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Denise's Corrie treat
31 March 2001 by John Mahoney
LITTLE Louis Welch was fast asleep in his Corrie cot when he met his mum's pals from the top TV soap yesterday. It was the newborn tot's first public bow since leaving hospital following a health scare.

Denise Welch, 42, who played sexy Rovers landlady Natalie Barnes, took her four-week-old son for lunch with Street mate Vicky Entwistle, alias Janice Battersby. Denise, 42, told Vicky of her fear when Louis was rushed to Liverpool's Alder Hey Hospital two weeks ago with a suspected tummy disorder, and of her joy when he was given the all-clear.

Husband Tim Healy collected mum and baby and drove them home to Wilmslow, Cheshire. One onlooker said: "Denise looks great. She's obviously very proud of Louis."

Corrie rape storyline under attack
30 March 2001 by Peter Simmonds
Ex-Corrie stars have blasted a storyline in the soap in which Toyah Battersby is raped. The plot will be shown by ITV over Easter.

Jean Alexander, 75, who played Hilda Ogden, said: "A lot of youngsters watch the show and rape is no fit subject for them. It's not necessary in the programme. "What the Street is desperate for is more humour. It's not a place you'd want to live in any more."

Peter Baldwin, 67, who was Derek Wilton, said: "It's not the programme I knew - the character of the show's gone."

Rovers barmaid Toyah (Georgia Taylor) will be attacked at the end of the episode screened on Good Friday, April 13. The rape occurs when she walks home alone after a date with Sam.

A Corrie spokeswoman said: "The rape and attack aren't shown. The story focuses on how Toyah comes to terms with what happens and the excellent counselling she has. "It's very frustrating that people who haven't seen the episodes jump on to a bandwagon and make these comments."

Street chiefs plot revenge
28 March 2001
CORONATION Street bosses want a new scriptwriter after a ratings lashing by EastEnders. And insiders say bosses are also considering giving Helen Worth's long-running character Gail the axe. The ratings gap is so wide ITV chiefs want a script "troubleshooter" to stir things up in Weatherfield.

Hundreds of thousands of extra viewers have tuned in to BBC1 soap EastEnders to watch the "Who Shot Phil Mitchell?" mystery unfold. Last week, it attracted 15.82million viewers to Corrie's 13.63million.

Romance for TV soap couple
28 March 2001 by Caroline Barrett

Emmerdale actress Anna Brecon has been secretly dating Coronation Street star Stephen Beckett for more than a year. Anna, who plays siren Lady Tara, and Stephen, who is the Street's new doctor Matt Ramsden, say they have never known love like it.

The couple met when starring in The Blue Room at a small theatre in Bolton. "We saw each other naked for the first time before we became intimately involved," Anna, 29, told Hello! magazine. "We both found being naked hugely liberating." Then, after spending the weekend away, Stephen, who plays doctor Matt in Coronation Street, said they were "inseparable".

Love for Anna and Stephen was cemented when she was involved in the Hatfield train crash. Stephen, who starred in The Bill as PC Mike Jarvis, said: "It made me realise how much I loved Anna." The couple have no plans to move in together. "We know we are incredibly lucky to have met and feel very positive about the future together," said Stephen.

Platt's it !!
27 March 2001 by Nigel Pauley

CORRIE veteran Gail Platt's future hung in the balance last night. Bosses are thinking of dumping actress Helen Worth after 26 years in the top ITV soap.

They have already drawn up plans to write out her character. One idea is for Gail to suffer a serious illness, such as breast cancer, and lose her brave fight for life. It is part of their plan to come up with strong storylines to break EastEnders' domination of the ratings.

ITV has told Coronation Street chiefs the show has lost its sparkle and must improve. It has trailed in the charts to EastEnders for nearly six months. But producer Jane McNaught is furious that the plan to kill off Gail has leaked out - and has hinted she may change her mind and give her a reprieve. A Street spokeswoman insisted last night: "No decision regarding Gail's future has been made."

To make matters worse for the show, two stars - Jacqueline Pirie, who plays Linda Baldwin, and Julie Hesmondhalgh (Hayley Cropper) - are expecting babies and will be taking a break later in the year.

Helen, 50, whose character has transformed from giggly teenager to granny over the years, is thought to know of the plot. A source revealed: "Gail could go out with a bang, but it was felt it might be more shocking if she was to suffer a terminal illness, such as breast cancer. "Viewers would be gripped by her brave fight and an important message could be put across."

Gail, first seen on the show in 1975, has been married three times - twice to Brian Tilsley, played by Chris Quinten, who was killed outside a club. Her second marriage, to male nurse Martin Platt (Sean Wilson), hit the rocks when he had an affair. Gail's last major storyline came last year, when her 14-year-old daughter Sarah-Louise (Tina O'Brien) had a baby.

Corrie hit by Foot & Mouth crisis
26 March 2001
FOOT-and-mouth has hit Coronation Street.

Writers on the ITV soap had created a political storyline for May's local elections. But they may be cancelled, forcing last-minute script changes.

A source said: "We'll look silly if our election goes ahead and the real ones don't."

G-Wizz to close
26 March 2001

Granada is to pull the plug on its portal and Internet service provider G-whizz-net on Wednesday, after just twelve months. Last year Granada spent around £4 million launching the brand, but it will close in two days encouraging users to subscribe to BT Internet. Granada will now channel its energies towards programme-related websites and will work closely with Carlton to build up itv.co.uk

BBC in £ 1/2 million battle for Denise Wealth
25 March 2001
ITV and BBC bosses are locked in a bidding war over Coronation Street star Denise Welch, I can reveal. New mum Denise, 42, who gave birth to son Louis at the beginning of the month, has been offered five major new projects and is now deciding whether to defect to the Beeb or to stick with ITV. Corrie bosses have left the door open for a comeback as her popular character, Rovers landlady Natalie Barnes, too.

My insider tells me: "Denise literally has her pick of roles. Actors like Ross Kemp have made the jump from soap to general drama and both BBC and ITV bosses want to do the same with Denise. "If she defects she could probably command a huge pay rise and pick up around £500,000. The money's on the table if she wants it." The showbiz pal added: "I'm delighted that Denise has faced none of the post natal depression that plagued her after the birth of her first child Matthew."

