Jilted John Meets Gail Potter...

Simply one of the best pop records. Not just of 1978. Not even just of the '70s. But EVER.

Jilted John hit the charts just as I was on the very brink of teenagehood in August 1978 and it fitted my mood exactly. My hormones hadn't waited for the magic "13", due in October, and my body and moods were already undergoing thoroughly grotty changes. And had been since I was eleven.

So John's rantings suited me perfectly. John was really one Graham Fellows, and this record was a spoof of the Punk/New Wave songs around at the time - a tremendously clever one which had enormous appeal to us comp school kids. John was a bit of a retard, and, it seemed, also a bit of a "girly" (fancy crying all the way to the chip shop!) but somehow he struck a chord with me and a lot of "der lads" I knew back then.

As was the fashion in the Punk era, the song had a great 1950s guitar riff, and the "in" way to dance to it was with a 1950s hand jive. But you had to wear a thoroughly bored, pissed off expression whilst you did it. "Postmodern irony" some call it. Back in 1978, I had no idea what "postmodern" meant (it was just something the likes of Melvin Bragg liked to waffle about) and, despite studying theories of post modernity in the '90s, I remain unconvinced that it's not just a load of written and verbal diarrhoea, fresh from the bowels of academia.

Whenever I hear Jilted John, I'm instantly reminded of the grotty, greasy, zit-ridden little geezer I was back in 1978. Miserable little sod I was. And I had a hair cut just like Terry Wogan's.

I'm also reminded of the mates I had, some of whom are still mates of mine today. And standing in the local shopping centre during the evenings with said mates, "gobbing off" at passers by. And picking my zits. And being bored a lot of the time. And hating everything.

They were good days.

And by the way: Gordon is a moron.

Coronation Street, New Year's Day 1979, and Gail Potter (Helen Worth) is waiting for Brian Tilsley at the pictures. But who is the dashing fellow beside her?

Yep, it's Graham Fellows, AKA Jilted John, making a cameo appearance in The Street as a young lad who, like Gail, has been "stood up". He offered to go into the flicks with her, but Gail was not impressed. She never did know what was good for her that girl - remember how her life turned out with Brian, and think just how different things could have been had she settled down with Jilted John...

Mind you, she was a funny lass even back then. I mean, just LOOK at the gloves she's wearing...

Coronation Street In The 1970s - Lifestyle Puzzles & Combating The Fear Of Nuclear War...

I loved Coronation Street in the early Bill Podmore era. When I was a very little boy, Coronation Street had seemed an absolute bore, full of moans and groans and Ken Barlow in a retro cravat, but in the mid-'70s two dramatic storylines attracted my attention: one was the murder of a battered wife in Len Fairclough's back room, the other the fire at the warehouse in 1975. The latter event occurred around the time of my tenth birthday. After the repercussions of the fire had been thoroughly explored, the Street seemed to be settling down into "nag, nag, moan, groan, moan" mode, when Bill Podmore arrived as producer and kapow - a wondrous new era of Elsie Tanner, "muriels" at the Ogdens' and lashings of drama and fun was suddenly upon us.

Sometimes, it seemed that the writers of the Street had certain characters living outside of their class and incomes. Coronation Street was situated in a rundown, slummy district and yet the Corner Shop was stocking bramble jelly, lobster bisque soup and olives (our real-life local shopkeeper was often heard to comment on the Corner Shop's at times absurdly up-market stock), Elsie was scoffing prawn salads (not cheap) and Deirdre Langton, in 1978, was trying to get husband Ray to buy her a microwave oven. Microwave ovens had been around since the '60s, but they were terribly expensive for the average pocket in the 1970s (and indeed early 1980s) and Ray's business was just emerging from great difficulties at the time. Deirdre didn't get her microwave oven - she and Ray split up instead, but my mother firmly believed back then that a real working class mother of the era, even one whose husband was in business in a small way, would not have dreamt of such a thing.

Although there was much talk in the programme about the hard times we lived in, my parents often felt that some of the characters were rather more moneyed/middle class than they ought to be. We lived in a pretty slummy district ourselves, although not quite as down-at-heel as Coronation Street, and there wasn't even a mention of microwaves or prawn salads round our way, so my parents felt qualified to judge.

