On December 9, 1960, I watched the very first episode of Coronation Street. I was quite puzzled.
Then, after the second episode, I wrote in my column as a Daily Mirror TV critic: “Young scriptwriter Tony Warren claims to have spent a couple of months going around meeting ‘the ordinary people’ of the North before he wrote the first episode of Granada’s serial Coronation Street.
“Frankly, I can’t believe it. If he did, he certainly spent his time with the wrong folk. For there is little reality in his new serial which, apparently, we will have to suffer twice a week. The programme is doomed from the outset – with its dreary signature tune and grim scene of a row of terraced houses and smoking chimneys.”
A couple of weeks later I had to admit I had been “flooded with letters from viewers telling me that this IS life in some streets in the North”.
Coronation Street (or Corrie, as it is now dreadfully referred to) has haunted me for 50 years. Even when I tried, I couldn’t get away from it.
In 1963, when I wrote another feature headlined “Haven’t We Just About Had Enough of Coronation Street anyway?” Granada were so annoyed that they took a news camera team on to the streets of Manchester to ask passers-by: “What do you think of Ken Irwin?”
My criticism was always honest and, I think, fair. I went on to make friends with many of the cast. Pat Phoenix used to send me a card on each anniversary of the show, writing “Ha, ha. Do you remember your first crit, Ken?” We’d even have lunch occasionally, just so she could have a good laugh with me. We remained great friends up to her untimely death.
In my defence, that first programme – in black and white – was dreadfully dreary. And if anyone had suggested that the show would be a runaway success and would be on screen for 50 years, they would have sent for the men in white coats to take you away!
Even Granada’s boss, Sidney Bernstein, hated it, thought it was boring and had to be talked into approving its meagre budget in the first place.
Originally, it was only scheduled for 13 episodes, to be screened in Granada’s Northern region. But they made it a twice-weekly show and other ITV stations took it.
Warren wrote only the first dozen scripts.
A new producer and a well-oiled scriptwriting team took over, and it wasn’t long before Warren walked out.
One day he burnt all copies of his original Street scripts. He explained to me later: “I did it out of sheer frustration. I was very resentful.”
After Granada removed his name from the credits, Tony said in 1965: “I’m only too happy not to have my name associated with the programme as it is today. ”
So, you see, it hasn’t always been such a happy ship!
Before my retirement – as the Mirror’s TV and Showbiz Editor – I spent nearly 4O years writing about The Street. So I know where lots of the skeletons were buried!
My top 10 characters
PAT PHOENIX: ELSIE TANNER
Pat Phoenix was THE star of The Street. Nobody was like her. She made the rest of the cast look like also-rans.
We called her the Joan Crawford of Manchester - and she loved it. She lived in a big house and had limousines and a chauffeur.
It was me Pat phoned when she walked out. "I'm fed up walking into the Rovers and asking for a gin and tonic," she said.
I recall her once telling me about an unknown MP called Tony Blair. "He's my son-in-law, and he's going to be Prime Minister," she boasted.
After living with actor Tony Booth (father of Cherie 1 Blair) for years, she married him in her hospital bed just a few days before she died of cancer, in 1986.
I was away on holiday in Cornwall when she died. I got a call from the office, and I had to phone over her obituary from a public phone box in St. Ives. It was one of the saddest days of my working life.
JEAN ALEXANDER: HILDA OGDEN
Hilda Ogden was the best character ever devised. Jean Alexander, who played her for 23 years, is lovely. One of the few members of the cast who never "played herself", Hilda Ogden couldn't have been more different to Jean.
Over the years, we became great friends. I broke the story of Jean quitting, because a couple of years after Bernard Youens died she missed Stan, and felt she'd had enough of Hilda.
We had a Mirror photographer join Jean on the train from her home in Southport to Manchester for her last ever day. And I met her at the studios at 9am with a bottle of champagne and some flowers, in thanks for the years of joy and pleasure she brought viewers.
She and I still exchange Christmas cards every year.
VIOLET CARSON: ENA SHARPLES
Vi Carson received an OBE in 1965. "It was the proudest moment of my life when I met the Queen," she told me. "I don't know why I was singled out, but I'd like to think it was for all I did, not just Ena Sharples."
A lot of people were scared of Vi. She didn't get on with Pat Phoenix, because they both thought they were the show's main star.
Vi lived in Blackpool and travelled to Manchester every day. She would go back home on the 5.50pm train every night. And she didn't like being kept late.
Once, when the Manchester-to-Blackpool train earned a reputation for running late, Vi complained to British Rail. Next day, a railway official announced: "The trains will be more punctual in future."
"Staff have only to see me and things start moving. Once I'm in my seat, whistles are blown and the train leaves on time," I recall her telling me over some tea and cakes.
