It is the 50th anniversary of Coronation Street and there seems to be as much celebration and feasting as there was for the Queen’s own golden jubilee, in 2002.
It is the 50th anniversary of Coronation Street and there seems to be as much celebration and feasting as there was for the Queen’s own golden jubilee, in 2002. I have to declare a personal interest here. The inventor of Corrie is Tony Warren, who told my father that his book, The Uses of Literacy, had been one of his inspirations. It had shown working-class life to be as rich and complex as the lives lived by the middle and upper classes. This does not mean that it was in any sense superior, merely that it was as textured and as interesting as anything that happened to people with more money.
Since then, working-class life has been the staple of nearly all our soaps. Whereas in the US, prime-time soaps are generally about the rich (‘Ah don’t care if you are a billionaire, JR, ah’m gonna chase you into the bowels of hell to git what’s owin’ to me,’ for instance). In Australia, they tend to concern the middle classes. ‘Better sit down, Jolene. Got some bad news. Washing machine needs a new filter.’)
Looking at some of the celebratory shows that will be filling the networks, not least ITV, two things struck me. Warren got his women right. Ena Sharples, Bet Lynch, Elsie Tanner — to anyone growing up in the north they were familiar figures, easy to recognise, taking no nonsense, capable of running the family and bossing a whole community. In Corrie it’s the women who are tough, and the men who are the weaklings, prey to drink, gambling and more predatory females. Remember Gillian Duffy, the Rochdale woman Gordon Brown fell foul of during the election campaign this year? She could have stepped straight from the cobbles of Weatherfield.
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