Elsie's glamorous appearance. Gail is outraged.

Gail: "Jealous?! What, of somebody 'er age?!!"

Tricia: "I'd like to see you when you're 'er age. You're grotty enough now!"

Gail: "Have you seen yourself lately?!"

Ena (annoyed): "Look, I don't like to break up a first class row, but would somebody give me a packet of tea?"

Holiday Time!

Holiday time - Minnie Caldwell (Margot Bryant) and Ena Sharples (Violet Carson) take a holiday at home. Minnie wears her "Kiss Me Quick" hat!

Well, I'm off on me hols - Hunstanton beckons.

"You're holidaying in England?!" an American pal of mine said last night.

Well, yes. A holiday isn't a holiday to me without a nice stick of rock and a rain-lashed beach!

Next week, I'll start the 1976 Revisited series of posts. Until then, whatever you're doing, I hope you enjoy it!

xxxx

E-Mails - Coronation Street Tory Propaganda In The 1970s... And More Albert?

Just a brief round-up of some recent e-mails received. The Corrie 1980s Anti-Thatcher post I wrote yesterday and posted in the early hours of this morning has already sparked a response from Colin, who tells me:

Yes, fine, there was no full employment in the 1970s, and Bet Lynch was talking cobblers in 1986. Some thick-witted scriptwriter doing a spot of soap-boxing was probably the culprit. But do you remember the pro-Tory propaganda in the show in the 1970s? I particularly remember Ken and his girlfriend saying how the working classes had taken all the money from the middle classes, now had more money than they did, and were basically sitting pretty. I lived in conditions of great poverty in the '70s and sometimes found Corrie's stance incomprehensible and offensive.

The conversation you mention took place between Ken Barlow and Wendy Nightingale in 1976. It was bizarre, I thought. My family was on the breadline, we lived in a council house with a 1950s crumbling prefab kitchen tacked on, and there was a cold, mouldy wall in my bedroom.

It was very odd indeed as, with inflation rampant and unemployment spiralling, things were very difficult for many working class people. I'm not sure how interested people are in Corrie politics, but I'll certainly write more on the '70s Tory "thing" when I return from Hunstanton.

Meanwhile, Grace asks if we can have more Albert Tatlock?

I've loved the Albert-themed posts. Jack Howarth was brilliant!

Yes, there will be more Albert in our 1976 Revisited posts, coming soon!

1980s: Anti-Thatcher Propaganda In The Street...

Eee, the 1980s! The decade when we split into two camps - LOVE THATCHER or HATE THATCHER and our soaps developed a Left Wing bias. I fell into the second camp, very firmly, and a glimpse of Margaret on my TV screen would have me screeching for the remote control.

Brookside bravely showed us what a rotten country it was under Thatcher, and EastEnders followed suit.

The realities were far more jumbled (I hope one day somebody writes an unbiased study of the turbulent, multi-faceted '80s) but it was a shame when Corrie stooped to silly anti-Thatcher propaganda, and put absolute nonsense into the mouth of Bet Lynch (Julie Goodyear), briefly making a mockery of the character.

It happened in 1986. Hilda Ogden (Jean Alexander) asked Bet to reinstate Sally Seddon (Sally Whittaker) to her full-time post as Rovers barmaid, as Bet had just employed Betty Turpin (Betty Driver) to make the pub food, and cut Sally's hours.

Said Bet: "We're not living in the '60s and '70s now, Hilda, when the problem weren't getting the jobs, it were persuading folk to turn up and do them. Nobody were a bigger skiver than me - never worked Mondays and Fridays for years. But them days have gone, Hilda - and nobody can fetch them back..."

Say WHAT?

Firstly, whilst Bet was known to skive off under Annie Walker's regime at times, she didn't often get away with it, often ended up shouldering more work than she thought she should, and sometimes worked when she wasn't scheduled to - to suit Lady Walker's whims.

So, it seemed the scriptwriter didn't know Bet's history very well - or was very forgetful.

But worse was the absurd notion that the 1970s were a time of full employment.

Let's trek back briefly. In the 1970s, unemployment passed the million mark before we were midway through the decade, and stood at around one-and-a-half million by the end of the decade.

And Coronation Street fully reflected the fact.

In the mid-1970s, there was much publicity about graduates leaving universities and being unable to find work. Coronation Street featured this issue in 1975, when Annie Walker was threatened by two young men in her bedroom, seeking to rob her. She was informed by one of them that he had been through college, but there was no job for him.