DORIS SPEED: ANNIE WALKER
Doris Speed was superb as Rovers Return landlady Annie Walker. Very much underrated as an actress, she'd been in the theatre and radio for years, but was still unknown before The Street - chosen because Tony Warren worked with her when he was a radio child actor.
Doris lied about her age for years, pretending she was 20 years younger than she really was. She cared for her parents until they died and never got married.
"Not because I never wanted to, but because I set too high a standard on the man I would like," she told me.
She lived in a modest semi in Chorltoncum-Hardy. "When you have been poor all your life, you don't suddenly change and live like a queen," she would say. "I'm not mean, but I find it difficult to spend a lot of cash."
4 Even when she was a big star, she would disguise herself at the sales. "And I've been known to kick and scramble through a scrum to get my hands on the best bargains," she said.
BERNARD YOUENS: STAN OGDEN
Bernard Youens was a real gentleman and he loved a pint.
When the offer of an audition came up for the first episode of The Street, he said 'no'.
He was a staff announcer with Granada TV, the first steady job he'd had for years after working as a bread salesman, van driver and pub owner. He'd seen too many TV shows come and go, so he stuck to it. A year later, he was kicking himself after The Street became the No 1 show.
He thought his chance had gone. But then, in 1963, he got another opportunity - when he teamed up with Jean Alexander and brought in a new family, the awful Ogdens. Stan and Hilda became the best double act ever created for TV, a sheer joy to watch - and went on for 20 glorious years, until Bernard took ill and died, in 1984.
5 BILL TARMEY AND LIZ DAWN: JACK AND VERA DUCKWORTH
Bill Tarmey and Liz Dawn were both club singers before they landed the husband-andwife roles of Jack and Vera Duckworth.
In a clever way, they took over from Stan and Hilda to become The Street's new warring couple.
They were more comedy than drama, but some of their scenes together remain classic and unforgettable TV.
I had lunch with Bill soon after he came back to The Street after surgery for his first heart attack.
"The doctors have warned me I must never smoke again," he told me.
But he did. He used to pinch a fa*g for a quiet smoke out of sight of the cameras. He found it virtually impossible to give up - and scripts that required Jack to chain smoke didn't help.
Liz Dawn was always good for a laugh.
I remember having drinks with her and the late comedian Dustin Gee in the posh Midland Hotel, Manchester. It all got a bit out of hand and Liz ended up plonking Vera's wig on my head. Dustin nearly fell off his bar stool, laughing.
She once brought a beautiful fan back from Spain for my daughter.
She's now quite ill. I wish Liz well.
JULIE GOODYEAR: BET LYNCH
When Julie Goodyear first appeared in The Street, as brassy barmaid Bet Lynch, she was the busty peroxide blonde, with long legs and a tiny mini-skirt.
Never a great actress, Julie was determined to be a star. She modelled herself on Elsie Tanner. After Pat Phoenix left, Julie came into her own and took over as The Street's vamp.
Outrageous in many ways, Julie had a sad private life, with several disastrous marriages.
After leaving, she inevitably went into the pantomime business.
ARTHUR LOWE: LEONARD SWINDLEY
Arthur Lowe hated being on The Street.
Ask him what he thought about the programme or Leonard Swindley - the character he played on and off for six years - and he'd splutter and fume.
As far as he was concerned, Mr Swindley was just another role after a long professional career spent in the theatre.
He shunned p u b l i c i t y, agreed to very few media interviews and from the very start insisted on working only six months at a time on Corrie. Then he would have six months off because he was determined not to become typecast.
"The public can be very stupid," he once told me. "Just because they see you on the box, some of them think this gives them the right to come and talk to you, which is ridiculous."
Somehow we became quite good friends.
He famously went on to play Captain Mainwaring in BBC1's Dad's Army and I went on location many times with him. Everyone thought he was a crusty old devil. But when you got to know him, Arthur was a shy but very amiable chap.
9 PETER ADAMSON: LEN FAIRCLOUGH
With Peter Adamson what you saw was what you got. He earned a reputation as The Street's tough guy - and away from the studios he was involved in drunken fights.
Peter had a drink problem and was once thrown off the set after he turned up drunk and couldn't remember his lines. He was sent home and banned from the set for two months by Granada.
10 It was to me that he first poured out his heart about his drink problem. "They've thrown the book at me and banned me from working," he told me. "I've joined Alcoholics Anonymous to sort myself out."
He had a long spell when he was on the wagon. But it all ended badly for Peter when he ended up in court accused of indecent assault on two little girls in a swimming baths. He was acquitted but sacked from Corrie and never really worked again.
