In the first episode, Elsie Tanner (Pat Phoenix) tells her son Dennis to get a job and is rude about her daughter Linda’s legs: “I’m afraid you’ve got the Tanner side of the family to thank for that. Yer know, without a word of a lie, yer grandma Tanner were that bandy she couldn’t have stopped a pig in an entry.” Warren, who at first had a strained relationship with Granada, also struggled with drink and drugs. He would often run away, spending some time in a commune in San Francisco. He returned to the Street in the 1980s as a consultant and beloved oracle. He sat in on storyline meetings until not long before his death in 2016, aged 79. Noreen Kershaw (Tracy Spencer 1975; director 1996-2001): Tony and I used to speak on the phone every day. He’d tell me stories of how hard it was as a young gay man in Manchester in the early days, so I know that for him to be able to place characters like this into normal life on the show made him so proud.

Antony Cotton: I used to have lunch once a month with Tony at the Midland hotel and he’d tell me about these amazing women he’d written for and who they were based on. And there were the old battle axes he’d grown up with, but a lot of it was the men who’d been on the scene in the 50s and 60s. Antony Cotton (Sean Tully 2003-present ): My part didn’t exist until I wrote to the then producer Tony Wood. I found a blank card with a picture of a dog with sunglasses on it, and wrote: “Dear Tony, if you ever fancy having a homosexual skipping down the cobbles of Coronation Street, I’m your man. I’ve got my house, my own car, I don’t do drugs and best of all I’m cheap. Come on Tony, you know you want it.”William Roache: The fact there isn’t a tight community on the Street today reflects the fact you don’t get streets like that any more. Iain MacLeod (researcher, writer 2006-2013; series producer 2018-present) : It was a very frank debate, and has been a catalyst for meaningful and fairly sizeable shifts that will be coming soon. I sometimes get letters from people saying: “Everyone on my street is white – why can’t Coronation Street be white?” But I think we have a duty to almost over-represent so we reflect every corner of the British experience.

Kym previously told Loose Women that a return to Coronation Street isn't on the cards any time soon because she's too busy with other projects — including Waterloo Road and more of BBC One's Morning Live. Iain MacLeod: We don’t have Netflix budgets and nor should we. We should carry on focusing on character and story and being relevant to what’s going on outside people’s front windows. From the very beginning, the class snobbery that Warren fought against in 1960 has hung over the mythical squares, closes and streets of Britain’s soaps. Antony Cotton: When Sean burst on to the street there wasn’t a character like him. People said it was a stereotype, like John Inman in Are You Being Served?. But for me he wasn’t a stereotype – he was an archetype that a lot of people hadn’t seen.Katy Roberts, Head of Merch and Shops Delivery at Coronation Street, expressed excitement over the "retro" inspired range: "We are thrilled to be collaborating with Joanie on this retro Coronation Street clothing collection. Roache, whom Warren had spotted on stage, is the only member of the original cast still in the show. He has starred in more than 4,600 episodes, and had multiple relationships – most famously with his on-screen wife Deirdre (played by the late Anne Kirkbride ). Nigel Havers (Lewis Archer 2009-2019) : Snobbery has always been there, but I think the key to Corrie’s magic is that it has irony and that great sense of humour. It’s never afraid to send itself up, but treats its audience as grownups. In my career, it’s right up there with Chariots of Fire and the National Theatre.

Hayley Cropper (nee Patterson) arrived on the street in 1998 as a rare trans character in a popular drama. Soon, Tony Warren, together with the writer Daran Little , guided the Street’s belated embrace of gay characters, 40 years after gay men had tacitly inspired his scripts. John Finch (writer then producer 1961-1970): The key to everything was Tony Warren’s characters. Nobody, including myself, ever matched his characterisation. But I think he soon got tired and faded away when other writers took over his characters. I think it hurt him. This t-shirt is everything you've dreamed of and more. It feels soft and lightweight, with the right amount of stretch. It's comfortable and flattering for all. Abbott, who declines to name the leak, was a wide-eyed 24-year-old when he got a script-editing job on the Street, years before he created Touching Evil, State of Play and Shameless. William Roache: The love triangle had a colossal impact. Suddenly newspapers had reporters dedicated to soaps and all the soap magazines and awards were starting. They even flashed it up at Manchester United!

While there will be public events, parties and even a Coronation Concert taking place over the course of King Charles' coronation long weekend (which includes a bank holiday on Monday 8 May,) if you're after a keepsake to remember the occasion for years to come, you may be looking for Coronation memorabilia to mark the historic event. Whether you want to keep a souvenir for yourself or want to show it to your children and grandchildren in years to come, you may be after a piece to remind you of this monumental event in history. Sally Ann Matthews: This whole year has proved how important Coronation Street still is. I’m a huge telly addict and love to binge, but this year we’ve all been at home so much, with so much choice, and in such a stressful world it’s reassuring to turn on the TV and know that Corrie is still there.

The Battersbys had been trailed as “the family from hell”, with Danson cast as a wild child. Audiences hated them so much that 97% of people in a Teletext poll voted to have them evicted. Archie Street, which Warren had used as the visual inspiration for Coronation Street, was demolished in 1971 as part of the postwar urban clearances in Salford.Coronation Street celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2010 with a live episode featuring a devastating tram crash. The pandemic has forced a return to the show’s more modest origins, without parties or big stunts. Existing storylines will instead come to a head, including Yasmeen Metcalfe’s trial for attempted murder . Bill Roache will also star in tonight’s pre-recorded anniversary episode, which he plans to watch at home with his children. In 1964 , a producer called Tim Aspinall shattered the golden age by killing off several big characters, but also introducing the Street legends Stan and Hilda Ogden . It was the first of many off-screen upheavals. He passed the card to Tony Warren at a long-term story conference. He said: ‘What do you think of having this gay character?’ And Warren – and I’m not making this up – said: ‘Well, if we do there’s only one queen I want to play him and it’s Antony Cotton.” Then he opened the card. He’d seen me in Queer as Folk. Alison Sinclair: I was pregnant with twins when the phone went, and it was this guy saying he was calling from Downing Street. He wanted a preview of the Deirdre plot. I just laughed. I thought it was a radio station prank, but the prime minister wanted to be briefed.