In 1976, Gail Potter (Helen Worth) and Tricia Hopkins (Kathy Jones) faced losing their jobs at the Corner Shop. They tossed a coin for the chance of a job at Sylvia's Separates, and Gail won. Trisha could not find employment, and left the Street to live with her parents.

Also that year, Alf Roberts (Bryan Mosley) was terrified at the possibility of redundancy at the sorting office where he worked.

And 1976 brought us the grim tale of Ernest Bishop's photographic business going bankrupt and his and Emily's desperate searches for work. Emily was forced to take a job as an orderly at the infirmary, Ernest spent several months in the wilderness before being employed by Mike Baldwin.

Another epic tale from '76 involved a dastardly plan devised by Annie Walker (Doris Speed) to cut Betty Turpin (Betty Driver) and Bet Lynch's wages, rather than give them a pay rise! Both walked out, but walked back in again, glad to have their jobs back, when Annie dropped her plan. The pay cut would not go ahead, but they wouldn't get any pay rise that year either, Annie decided!

Fred Gee (Fred Feast) told Annie Walker that he was well aware he was lucky having two jobs when a lot of folk didn't have one!

Not long before Christmas 1976, Terry Bradshaw (Bob Mason) lost his job with Fairclough and Langton. Despairing of finding another job in the district, and romantically rebuffed by Gail Potter, he went back into the Army.

In 1977, Steve Fisher (Lawrence Mullin) decided to go abroad to find work when he was sacked by Mike Baldwin (Johnny Briggs), saying he was going "because there's no jobs here." Fortunately, Mike reinstated him.

In early 1978, Ernest Bishop (Stephen Hancock) was accidentally shot and killed by two unemployed young men in a wages snatch at the denim factory.

In late 1978, unemployed Gail Potter and Suzie Birchall (Cheryl Murray) decided to seek work in London, although they were warned that it might not be easy. In the end, Gail chickened out, and Suzie set off for the bright lights alone, only to return in early 1979, disillusioned. Her failure to find permanent work, and her drift into a tacky relationship with a wealthy older man, note wealthy (Suzie did!), made fascinating viewing.

If Bet Lynch had been a real person she would have never have made such a barmy comment about full-employment in the '70s. The Bet we saw on-screen in '70s Corrie knew the realities.

But there she was, in 1986, basically stating: before Margaret Thatcher, we had full employment!

Maggie was obviously to blame. Before her, everything in the UK employment garden was peachy.

It was a shame. The illusion briefly fizzled. It wasn't Bet speaking, it was some well paid scriptwriter, who obviously did not know his/her facts.

Now, if Bet had said: "Things haven't been easy for a long time, but they've got a damn sight worse since Thatcher came to power - unemployment's more than doubled!" I'd have risen from my armchair and cheered.

But in 1986, when the grim realities of the '70s were far too recent in memory to have been hyped and rewritten, her comment simply brought a puzzled "EH?!!" from yours truly.

I well remembered my step-father's time on the dole back in the '70s. And still do.

Bet's boob qualifies as one of the battiest comments in Corrie history.

But it's an interesting manifestation of the "EVERYTHING WAS FINE BEFORE THATCHER" ethos of many TV scriptwriters in the 1980s.

Intruder: "I've worked very hard, been to college, but there's no job for me, nowhere. So I've decided that what I can't get legally, I'm prepared to take.."

Emily: "What's wrong with us, Ernest, why CAN'T we find work? I mean we're reasonably well-educated, responsible adults..."

Tricia: "I've 'ad a sickener round 'ere just lately - no money, no job..."

Alf: " 'New Staffing Levels', they called it. I never thought it'd work out like this."

1978 - Ernie was accidentally shot and killed when two unemployed youths tried to snatch the wages at the denim factory.

Coming soon - 1976...

Coming soon - a few surprises in store when we revisit 1976 - the year that Gail Potter got up to naughties with a married man in the stockroom at Sylvia's Separates, jobless Tricia Hopkins said her farewells, Renee Bradshaw took over the Corner Shop, a certain brash London businessman breezed into the Street, and Stan Ogden left his dear wife, Hilda...

1981: Ken And Deirdre And Charles And Diana...

It's strange now to look back at 1981 and think how things turned out for the Royal wedded couple of that year. But, back then, the wedding was a bright spot in a highly turbulent year, and the public was entranced by what seemed a fairytale romance.