Baby Louis had a health scare last week when Denise and actor husband Tim Healy, 48, rushed him to Liverpool's Alder Hey Hospital near their home for tests. But he's safe and well after getting the all clear. Denise's pal tells me: "Louis was just having a few problems feeding, so Denise and Tim panicked like new parents do."

Soap wars are making us sad
25 March 2001
TOP psychologist Dr Raj Persaud has furiously attacked the bitter TV soap ratings war - for turning Britain into a nation of depressives. The This Morning shrink says EastEnders, Brookside and Coronation Street are too gloomy. He adds: "Research indicates that people's understanding of the frequency of abortions, divorce and adultery is distorted by watching soaps. They think these bad things happen a lot more frequently than they actually do in real life."

EastEnders viewers are currently waiting to discover who shot Phil Mitchell while Mike Baldwin and Ken Barlow are involved in a bitter custody battle in Corrie Street over Mike's son Adam. Dr Raj warns BBC2's talkshow Esther: "Soap writers can make people unnecessarily pessimistic." But BBC head of drama Mal Young said: "It's not true that people believe what they see on soaps. That's insulting."

Former soap star's 'skimpy' new TV role
22 March 2001

Former Coronation Street star Jane Danson says the outfits in her new TV role are too skimpy. The actress, who plays nurse Samantha Docherty in ITV's medical drama A&E, says she hopes show bosses will revamp the uniform. Danson, who played Corrie's Leanne Battersby, says the skirts are too short. She said: "I'm campaigning to wear trousers in the next series."

The 22-year-old said leaving the Street after three years, had been a "huge and difficult decision". And she admitted her new role would not appear vastly different to Leanne to viewers at the beginning of the series, although that would change as the series progressed. To research the role of Sam, whom she described as "feisty, strong and confident", she went along to a real accident and emergency unit. But Danson admitted filming the series had not all been plain sailing - she struggled to measure blood pressure and talk to camera at the same time.

The series, which also stars Martin Shaw, is filmed in Manchester, just a few hundred yards away from the Coronation Street set.

Street's link to Popstar Suzanne
21 March 2001
POPSTARS' Suzanne Shaw nearly missed out on chart glory - because she almost landed a part in TV's biggest soap.

The 19-year-old missed out on the plum role of Tyrone's girlfriend on Coronation Street by a whisker. But five months later she spotted the Popstars ad - and the rest is history.

Her dad, Vinnie, said: "She was so disappointed not to get the Corrie part. She thought she might really be in with a chance after she got down to the last two or three. "I said, 'It may be a blessing in disguise. Something better could be just around the corner'. And boy, was it!"

He says Suzanne's success came as no surprise to him. She was a star from the age of 18 months, when Vinnie bought a video camera and let her watch herself on screen. He said: "She saw herself on telly and obviously thought that's the way it should be."

After small parts in Holby City and City Central, as a corpse, came the ill-fated Coronation Street audition and one for Emmerdale. Underneath her bubbly, confident exterior she is, says dad, a sensitive girl who needed a shell to protect her from the rejections.

He said: "She never thought she'd get a job she went for. She disciplined herself not to get carried away - but she was a bit frustrated over Coronation Street. "But I remember when Popstars started to happen. I told her I had a good feeling about this one. 'Don't say that dad,' she groaned. "It was as if she couldn't allow herself to feel lucky."

TV soaps "ruin kids"
19 March 2001
EASTENDERS, Brookside, Emmerdale and Coronation Street were yesterday blamed for increasing violence and disorder in schools.

Ralph Surman of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers said: "These shows teach young people nothing except poor relationships and violence are part of everyday life. "I see many youngsters whose behaviour now mirrors soap characters."

Corrie stars in lake powerboat horror
18 March 2001

CORONATION Street stars SIMON GREGSON and SUE CLEAVER were almost killed in a horrific boat accident.

Simon (Steve McDonald) and Sue (taxi controller Eileen Grimshaw) were enjoying a day on Lake Windermere with LEE BOARDMAN, who played evil drug pusher Jez Quigley. But the powerboat Simon was driving spun wildly out of control - and the three were knocked unconscious.

Sue says: "Simon invited me and Lee for a trip on his boat. Simon tried a sharp turn and we hit a wave as though we'd slammed into a brick wall. I smacked my head and so did the other two. We were out cold for a couple of minutes." Luckily, the three regained consciousness before they veered into any further danger.

A Street pal said: "They were all very lucky but there was no real harm done. "It could have been a lot worse and they were all pretty shaken up but it hasn't put them off powerboating at all. Simon and Lee are such good mates and they love going up to the Lakes to escape from the stress of work. "They were back in the boat again the following weekend."

SUE NICHOLLS, who plays Audrey Roberts in Corrie, tells me she's planning a little lift and tuck around her eyes. She says: "I'm certainly considering plastic surgery. My eyes are a bit heavy and make me look tired. "Trouble is I've got the money - but not the time."

Adam plans Rovers return
18 March 2001
ADAM RICKITT is in talks with Corrie bosses about a return as heart- throb Nicky Tilsley. He says: "I never wanted to be a pop pin-up."

Thank goodness for that then. His last single only just scraped into the Top 100.

Coronation Street's 5,000th script auctioned for Comic Relief
16 March 2001
Coronation Street fans have until Sunday to snap up the script from the 5,000th episode of the soap. The historic script is being auctioned online by This Morning to raise funds for Comic Relief. It was signed by all the Coronation Street cast members.

Bids can be made at www.eBay.co.uk by clicking on the charity icon. Bidding closes at 4pm on March 18.

Street baby boom
15 March 2001
CORONATION Street star Julie Hesmondhalgh is expecting a baby - thanks to a comfy red chair. The actress plays the soap's first transsexual, Hayley Cropper, who can't have children of her own. But off-screen, Julie, 31, fell pregnant only weeks after falling in love with Tetley beer ads actor Ian Kershaw.