The general consensus of opinion in my family was that the lifestyles of the well-off script writers were sometimes, just sometimes, filtering through and impairing the reality of the Street.

Despite this (and I knew my elders had a point), I thought that the show was GREAT and it did, on one occasion, help me to get over a very bad time.

The 1970s were in the thick of the Cold War years. As a kid, I was terrified that America and Russia would go to war and that would be the end for all of us. I had nightmares about it, sweated about it, cringed at the (I thought) scary-sounding theme tunes of World In Action and News At Ten. I closed my ears as narrators and newscasters on these two programmes began to speak, convinced that the end was nigh.

I wasn't alone. My mate Pete and I often discussed the prospect of nuclear war, and we knew many other kids who shared our worries. An adult neighbour of my mine had stocked up a load of pills, which she showed us. She said she would take them when nuclear war was imminent.

I used to feel sick with fear at times. Then, for me at least, Coronation Street stepped in!

It was August 1978 and Gail Potter (Helen Worth) and Suzie Birchall (Cheryl Murray) were making a salad in the kitchen at No. 11...

Gail: "Do you think there'll be another war?"

Suzie (flatly - in a what is the silly moo wittering about now? tone of voice) "Do I think there'll be another war?"

Gail: "Do yer?"

Suzie: "How should I know?"

Gail: "They're talkin' about it, aren't they?"

Suzie: "Are they? Who?!"

Gail: "The Americans and the Russians."

Suzie: "Is that right?"

Gail: "Don't you even listen when there's News At Ten on?"

Suzie: "Only the interestin' bits..."

Gail: "Sometimes I get quite worried about it, honest I do."

Suzie (continuing her own train of thought): "... a divorce or someone dyin' and leavin' a load of money."

Gail: "Don't you care if there's another war?"

Suzie: "I don't think about it much - it don't bother me."

Gail: "Yeah, but if they do."

Suzie: "Well, if they do they wouldn't ask me anyway, would they?"

Gail: "That's the whole point, innit, they wouldn't bother askin' you, they'd just blow us all up."

Suzie: "Well, if they do ask me, I'll tell them not to bother, all right? I'll say they need their heads bangin', they should kiss an' make up."

Gail: "I think it's quite scary if you think about it."

Suzie: "Then DON'T. Is there any salad cream?"

Gail's fears continued throughout the episode, but cynical Suzie and worldly Elsie Tanner, both more concerned with getting on with living than worrying themselves to a standstill over something that might not happen, and they couldn't stop if it did, had a great effect on me.

For the first time I began to realise that I shouldn't spend time paralysed with fear over the nuclear threat. I was too young to join protest marches, I wanted to do OK in my O' Levels and basically my screwing my life up was not going to help anything.

The other day, I saw the 1978 episode of Coronation Street again and gasped as my feelings from way back then came flooding back. I remembered how terrified I was back in the 1970s, and how this episode of a soap opera helped me to get on with living.

Nowadays, other things are there to worry us and the Cold War ice, which thawed rapidly in the mid-to-late 1980s, is just a memory. But I haven't forgotten the terrible fear I felt, and no matter how daft I find Corrie in the modern day, I still have feelings of gratitude for that one episode back in 1978...

"Yes, Mrs Walker!" The Rovers Return, 1970-1979

Signed photograph showing Doris Speed as Annie Walker, Mayoress of Weatherfield.

Inscription on the back of the photograph.

The Rovers Return Inn, Coronation Street, underwent several changes in the 1970s, not to mention copping its fair share of everyday comedy and drama.

In 1970, Arthur Leslie, who played landlord Jack Walker, died. Much loved as the kindly and long suffering husband of snobbish Annie, there was no chance of the role being recast. And so Jack died too - on a visit to his daughter Joan.

Annie remained and the decade contained a mixed bag of fortunes for her.

She disapproved when son Billy appointed “common” Bet Lynch as barmaid in 1970.

She became mayoress of Weatherfield to Alf Roberts’ mayor, and took elocution lessons in 1973.

She was terrorised by two hooligans who hid in the Rovers loos at closing time and emerged after the rest of the staff had gone home in 1975.

She fought against Renee Bradshaw’s plans to open an off-licence at the Corner Shop, and lost in 1976.

