What do you miss most about the past? Attractions, lost venues or perhaps the way of life. Take a look at our nostalgia survey Whether it's celebrating people, remembering a place long forgotten or opening the Echo archives to mark a special anniversary, Days Gone By will be an essential read.

John Stevenson was taken with his creations, as were fellow-writer Julian Roach and Coronation Street executive producer Bill Podmore and a suggestion was made to Granada Television Managing Director David Plowright that the two brothers would be worthy of a sitcom of their own.

Stevenson was born in Manchester, to Hughina (nee Chappelow), a library assistant, and John, an electrician. He attended Manchester grammar school and graduated in economics from the London School of Economics. After working as a journalist on the Oldham Chronicle (1958-64), he became showbusiness reporter and northern theatre critic for the Daily Mail, based in Manchester. Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-alpha-20201231-10-g1236 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 1.0000 Ocr_module_version 0.0.13 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-NS-2000266 Openlibrary_edition The following year in 1986, the Liverpool Echo reported how Barber and Whitchurch were becoming "one of the best sit-com double acts on telly," holding down the 9pm prime time spot. The Brothers McGregor was an ITV sitcom set in Liverpool. It was seen by some as a spin off from the hugely popular Coronation Street as it’s two main characters had originally appeared in the soap for one episode in May 1982.

Only Peter Whalley and Adele Rose wrote more Coronation Street episodes than Stevenson. He also scripted spin-offs, including a 1977 sketch for a silver jubilee variety show performed for Queen Elizabeth II at the Palace theatre, Manchester, and a moving mini-episode featuring the return of Hilda for ITV Telethon ’90.Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2021-05-07 16:01:10 Boxid IA40110422 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier John Stevenson was responsible for writing Episode 2203 of Coronation Street which was broadcast on 12th May 1982 and which featured, as its main storyline, a party held in the Rovers Return Inn to celebrate the engagement of reformed scouse jailbird Eddie Yeats to Marion Willis. Among the guests invited were the McGregor Brothers from Liverpool. The visual joke of the two characters, Wesley and Cyril was that although they were introduced as brothers one was white and one was mixed-race, the explanation being given that they were in fact half-brothers, sharing the same mother. The party, mainly through the intervention of the two guests, got more and more riotous to the point where Annie Walker rang the police who turned up as Cyril and Wesley rolled the pub piano out of the front door and on to the street, intending to carry on the party into the night. We eventually came to the conclusion that, if Emily Bishop was to stay in the Street, Ernie had to die,” Stevenson told the author Daran Little. “It did not seem fair to send her away when she [the actor Eileen Derbyshire] did not want to leave the show. The death of Ernie Bishop was to save Emily Bishop.” His other early sitcoms were The Last of the Baskets (1971-72), with Ken Jones as a factory worker who inherits a title and rundown mansion, and Arthur Lowe as his faithful servant, and How’s Your Father? (1974-75), the writer’s own generation-gap creation, which starred Michael Robbins and Arthur English.