And insiders on the Manchester-based show reckon it's because she shared the same Street chair as two other stars who joined the baby club. Denise Welch, 42, the former Rovers Return landlady Natalie Barnes, gave birth to her second son, 7lbs 3oz Louis, two weeks ago at a hospital in Salford, Greater Manchester. Denise, married to Auf Wiedersehn Pet star Tim Healy, quit the show after finding she was in the family way. Last week, Jacqueline Pirie, 25, who plays scheming Linda Baldwin, revealed she is also expecting just months after meeting her new fireman boyfriend Simon Chadwick.

All three girls have used the chair in Granada TV's Green Room, where the cast rehearse their lines. A senior cast member said: "It's amazing. It's quite a hat trick."

Julie moved into Ian's home at Broadbottom, Greater Manchester, only weeks after meeting him last December. Soon afterwards, he escorted her to the Street's 40th birthday party and then had a romantic New Year's Eve in Paris. She learned she was pregnant last month while they were on holiday at Santa Barbara in California. The baby is due in October.

Last night, delighted Julie smiled and waved as she left the studios on the arm of her screen hubby, actor David Neilson. Clutching a bouquet of flowers, David, who celebrated his 52nd birthday two days ago, jokingly pushed out his stomach. Julie said: "I'm thrilled to bits. It's wonderful."

Millions of viewers have seen Hayley and Roy go through hell to get official permission to be foster parents. They won through and looked after 15-year-old Jackie Mosley, played by schoolgirl Rebecca Bellamy. The TV couple are now due to have a second foster child.

But the real-life twist has left script- writers facing their biggest-ever headache. Last night, a Street source laughed: "This is one problem we've never had before. At the moment, no one knows what's going to happen. "Obviously Hayley can't have a baby and I think you can safely say a miracle birth is out of the question."

But the job of weaving the pregnancy into the script will most likely fall to the costume designers rather than the writers. A spokeswoman for the soap explained: "Hayley sits behind machines a lot in the factory and wears a tabard - we will just have to get her a bigger anorak to cover the bump." She added: "Everyone here is thrilled for them."

Chairs chuck
15 March 2001 by John Mahoney

CORRIE'S baby boom struck for the third time yesterday...and it's all being blamed on a comfy red chair where the girls learn their lines. Julie Hesmondhalgh, who plays sex-swap Hayley Cropper in the soap, is expecting her first child. A senior Coronation Street cast member said last night: "A transexual having a baby! And I thought we'd seen everything in this show!"

Thrilled Julie, 30, discovered she was pregnant during a two-week holiday in Santa Barbara, California. The baby is due in October. And the actress told Corrie chiefs it was all down to a seat at Granada TV's Manchester studios. She realised she had been rehearsing her script on the same sofa as two of her Weatherfield pals, who have also become pregnant. Jacqueline Pirie, 25, who plays Linda Sykes, last week discovered she was expecting her second child in September. Two weeks ago, 42-year-old Denise Welch, who quit as Rovers boss Natalie Barnes to have her second child, gave birth to a son, Louis.

Julie, who has been living with her actor boyfriend Ian Kershaw for three months, told a pal: "Everyone thinks it's hilarious that we girls share the same seat in rehearsals."

In the Street, Julie's character Hayley and husband Roy have struggled to become foster parents. Yesterday, David Nielson, 44, who plays Roy, joined in the baby hysteria - by leaving work with a cushion stuffed up his jumper.

Helen Worth - My Story (part 3)
14 March 2001

I Sat Down In A Comfy Chair In The Green Room And An Awful Silence Fell... I Was In Ena's Seat

The Helen Worth Story: Agony On My First Day In Corrie

HELEN WORTH had successfully negotiated the famous cobbles, delivered her lines without a single fluff and been terribly polite to the Coronation Street producer who had given her the most important job of her life. The shy young woman breathed a sigh of relief before collapsing into a comfy chair in the green room between takes on her first day on the Corrie set. And that was her big mistake.

"This awful silence descended," recalls the actress, who has now notched up an incredible quarter century on the soap. "Then someone came over and told me it might be better if I moved. That was Vi Carson's seat. I was horrified, and I just wanted to crawl away and hide."

Her faux-pas cost her dearly. For the next three months, Helen - now one of the most long-serving and respected cast members on the street - didn't dare even go into the green room. Instead, between filming, she perched on a radiator outside the door. "It was the most terrifying experience walking into Coronation Street. I certainly knew my place. "I sat on that radiator for three months, too scared to even go in. "Working with the likes of Vi Carson and Pat Phoenix was quite scary. "They were wonderful and used to glide into the studio like superstars, all mink coats and big hats. "They didn't like my jeans and felt standards had to be kept high."

Coronation Street couldn't have come into Helen Worth's life at a more appropriate time. Just a couple of years before she landed the job, Helen's mother - her mentor and best friend - had died in a car accident, devastating Helen's life. She was just 20 at the time. The Corrie role, secured after years of working in rep and radio, provided a stability and close-knit community that she enjoyed.

Moreover, the strong female characters who so terrified her at first quickly became like a second family. "There was, and still is, a particular Coronation Street woman. A really strong character who carries the whole family and is the very foundation of the community. "I saw that in women like Vi Carson, Doris Speed and Pat Phoenix."

And it was a world where the young actress was eventually accepted. Once she had served her dues, the young actress was welcomed into the fold. "It was the warmest feeling. As well as being brilliant professional role models, they became really good friends. "I couldn't have asked for a more supportive environment. I used to be thrilled just to be a part of it. "Every morning I'd watch Vi Carson arrive. She would come in with her hair immaculately done - then she'd put on that famous hairnet. "She was an institution and here was I, little Helen Wigglesworth, sharing the same set."

These days, of course, it is Helen who is regarded as one of the Street's institutions. Her tiny dressing room is on the ground floor of the Granada studios. Although she has homes in two cities, it is in here that Helen spends much of her time when she is working in Manchester.

It is a tradition on the Street for cast members to decorate their dressing rooms, painting the walls a favourite colour and adding bits of furniture from home. Tellingly, Helen has resisted this for over a quarter of a century, and her little room remains strangely impersonal. "I suppose I'm a bit superstitious about the whole thing," she reveals. "I keep thinking that I must do it up - but then I get cold feet. "I worry that the minute I paint the walls, they will ask me to leave." But she laughs at suggestions that she is a similar inspiration for today's young Corrie stars as Vi Carson was for her all those years ago.

