Coronation Street - Some Thoughts

Wow!.. Before I get into my post, just wanted to say, Wow! I'm pessimistic that anything will come of it, but Nancy Pelosi just announced that the various committees in the House of Representatives who are investigating 'the F***wit' what is in charge of the US, will now all fall under the Impeachment umbrella. We'll see what happens, but good on you, Nancy. It's about time.

OK, enough of that. That wasn't the reason I wanted to make this BLog entry. So... This morning Jo and I were enjoying an old episode of Hetty Wainthropp Investigates. The series starred Patricia Routledge (of Keeping Up Appearances fame) and Dominic Monaghan (AKA Merry of Lord of the Rings and also Charlie Pace of Lost). The series featured Routledge as a private detective and Monaghan as her assistant. It ran for 4 seasons from 1996 - 1998. It's a most enjoyable series. Anyway, this isn't the point of my BLog entry either. 😛

As we normally do when we're watching TV, we spent lots of time identifying various of the guest stars. I think we get as much enjoyment out of doing that as we do actually watching the show. I think I've always liked doing that. I remember one time when I was visiting with my Aunt Lorreine. We were watching various movies on TV and as each one started we'd identify everyone in it even before the credits came up. Lots of fun.

So while Jo and I were entertaining ourselves as we watched this particular episode, Episode 4 of Season 1 specifically, we noticed a few characters who had also been on Coronation Street. Specifically, they were Nigel Pivaro who played Terry Duckworth in approximately 250 episodes of the Street and Sally Ann Matthews who played Jenny Bradley / Jenny Cooper for almost 700 episodes.

So that's the point of my entry here. Talking about these characters, Jo and I started going through the early relationships on Corrie; Len Fairclough and Rita of the Cabin, Uncle Albert who lived with Ken Barlow and Deidre (or more correctly who let them live with him), etc. It just got me thinking about how much I had enjoyed watching the series back in the '80s.

Coronation Street has run since 1960. I don't know how long it's been shown in Canada. I'll assume pretty well from the beginning but I can't verify that. I do know that I discovered it when I moved to Ottawa in either 1981 or 1982. (Let me just say that my memories on this might not be totally accurate but please bear with me).

On CBC it was usually about 3 months behind what was being shown in the UK. It was on daily, Mon - Fri, usually around 4 pm, later it moved to 7 pm. When I discovered it, CBC also showed it as an omnibus edition Sunday mornings. It was really a fluke that I discovered it. It was one of those mornings, I guess, when I was relaxing at home with my morning coffee and I presume the family were still asleep. I remember turning it on and just wondering what the heck the show was and what was going on.

Annie Walker

Those were the days when the Rovers Return was run by Annie Walker. I think Fred Gee and Bette Lynch worked behind the bar and Hilda Ogden was the cleaner. Life centered around the Rovers Return and there were so many interesting characters; Elsie Tanner (very sexy), Rita, Ken and Deidre Barlow, Hilda and Stan Ogden, etc. The show just hooked me and it wasn't long before I began to understand what was going on and who each person was. It was so different from any other soap opera I had watched. And I'd been hooked on General Hospital, All My Children and One Life to Live during my university years (hence my great marks.)

Eddie Yeats

It didn't take long before I had some favorite characters. Eddie Yeats was one of the bin men and such a nice guy. Later on Curly Watts was his partner. I think I could relate to Curly, always unassuming and no matter how successful he became, he couldn't get a girl. Darn you, Raquel!!

Corrie became my Sunday morning ritual while I was in Ottawa the first time. Imagine my joy when one of my co-workers, an American sub-mariner who was seconded to our section as an exchange officer, Russell was his name, got hooked on the show as well. That was how we would spend our Monday morning coffee break; sitting down in the coffee room discussing the Sunday omnibus. Pathetic, eh? We were both hooked.

Unfortunately all good things come to an end. Firstly, Russell got posted back to the States and then in 1989, I got transferred to Germany, thereby losing my access to Corrie. I did get to see the odd episode during my various trips to the UK and when I returned to Canada, I was able to get back into it.

But it never seemed the same and then in the 2000's when Jo came to Canada to be with me, even though we tried to watch it, well, it wasn't the same for either of us. Corrie had become a soap and the story lines just got too ridiculous. When I got hooked on it, it was more than a soap, it was a look at average, normal people and their relationships and how their lives revolved around the local corner shop, the pub and their local businesses and family lives. Ah well, things do change, I guess. I'm just happy that I was able to enjoy it for awhile so many years ago.

Thanks for everything, Corrie!

If you've never seen Coronation Street check it out. It's still pretty neat. If you want to get information about the characters from the beginning to the present, check out this site. It's pretty amazing.

Back to regularly scheduled programming in my next post. Enjoy the rest of your week!