Fad-wise, 1981 had some real corkers, as illegal CB radio usage went into overdrive in the run-up to legalisation in November, and, after the arrival of the Rubik's Cube in late 1980, the UK was finally fully stocked with them (there had been a shortage) and the colourful puzzle took over 1981. They were everywhere. You could even get a Charles and Di version.

As an aside, the legalisation of CB radio in November 1981 led to romance in The Street in 1982 as Eddie Yeats (Geoffrey Hughes) joined the craze, adopting the "handle" "Slim Jim", and meeting the love of his life, "Stardust Lil", Marion Willis (Veronica Doran) over the airwaves.

A survey for the Walls Ice Cream Company came up with the findings that the Cube was 1981's favourite children's toy, and hide and seek was the favourite children's game.

Days of innocence...

Well, not really. They just seem it in comparison to now!

Coronation Street, of course, got another dose of wedding fever, as well as the royal one (Corrie characters tended to be royalists in those days) as Ken Barlow (William Roache) and Deirdre Langton (Anne Kirkbride) said "I Do" on 27 July, a couple of days before the royal nuptials.

From the Daily Mirror, 27 July, 1981:

The Street of smiles

Ken Barlow and his bride Deirdre Langton have ensured that their wedding won't be completely upstaged by holding it two days before the royal nuptials.

Deirdre is sure to cause a stir by dispensing with her horn-rimmed specs for the occasion.

"I thought most women would take off their glasses for the biggest day in their lives," said Anne.

"I wear contact lenses normally, but I took them out so I could get a better feeling of what it is like without them. I found it quite difficult to negotiate the aisle.

"I leaned on Alf Roberts's arm going up the aisle and held on firmly to Ken Barlow's coming down."

I sympathise with her - the world's a blur for me without me specs!

The ad on the same page brings back memories. VG shops! And to celebrate the Royal Wedding, they were offering Persil automatic at fifty-five-and-a-half pence, Domestos at thirty-nine-and-a-half pence, and Whiskas cat food (large tin) at thirty-and-a-half pence.

Oh, and you could win a Ford Fiesta in Mr VG's Royal Wedding Competition.

Those were the days...

1984: The Complicated Love Life Of Miss Mavis Riley...

Rivalry at The Rovers and consternation at The Kabin in 1984... Victor Pendlebury (Christopher Coll), Derek Wilton (Peter Baldwin), Mavis Riley (Thelma Barlow) and Rita Fairclough (Barbara Knox).

1984 always sounds ominous to me - also being the title of George Orwell's famous novel. Did you know that Mr Orwell took several years to write the book back in the 1940s, and that it was originally to be set in 1980, and then in 1982?

The real 1984 didn't see the arrival of Big Brother - I think that today is far more like that, with the various databases (established and planned) and security cameras logging our every move - but it did see the arrival of the Apple Mac - complete with affordable computer mouse. A revolution was beginning...

The UK edition of Trivial Pursuit arrived and we went trivia bonkers. Sir Alec Jeffreys accidentally discovered DNA fingerprinting, at the University Of Leicester, England (More here). The miners fought a bitter, losing battle; Frankie Goes To Hollywood shocked the charts; the yuppie era was drawing in; V was on the telly and Do They Know It's Christmas? hit the No 1 spot. Agadoo was another chart favourite. Push pineapple, grind coffee? Hmm...

In the world of fashion, shoulder pads were getting bigger and bigger, people were streaking their hair blonde and using hair gel to very striking (or ugly, depending on your viewpoint) effect and moon boots were a must-have, as were Frankie Say T-shirts.

And, in Weatherfield, one woman agonised over the attentions of two very different men...

The love life complications of Miss Mavis Riley, reported in the News Of The World, September 16, 1984.

Having met meek-and-mild mother's boy Derek Wilton way back in 1976, Mavis Riley had developed a very diffident, on-off relationship with him. Well, when I say "relationship", I don't mean that anything improper took place, goodness me, no!

But it was more of a (kind of) romance than just a friendship.

And the Derek and Mavis "romance" flickered on, and off, until 1982. Towards the end of that year, Mavis met one Victor Pendlebury at an evening class, and together they penned a story which was broadcast on local radio. Of course, Mavis was nerve-stricken on the day - was the story too... earthy? she wondered. But, apart from one or two adverse comments, the local branch of civilised society did not collapse in a heap.