Although her screen daughter Tina O'Brien, who plays Sarah-Louise, insists that she is. "I think the atmosphere now is more healthy," says Helen. I'd be horrified if Tina thought like that about me."

In fact, Helen seems determined not to take herself too seriously. As a youngster she never imagined she would end up in Coronation Street. As a teenager, she was obsessed with Shakespeare. Her big dream was to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. But she is honest about the fact that she would never have made the grade. "I wasn't good enough to reach that level," she admits. "I went to drama school at 15 in London. I was just this little northern girl who was OK at a few things. "All the other girls knew so much more than me. I stood out like a sore thumb."

But Helen adapted. Before long, the Yorkshire/Lancashire accent had gone and she had acquired the clipped tones of her Southern counterparts. Ironically, she still speaks in that voice, only putting on a northern accent when her role in Corrie demands it.

Helen's years in the soap have been good to her. She acknowledges that this is why she has stayed for so long. "People have this idea that I must be terribly ambitious and I've been described as a workaholic, but I am not. "I have just cruised along, letting life happen. The simple truth is that I only joined the Street for eight episodes, but they still wanted me after that. It was a nice feeling. "It is fair to say that when you are in a programme for this length of time there are ups and downs. "Sometimes, in a quiet time for Gail, I did wonder if this was the end of the road for Gail. Was I being put out to grass? "When the Tina pregnancy storyline came along, I couldn't have been happier, although it was quite scary too. "You always doubt your ability to do the writing justice. "One day I might have yearned to go on the stage with the RSC, Corrie gives me a security that I would never have had in any other form of this industry. "It's weird, because you don't go into this game to be looked after or kept financially secure. "But I found that I loved that."

Now she leads a very comfortable life indeed, dividing her time between her Manchester flat and the London apartment she calls home. And she would be the first to admit that it is a very nice life indeed.

Her screen character may be famous for her dowdy image and put-upon manner, but Helen is a complete contrast. "I do like the nice things in life. "I love shopping in Bond Street and eating out in the best restaurants - Coronation Street allows me to do that. "If I could have my way, I'd do a television series on the best restaurants in the world - and believe me I know them! "I love the sort of world I live in, and it's a world that my parents never knew. "I might work in Manchester, but London is my city. I can go to the theatre and the ballet and be in the middle of everything. "I just love it."

And giving up the role that has made her famous would jeopardise that lifestyle. "I have no plans to leave Coronation Street just yet. What would I do? I'm not sure I would want to start all over again somewhere else."

But there are other advantages too. More personal ones. Coronation Street has given Helen a confidence that isn't just confined to her work. "A lot of actors are quite insecure, deep down. This profession definitely gives you a mask to wear," she reveals. "When I walk into a room at an official function it is easy because I don't have to be Helen Worth, the person - I can be Helen Worth, the actress. "I have something to hide behind."

Surprisingly, for someone who comes across as so assured, Helen has a definite shyness. As a child, she had to psyche herself up to perform. "I remember going on stage in London for the first time at the age of 12 and I threw up in the wings. "I was absolutely terrified. "Every time I went on it was like that. I had to open this door and every night I'd think my hand was freezing and I wouldn't be able to move. But, somehow, I did. "And when I did it was the most fantastic feeling. It sounds cliched but there was this immediate warmth from the audience and it just wrapped itself around me. "The heat of the lights somehow added to it. "I felt safe, secure and as if I could do anything. That feeling has never left me."

For the record...
14 March 2001
A READER thought that the 5,000th episode of Coronation Street, transmitted last Sunday, was not the 5,000th episode at all (The Look, Soap Box).

He believed that the strike of 1979 made it only the 4,992nd episode. But Coronation Street's story producer Di Burrows says that it was episode 5,000, even taking into account all irregularities over the past 40 years - including "missing" or untransmitted episodes and extra episodes such as the Brighton Bubble, which were allocated their own special programme numbers.

Graham writes: Although this might be the 'official' line Granada are sticking to, the truth is somewhat different. Disregarding all the irregularities listed above, only last month Granada renumbered episode 4984 (12 Feb 2001) to 4985 to ensure the '5000'th episode fell on a Sunday when they could schedule in an hour-long episode.

Those missing episodes in full...

'Missing' episode	Remarks
1000	Never existed; Granada changed programme numbering from P288/999 (Ep 999) to P694/1 (Ep 1001)
1027	1026 & 1027 were edited into one episode as Doris Speed was taken ill during filming
1503	Episode never made (June 75 - no explanation)
1504	Episode never made (June 75 - no explanation)
1505	Episode never made (June 75 - no explanation)
1549	Episode never made (Nov 75 - no explanation)
	Wed 8 August: Episode 1936 is not shown in Thames region due to technician's strike. This rapidly spreads nationwide and episode 1937 is not shown until Wed 24 October 1979. Despite reports to the contrary, no episodes were re-edited and no episodes were lost (although 1936 was never shown in the Thames region)
3717	Episode never made (June 94 - no explanation)
	15 April 1996 Granada adopts new episode numbering system with '4000'th episode. P694/3000 becomes 4000 (actually P694/4000, but 4000 is the almost universally used designation). No miss-match occurs as a result of this re-numbering.
4984	Episode 4984 (12 Feb 2001) renumbered 4985 to ensure the '5000'th episode falls on a Sunday when an hour-long episode can be scheduled.
	If you have any additional information, I'd be grateful for any help - please mail me Graham

Tipsy girl beat me up
14 March 2001 by Ian Trueman

CORONATION STREET star Jimmi Harkishin was left battered and bruised after being whacked by a boozy woman fan. The sozzled telly addict laid into Jimmi, 36, who plays Dirty Dev Alahan, for refusing to go to a club with her to celebrate her birthday.