She learned to drive and bought a Rover 2000 car - also in 1976. Of course, having learned to drive, being Annie, she rarely did. She much preferred being chauffeured by Rovers potman Fred Gee!

She suffered a terrible trauma when a lorry crashed into the front of the Rovers in March 1979 after the driver had a heart attack at the wheel.

Doris Speed was a true original, basing her characterisation of Mrs Walker on her Aunt Bessie, who used to lead the family at charades at Christmas and had a withering look to bestow on those who mocked.

Unlike Mrs Walker, Doris was a staunch socialist and possessed of a splendid sense of humour, telling endless hilarious anecdotes, often against herself.

Annie, the snob supreme of the Street, could have been hated by viewers, but the excellent acting of Doris Speed, and some terrific scripts, prevented it. There were times when we could have cheerfully throttled her, but other times when we were deeply concerned for the character.

I remember me and my family, all sitting around the telly with lumps in our throats, feeling terribly sorry for Mrs Walker after her son Billy had laid into her over her interference in his relationship with Deirdre Hunt. Annie had interfered because she truly believed that Deirdre was not good enough for her son. Once she had been found out, nobody could fail to be affected by Doris Speed’s performance as Billy told Annie that he never wanted to see her again.

What was clear about Annie was that she never acted out of “cartoon baddie” motives. She sincerely believed that what she was doing was for the best.

When Bet upbraided Annie for opposing Renee Bradshaw’s application for an off-licence, accusing her of doing so out of grandiose pretentiousness and a selfish determination to keep the Rovers as top dog for drinkers in the neighbourhood, Annie was shocked and hurt that Bet and many of her regulars believed this to be true. She explained, with obvious sincerity, that she had simply acted out of love for the Rovers.

I don’t watch Coronation Street now, but I recall episodes some years ago when Maureen Lipman played an Annie Walker-style bar manageress. Rita Sullivan commented that the Rovers was no place for a snob like her.

Oh, Rita, I thought, what a short memory you have!

It was a snob that gave the Rovers its highly distinctive atmosphere and many of its finest storylines, from December 1960 to October 1983.

Cheers, Annie!

-

Two sides of a Rovers Return Newton and Ridley beermat, sent to me by Granada Televsion, c. 1978. These were in use in the programme in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Archie Street - The Bulldozers Move In...

This little terrace, seen here derelict in 1971, was the inspiration for the original Coronation Street architecture.

Back in 1960, with the show in its planning stages, members of the production team toured areas of Manchester looking for a real street which would help them to visualise and bring their fictional street to life. They happened upon Archie Street in the Ordsall district, and the street served as a rough template for the original Coronation Street exterior set (which was built in the Granada TV studios).

Archie Street was also used for some opening title and end credit shots, a small amount of outdoor filming, and was featured on the packaging of a series of early 1960s Coronation Street jigsaw puzzles. More here.

Archie Street was nicknamed "Coronarchie Street" by local inhabitants!

The heyday of the Victorian/Edwardian working class terraced house had apparently long gone by the start of the 1960s (however they became sought after again by the retro-loving "trendies" of the '70s), and many old streets in Manchester were swept away. The local council began moving the residents of Archie Street out in 1968, and the bulldozers arrived in 1971.

St Clement's Church, to the far left of the picture, remains and is still an integral part of the local community.

There is an Archie Street in Salford today, but it is not on the site of the original street, which now contains the modern houses of the St Clements Drive/Buckfield Avenue area.

Discovering the location of the original Archie Street took some detective work on my part. Surely it was on the site of the present day Archie Street in Salford? But I wasn't satisfied with that, having read in HV Kershaw's 1981 autobiography, The Street Where I Live, that Archie Street had been demolished to make way for high rise blocks of flats. There were none in the modern day Archie Street.

The discovery of St Clement's Church at the end of the street in the photograph provided me with the essential clue - was the church still there? It was, of course, and hey presto, the site of the original, inspirational Archie Street terrace was revealed - not, after all, occupied by high rise flats, although there are some not far away.

Incidently, the commercial property on the corner of the original Archie Street, used as a model for Coronation Street's corner shop, was actually an off-licence, and the street had another claim to fame: English footballer Eddie Colman, one of "Busby's Babes" who died in the 1958 Munich air crash, was born there.