Soaps

In December 1960 something completely different emerged in the North of England for a short run and remarkably is still running today. The Soap I sat in front of in the living room on a cold winter’s day was Coronation Street, a gloomy looking drama set on the grimy, cobbled streets steeped in Northern life.

Well, it didn’t look too promising but my mother and I were hooked in to the dialogue and characters as types we recognised and I can remember their names now. It started with Florrie Lyndley’s first day in the corner shop being told the local gossip and which people to avoid, whilst arranging cans. Elsie and Dennis Tanner are next, arguing about his lack of employment after prison and in one scene Elsie looks in her Compact’s mirror and says:- 

       Just about ready for the Knackers yard. 

and we laughed and from then on we saw it was entertaining and not too serious and Elsie became a key character with her fights and rows with Ena Sharples and men always coming and going in her life.

It is quite amazing that Ken Barlow started in the first episode and is still there although probably reading his lines stuck to lamps and chairs out of sight, how else does he manage? 

There is a memorable bit of conversation between him, down from university and transformed into a “snob”, asks his dad why he is drinking tea at meal times. 

       I like my food swilled down properly, his dad replies. 

We, up North, didn’t all talk or behave like this although Southerners like to believe we are still stuck in a time warp, but the popularity of this soap couldn’t have been thought possible then. Joe public craved more and Granada commissioned more episodes from its original bi-weekly offering.

early Coronation Street cast ensemble

To go back to the first emergence of Ena buying Fondant Fancies must have stuck in my memory as a mysterious thing to eat and the wonderful Minnie Caldwell and Martha Longhurst drinking stout at a circular wrought iron table in the Rovers pub wearing the drabbest macs the props department could find. How sad I was when she dies whilst swigging the stout she loved.

They say the success of it was down to the strong female characters and the males do seem a weaker set. The drama has continued down the years with many memorable parts for women, Sarah Lancashire who played Raquel being one. What a clever concept of Tony Warren’s to give us everyday characters we would recognise and ongoing drama mixed in so we are hooked in following their story - lines seemingly forever.

drinking in the Rovers Return

Coronation Street

If someone could direct me to a street where I could stand
Cobbles beneath my feet tearful with rain;
The shadows of my hopes behind the stained - glass windows of a pub, ghosts -
I would turn up the collar of my coat, walk, number each small, terraced house by heart:
Birthplace; neighbours - hard man, hussy, harridan, hustler, hero, heroine -
Threshold, bride and groom as clueless of next year as Christmas Eve;
Or exit-place, a hearse, a raw and local grief…
Then I’d retrace my steps, perhaps a baby’s cry sharp as a sudden star nailed to the sky,
To stand now in this backstreet bar, nursing a beer
All my griefs, my gifts, and glad I live here.

                                                                   by Carol Ann Duffy, 2010

Thank you for reading,

Cynthia.