Jimmi was taken by surprise when the girl - aged around 19 - hit him. The Corrie star, attacked in a Manchester bar, said: "This girl came and sat opposite me. "She was a bit the worse for wear. She talked for about five or 10 minutes. It was getting really boring. "So I went and got a drink and then sat down opposite her. I didn't want to be rude. "Then I had another five minutes of 'I've seen you in Medics, East Is East, South Of The Border, and now you are my favourite character in Coronation Street'."

He added: "She said it was her birthday and was I coming across the road to this other club? "I said maybe later. But she said 'Why can't you come now? Are you arrogant or too good for me?' I told her it might be a good idea to go and sit with her friends. "She kept insisting that I answered her question. "In the end I said probably a bit of both.

"She got up, turned round, then turned back and smacked me in the face. "It knocked me for six. My eyes were watering. I was seeing stars and my nose was bleeding all over my Dolce and Gabbana shirt."

Boots & Granada switch on the nation's Wellbeing
13 March 2001

The Boots Company PLC and Granada plc will tomorrow (Wednesday 14 March) unveil The Wellbeing Network - an integrated digital TV channel (Wellbeing) and website (www.wellbeing.com) which offers advice and information on health, parenting, fitness, nutrition and looking good.

The network will launch with Steve Redgrave who will be live on the TV and internet discussing wellbeing issues. Plus, Health Secretary, Alan Milburn talks to the channel about topical wellbeing issues.

The Wellbeing TV channel, on-air for 12 hours a day, will be presented by celebrities such as Anna Raeburn, Wendy Turner, Toyah Wilcox and Coleen Nolan and supported by a resident panel of experts including GPs, osteopaths, paediatricians and make-up artists! Viewers will be able to get advice, hints and tips on a topic, talk to the presenters live on air via 'phone or e-mail, and continue a discussion on wellbeing.com. With over two thirds of live content, the TV channel will be able to respond quickly to topical health issues.

Viewers can also access the TV channel through wellbeing.com.

Wellbeing.com has exclusive on-line access to Dr Foster - an independent source of previously unavailable information on the comparable services and standards of hospitals and other healthcare providers in the UK and Ireland. The website also carries daily features on topical wellbeing issues and publishes information on hundreds of conditions from material endorsed by the BMA. Wellbeing.com features an 'ask a pharmacist' service - a Boots pharmacist answers queries on-line.

Wellbeing.com also offers an 'e-store' featuring 10 000 items including Boots best-selling ranges and non-Boots products such as nursery and fitness equipment. Using Boots extensive retail experience, the 'store' is designed to be a great shopping experience from start to finish. Customers can see if an item is in stock before they purchase, and can track their order right through to delivery. Customers with a Boots Advantage Card will be awarded four points in the pound, just as if they shopped in a store.

The Wellbeing 100

From launch, The Wellbeing Network will follow the lives of 100 ordinary people who have pledged to improve their wellbeing with The Wellbeing Network. Their progress will be followed by the TV channel and continued on the internet site which will feature additional footage and give the chance for viewers to talk to the Wellbeing 100.

Advanced technology bringing greater interactivity

As technology becomes increasingly advanced, Wellbeing will exploit new media channels, increase interactivity and offer more personalised services. The Wellbeing Network has the potential to offer users the ability to download and store programmes for viewers to watch at their leisure. It will also offer TV shopping, the facility to book appointments on-line with practitioners, and send advice and information direct to mobile phones and palm pilots.

Helen Worth - My Story (part 2)
13 March 2001

Mum loved me dearly and wanted the best ..I'm just so sorry she did not live to see me make it in the Street

GLADYS Wigglesworth sat back in her armchair and nodded at the television screen where a pretty young actress was making her debut in Coronation Street. She tapped eight-year-old Helen - the daughter she adored - on the knee and told her: "One day, you could do that, you know." Helen Worth never forgot that chance remark.

It became one of the biggest regrets of her life that her mother - killed in a car accident when Helen was just 20 - never saw her make her own debut in the Street, never mind go on to become one of its most popular characters. Gladys died, aged 49, just three years before her only daughter - who had by then acquired a surname short enough to fit on a theatre programme - secured the part of Gail Potter, a role that would provide fame, fortune and opportunity beyond Gladys' wildest dreams.

The fact that her mother hasn't been there to share her success is something which still causes immense sadness. "The one person I really wanted to tell when I got the part of Gail was my mother," recalls Helen. "She would have been so thrilled. More excited than me. "She'd been there all the way - at the dance classes, holding my hand before the competitions, putting on her best suit to take me to London for auditions. "But when I finally made it, she wasn't there to share it with me. I'd never missed her more."

It is impossible to underestimate the influence Gladys Wigglesworth had on her young daughter. The Yorkshirewoman had always wanted to go on the stage herself, as had her mother before her. But in their day, it simply wasn't done. Instead, Gladys nurtured her daughter's obvious talent for entertaining.

Today - having reached the 50th birthday her mother didn't see - Helen credits her with everything. And she talks about her with a touching warmth. "People might look at our situation and assume she was the archetypal pushy mother, but she wasn't at all. She was just someone who loved me dearly and wanted the best for me. Without her, I don't know what I would have become. She saw that spark of something and helped me develop it. "I think she wanted to make sure I grasped the opportunities that she wasn't able to. "Mum wanted me to get out of Morecambe and see the world. She wanted me to have more than she had had. "She opened up the rest of the world to me. And I never had the chance to thank her for it."

Although she has never spoken publicly about her early years - this is the first interview Helen has ever given about her personal life - she had a remarkable childhood. By the age of 12 she was self-sufficient, living in London away from her family, and starring in a West End production every night after school.

But greasepaint was in her blood even earlier than that. When she was two, Helen moved from Yorkshire to Morecambe, Lancs, with her parents and her older brother Neville. Some years later, the family would be joined by Komla Kpikpitse, a teenager from Ghana who came to stay when the boarding department of his school closed down. Komla stayed with the Wigglesworths for years and was considered one of the family.

Gladys started taking in lodgers when Helen was quite young, with her clientele drawn mainly from entertainers involved in the local summer season. "I never remember less than 10 people in the house," she recalls. "There were magicians and singers and dancers and ventriloquists and puppeteers. For a little girl, it was wonderful. "It didn't seem exotic or different at the time. It was just life. "And my mother just loved it. She was enchanted by the whole thing. One of my abiding memories of Mum is her laughter and enjoyment of life."