And then, in 1983, Victor, every inch the poetic wanderer of moor and heath, the weaver of words, the potter of pots, asked Mavis to join him in a trial marriage.

Mavis, whatever you may think, wasn't really a fuddy-duddy, despite her dithery ways. Our Miss Riley wasn't totally out of touch with the racy realities of 1980s living, wasn't a total prude - in fact, she was once accused of being a "Jezebel" (though only by Derek). But this sort of behaviour, living with a man outside of wedlock, was certainly not for her. She was particularly upset when she discovered that Victor intended to pass her off to his neighbours as "Mrs Pendlebury" and she would be expected to live a lie. Brave and unconventional Victor - not!

Then, in 1984, Mr Wilton and Mr Pendlebury suddenly made plain their desires to make Mavis their Mrs. And Mavis was left in a hopeless state of dither. Which should she choose?

Finally, she plumped for Derek. The wedding was arranged, the church and the reception were both booked...

But on the big day the indecisive couple suddenly chickened out. Neither turned up at the church. Their feelings for each other were simply not strong enough.

We, the folks sat at home in front of the "one-eyed monster" (as my granny called the telly), were absolutely agog.

The News Of The World had leaked the non-wedding story-line, and, in September 1984, contained an interview with Thelma Barlow.

She worked in an office for years, devoting her spare time to amateur theatre.

"Then I decided the time had come to make a break and really do something about acting," she says.

"So I went off to London, as green as a cabbage."

She got a job with Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop, and then appeared in plays all over the country.

Thema has been a Street regular for the last 11 years.

She confesses: "I'm not at all like Mavis in real life. Someone like that would drive me mad. I admire strong, positive people, and she's the essence of indecision.

"Unlike Mavis I've long since lost my shyness.

"When you're up there on the tele in front of millions of people, you're bound to meet some of them off screen.

"If you can't stand to be hailed by total strangers you shouldn't be in the Street.

"We're friends of a huge family of viewers and we've got to accept it."

The Street's scriptwriters originally did not plan Mavis as one of the series' main characters.

"I was only supposed to be in one episode, but the character clicked and I've been fluttering over medium sherries ever since," says Thelma.

"There are some good qualities in Mavis. She sticks to her principles at all times and is starting to develop a little bit of steel...

"I can imagine masses of spinsters all over Britain watching me in the midst of all this wedding drama.

"They all obviously picture themselves in Mavis's situation and identify with her like mad.

"That's what makes the whole character of Mavis so very interesting.

"I've got a special picture in my mind of who Mavis is, and I play to it."

And she adds: "I can see me playing Mavis for a long time to come."

This was very good news. And it wasn't the end of Derek and Victor as far as the story-lines went, either.

And when Derek proposed to Mavis again, in 1988, through the letterbox of the Kabin door, things turned out very differently...

And Mavis was a "Miss" no longer!

1969: Man On The Moon And Tatlock Goes Over The Top...

An historic headline from the Daily Mirror, July 21, 1969:

MAN ON THE MOON...

Wow!

Inside the paper, we turn to the TV listings...

... and discover such delights as loads of Apollo 11 coverage, Crossroads, Not In Front Of The Children, World In Action and Coronation Street. Whilst history was being written elsewhere, Corrie was focusing on two if its menfolk, and the onus was on comedy. The synopsis read:

Stan enters the rag trade and Tatlock goes over the top.

So, what was it all about? Well, consulting my trusty Coronation Street - 1960-1985 - 25 Years book, I discovered full details of the story-lines: Stanley Ogden (Bernard Youens) had borrowed £50 to buy fifty suit lengths from 'Billy Oilcloth' on the market, planning to sell them for £10 each. But Hilda (Jean Alexander), thinking they were stolen, sold them for £1 each whilst Stan was out.

Meanwhile, Alice Pickens (Doris Hare), out to snare Albert Tatlock (Jack Howarth) into marriage, turned up at his regimental museum where he was giving a conducted tour. He fell off the platform in shock, breaking his arm and two ribs ("Tatlock goes over the top"!), and Alice moved in with him to nurse him - the choice being either that or a stay in hospital.

In August, Albert proposed to Alice, but in September both bride and groom were left waiting at the church when the vicar's car broke down and he failed to make it to the service. Albert and Alice called off their marriage plans.

September 1969 - the wedding that wasn't. Standing to the left of Albert is his daughter, Beattie Pearson. Actress Gabrielle Daye made occasional appearances in this role from 1961 to 1984.