Helen had already started dance classes by the age of three, after a doctor told her mother it was the best treatment for her pigeon toes. By five she was having three classes a week and had already set her sights on a career in entertainment. But her mother was always by her side. "We did it together. She would come and watch. She'd tell me if she thought I could do something better. "But mostly she'd just tell me how wonderful I was. If I didn't win a competition she'd just put her arms around me and tell me it didn't matter - to her I was always the best. "That mattered. This business is all about rejection. I came to cope with it because my mother was there."

The bond between mother and daughter was immense. As the trophies started piling up in the living room, so opportunities opened up further and further afield. Gladys started taking her daughter to London for contests. "She had this green suit that she used to wear with a blue blouse. She called it her 'travelling suit'. It was the best thing she owned. "She'd wear it when she was taking me to an audition. I thought it was all terribly exciting. Like a big adventure. I think Mum loved it, too. "My dad was also involved. He would drive us to auditions and sit and wait while Mum and I went in."

But even by the age of 10, Helen's talent for dance and drama was taking her out of the world her mother knew. The big break came when Helen was invited to London to audition for a part in a stage production of The Sound Of Music. We were so out of our depth," she recalls. "We'd been told to go to the Palace Theatre so we turned up and waited outside. "It never occurred to us to actually go in - Mum reckoned someone would come and get us. We must have stood there for three hours. I was so nervous that I kept having to run down to Leicester Square tube station to use the loo. "Five hundred other girls must have trooped in and out before someone asked us what we were doing and ushered us in. "Then Mum sat herself down in the auditorium while I got up and sang."

To her great surprise, Helen got the part. It was, however, a bitter-sweet success. Now aged only 12, she would have to leave home and move to London. And suddenly her mother wasn't there any more. "Looking back, it was such a young age to leave home, especially because it was moving from Morecambe - a tiny place - to London. "I was so very homesick. I can remember being in tears as I bent over the sink in my lodgings, trying to wash my hair on my own. It was down to my waist and Mum had always done it for me. Suddenly, I had to do it all on my own."

The comprehensive school Helen was sent to in London was also a massive departure from her genteel private school back home. Within weeks of her arrival she found herself threatened by other children because of her friendship with a black girl in her class. "That sort of mixing just wasn't done then, and I remember being threatened with sharpened steel combs. But I'd been brought up in a house where everyone was welcome - there could be people from abroad, gay people, black people. I knew nothing of this sort of intolerance."

Undeterred, she was determined to stick with her friend. Still, she didn't tell her parents of the incident. "I didn't want to worry them - I knew they had enough to cope with. "In many ways, the separation was worse for them than it was for me," she recalls. "Children adapt. Whatever life throws at them, they come to regard it as normal.

I WAS working from as far back as I can remember. I had my own Post Office account at 12 and I was responsible for looking after myself. "By the time I was 16, when I was at drama college in London, I was travelling around on the last train at night after shows, completely on my own. "There would be flashers on the train. You would see all sorts. "But I regarded this as normal. It was just something to get along with. "And I knew I could go home at any minute - but I didn't want to. When I got on that stage everything changed. I just loved the audience."

Every single day Gladys wrote to her daughter and told her how proud she was. "I'd rush down in the morning to get her letters," she remembers. "They were what kept me going." For years, Helen kept those early letters. She carried them with her through drama college, rep work and theatre jobs.

Then one day she threw them out. Within months, her mother was dead. "That is one of my biggest regrets. If I could have anything back, I would ask for those letters. I'd give anything just to be able to read them again. "They were such a big part of my life. They were all I had of her. "I still have a few cards with her signature on which I look at from time to time, but the letters were something else. They were a testament of her love."

Helen was 20 when her mother was knocked over and killed while out walking the dog. Working in Northampton at the time, she was the last member of the family to know. Something that still rankles. "I'd been at a party the night before and no-one had been able to get hold of me. They were frantic and I was out enjoying myself. "It was a friend who eventually told me. I went to pieces. "But I got through it because there wasn't any option. My mother brought me up to be strong. I think I coped."

Now Helen is sometimes startled by the physical resemblance between herself and her mother. The greatest compliment anyone could give her, she reveals, is that she is like her mum. But the pain of the loss is still there. "I miss my mother every day. Something will happen and I'll want to tell her about it. I know she is looking down on me - but it would still be nice to just share those little things."

And the big things. When Helen's marriage collapsed in 1995 and her partner of 21 years moved out of the family home, she had never needed her mother more. "I used to wish she was there," she says quietly. "I was in my forties, but I still needed my mum. "She would have just put her arms around me. That would have made it better."

Lochside wedding for Street star
13 March 2001
CORONATION Street star Jacqueline Pirie is set to wed the father of her unborn child in a romantic Loch Lomond ceremony next month. Pirie, 25, who plays maneater Linda Baldwin in the country's top soap, has only been dating fireman Simon Chadwick, 31, for a few months.

Pirie - who has had a string of disastrous relationships - discovered she was pregnant to the Manchester fireman only weeks after they met at a nightclub. The couple will marry in Cameron House on the banks of Loch Lomond with a traditional Scottish service on April 10.

The hotel last night denied the ceremony was taking place there. But the man who is set to marry the couple, the Rev Ian Miller of Bonhill Parish Church, Dumbarton, confirmed the wedding would go ahead. And the jovial minister admitted: "I didn't have a clue who Linda was when she came on the phone but she said she was an actress and we took it from there." The minister said he was suggested to the couple by the hotel and added: "She probably asked them to give her a nice tame minister she could speak to. I'm sure it was as simple as that."

Pirie has already moved into Chadwick's semi-detached home in Gately, Cheshire, with her three-year-old daughter Alex.

Helen Worth - My Story (part 1)
12 March 2001

CORONATION Street star Helen Worth has spoken for the first time of how her world fell apart when her husband left her. The actress, known to millions as long-suffering Gail Platt, was devastated by actor Michael Angelis's confession that after 21 years he had found someone else. Today, in a searing interview, Helen reveals that she shouted and screamed when Michael admitted his betrayal. She recalls how the couple battled in vain to save their marriage, which had been considered one of the strongest in showbusiness. And she tells how she struggled to put her life back together again. "I felt as though I was drowning,'' she says.

It had been perfect for 21 wonderful years... when it ended I felt lost. I couldn't function.

WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Coronation Street's Helen Worth talks for the first time about her marriage break-up sadness

IT WAS the performance of her life - so convincing that no one knew it was an act. For almost a year Helen Worth dragged herself out of bed and forced herself to go to work with a smile - determined that no one should know she was falling apart inside.

The Coronation Street actress had never been one to wear her heart on her sleeve. Personal problems, she reckoned, should remain just that. So, when her husband, whom she had been with for 21 years, sat her down and told her he had met someone else, Helen insisted on carrying on as normal.

Not even her closest family knew that her marriage, the foundation on which her life was built, was slowly but surely collapsing around her. "It was the longest year of my life," she reveals. "Looking back, it seems a bit of a blur. I was all over the place, determined to convince the rest of the world - and myself, I suppose - that things would work themselves out."

But they didn't. While she threw herself into her work, confining her tears to the dressing room, her husband, actor Michael Angelis, continued his affair with divorcee Jennifer Khalastchi.

The disintegration of what had been regarded as one of the strongest marriages in showbiz was inevitable. And the ensuing pain broke Helen's heart. Until now, the actress, known for her role as Gail Platt in the Street, has never spoken of her private life. Although one of the most famous faces on British television, she has consistently shunned the limelight.

She has spent the past three years trying to come to terms with her loss. Today, just weeks after her 50th birthday, she finally feels confident enough to speak out about her struggle to rebuild her life. And she can't quite believe she is doing it. "I must admit I never ever thought I would be sitting here telling you that life is great and that I am enjoying being 50. A couple of years ago, I thought there was never going to be anything to look forward to ever again.

I WAS at my lowest ebb. If it hadn't been for work, there wouldn't even have been any point getting out of bed in the morning. "Having been through it, I can fully understand why some women go under when their marriage ends and they are facing the rest of their lives alone. "At my worst point I felt as though I was drowning. I was being dragged down and down and I couldn't see any way out. I couldn't think straight. Couldn't function. I was lost for the first time in my life. "But the very fact that I am here today talking about it means that I have come through it. I finally saw that patch of light. And I must say, that is a wonderfully liberating feeling."

A tiny woman with a great figure and a huge laugh, Helen Worth is a million miles from the downtrodden Gail Platt, who she has played for 26 years. Confident, intelligent and assured, she was never going to be one of life's victims. Today, she insists she has never been happier. Nonetheless, she admits that her husband's betrayal, which she learned of in May 1995, launched her into the most painful period of her life.

"Nothing can ever prepare you for the day your husband sits you down and tells you he is having an affair," she explains quietly. "My marriage was everything to me. It was the foundation on which everything else was built. I had been with Michael for nearly half of my life. I never imagined that we wouldn't grow old together. "When he told me, everything just went black. Things started to make sense. Maybe I realised right away that something like that had been bound to happen. Things hadn't been right for some time, but - naively maybe - I didn't think it was serious. "I knew there was a problem. I just didn't know it was me."

The devastating news came when Michael learned a Sunday paper was planning to run a picture of him with the other woman. "The pictures were about to be published and he knew he had to tell me fast," recalls Helen. "He just said he was having an affair. "I went through every emotion. I was hurt. Then angry. So angry. I tried to tell myself it wasn't happening. "The worst thing was that I knew it was going to be in the papers the next day. To know that the rest of the world had to know about my pain was just unbearable."

Many women would have asked their husband to leave, but Helen saw things differently. Despite the fact that Michael had told her he was having an affair, she was unwilling to accept that the marriage was over. "Our capacity to deceive ourselves is quite remarkable," she smiles. "But at that time there was no question of us splitting up - neither of us wanted to throw away 21 wonderful years. As far as I was concerned, we had been perfect together. It never crossed my mind that we couldn't rebuild that. "The last thing I would have wanted then was for Michael to go."

Immediately, the couple decided to try and salvage their relationship. They refused to make any comment about their marital difficulties. But the damage had been done. Over the following weeks and months, Helen and Michael would spend hours talking about where they'd gone wrong. "I can't describe how hard it was," she recalls. "Everything was slipping away and I couldn't do anything to stop it. "I'd be up in Manchester, just trying to get on with the job and telling myself everything would be OK. But maybe I knew, deep down, that it was never going to be OK again."

WHILE she can now talk about her anguish in measured terms, back then she was anything but composed. "I wasn't this calm," she smiles. "I shouted and screamed and threw things. It was quite spectacular. Poor Michael didn't know what to do with me. "I suppose I knew that the marriage was over. Perhaps I even knew it was right that it should be over. But knowing it and accepting it are two different things. I couldn't accept it. "I was afraid to let go. I just couldn't imagine a world that didn't have Michael in it. "But in the end, I didn't have a choice. I had to accept it. It was either accept it, or go under, and I was never going to do that. I'm a survivor. I'd just never been put to the test until then." Helen's way of coping was to throw herself into her work. When Michael eventually left - spurred on by more pictures in newspapers - it was Coronation Street that filled the gap.

"People cope with trauma in all sorts of ways. My way was to work my way through it. During that year, I didn't tell anyone what was happening. My best friend knew - but that was it. I didn't even tell my own father. "Work kept me going. Having a reason to get up in the morning is what keeps you sane. You can't burst into tears on the set - people are depending on you. When I did my crying it was in the dressing room, alone. "When the second lot of pictures appeared in the papers we couldn't keep up the charade any longer and Michael went for good. "That was so hard for me but the people at work were brilliant. They closed ranks and protected me. The Street is fantastic at doing that. No-one made a fuss - they just let me know they were there if I needed anything. "I will always be grateful to them for that."

HER family also rallied round. Helen's brother Neville, who is three years her senior, was immediately at her side. "He was wonderful," she says. "I've always adored him, but he really came into is own when I was in trouble."

Cracks had begun to appear in the marriage several years earlier, but Helen, confident that the relationship was indestructible, thought it was a temporary blip. "Looking back I knew Michael was unhappy," she reveals. "He had told me he wasn't happy. With hindsight, I had had every warning. "The problem was that we were both busy people. This industry is so hard on relationships. It puts you under enormous pressure. "Michael was working more and more in London while I was filming in Manchester. It was that old cliche - we became like ships passing in the night.

"Sometimes we didn't even manage to see each other at weekends. We had different interests. I suppose it just became easy to lead separate lives. "In the early days we had made superhuman efforts to do things together. We were always in the car, driving up or down the country. It's silly, perhaps, but I thought we could weather anything. "But I don't blame Michael. I was as much to blame as him."

How? She sighs and thinks hard. "I guess I took my eye off the ball," she says. "I was happy to let things coast along. I've always sailed through life thinking things will work themselves out. I suppose this was a hard lesson."

The pair met when they were both out-of-work actors. Michael had nowhere to stay in London and Helen offered him the sofa in her flat. "He was the most amazing man I had ever met. He was the best," she remembers, her face breaking into a huge smile. "We started off as friends - for a long time there was nothing else in it. We just had a great time together. We liked the same things and thought along the same lines.

A kiss in the park changed everything between them. Almost immediately, Helen realised she was in love. "I'd never felt like that about anyone before and it was wonderful," she remembers. "Boyfriends had never really been a big issue, but Michael was different. I felt safe with him and we were just brilliant together."

For 18 years, the couple lived together, travelled the world together and laughed together. And as their relationship progressed, so their careers took off. Helen landed a role in Coronation Street, and went on to establish herself as a key member of the cast. Meanwhile, Michael worked in both TV and the theatre, and became best known for his roles in The Liver Birds and The Boys From The Blackstuff.

It wasn't until 1991 that the couple finally decided to get married. "It wasn't a big deal," recalls Helen. "We had already made our commitment. We'd been together for so long that marriage wasn't an issue. "But Michael booked the register office and sorted everything out. I was absolutely thrilled."

THEIR wedding day was - and remains - the happiest day of her life. It was a low-key affair with friends and close relatives. "I know lots of women would think differently, but I refuse to let what has happened since spoil my memories. It was the best day. The absolute tops. I was so happy - I had Michael there, and all my friends around me. It was really special. Nothing can take that away."

Today, she still regards her relationship with Michael as one of the great achievements of her life. "People talk about my marriage having failed - but I don't see it as a failure. How can you call a wonderful 21- year relationship a failure?"

She and Michael are good friends who often meet up for lunch. "When we meet we can remember the good times again," she says. "I've come to realise that being on your own isn't the worst thing in the world. In fact, I rather like it. "It's nice that I don't have to worry about rushing home for someone else. I can book the holiday I want. I can go away for the weekend on the spur of the moment. I can sit on the sofa eating Chunky KitKats all night if I want. "This whole process has made me realise how much women spend their lives worrying about other people. "Now I am having some 'me' time."

Ask her about her feelings of betrayal and she insists those days are gone. She refuses to play the role of the wronged wife, insisting that Michael wasn't completely to blame for the break up. "He was vilified in the press," she remembers. "He was called a love rat and a cheat. But he wasn't. That's not how it was, things are never that easy. He just met someone who made him happier than I could. It wasn't a crime. It was just desperately sad. "I know now that Michael suffered as much as I did. He still loved me when he left. It tore him apart that he was hurting me. He would never willingly have caused me pain. He is the gentlest man I know."

Even more remarkably, perhaps, is that she bears no animosity towards the woman who took her place. "Once, it might have been difficult, but now I think I could maybe even meet her," she reveals. "It wasn't her fault. She met someone and fell in love. She did what she felt she had to do. "The important thing is that we have all come through this. The world didn't end. People survive. Sometimes, we even learn to smile again."

Corrie Chris furious at DJ's "racist" jibe
11 March 2001
HUNKY Coronation Street star CHRIS BISSON has been left speechless by a racial slur in a recorded interview. Chris, who plays cab firm boss Vikram Desai, afterwards slammed the bad- taste joke by GWR radio host ANDY STYLES.

The DJ asked him: "What was the biggest shock of your life? Was it when you looked in the mirror and realised you were Asian?" Angry Chris, 25 said: "That has to count as the most stupid interview of my life. I just don't know what point he was trying to make. If it was a joke then it just wasn't funny. It was an idiotic comment. "That radio station has a lot of Asian listeners. Didn't he realise they would be insulted? I was."

The interview was intended to promote Chris's hit movie East Is East, which took a humorous look at Asian traditions. But embarrassed station bosses pulled the plug and it was not broadcast.

A spokesman for GWR said this week: "It was a joke that went wrong. The presenter apologised as soon as he realised he had inadvertantly been offensive." A pal of Chris's said: "The air would have gone blue if it was broadcast."

Tyrone has the power
11 March 2001

ALAN HALSALL, Tyrone Dobbs in Corrie, is relieved the writers have finally let him lose his cherry.

He says: "I took loads of stick for playing a virgin. Now I get shouts of, 'Oi superstud, give her one for me'. That's fine...except when I'm out with my real girlfriend!"

Helen Worth - My Story
10 March 2001

The Street's Helen Worth breaks a 26-year silence to lift the lid on the astonishing private life of one of Britain's biggest TV stars

CORONATION Street star Helen Worth today speaks for the first time about her amazing private life. The actress breaks a 26-year silence to tell the story behind her rise to the top. Helen, who turned 50 last month, has always refused to talk about the real person behind her Street character Gail Platt. But now she candidly reveals the traumatic events that shaped her life.

Helen tells how her husband left her after 21 years. And she speaks of the devastation she felt when her mother was killed by a car when Helen was just 20. She said: "It is time to put the record straight and tell my story exactly as it is. "Now I have got to 50, and survived the ups and downs, I realise I'm a survivor. Perhaps my story will help others believe they can be too."

I'm 50, A Survivor and Not a Bit Like Gail

IT'S HARD to say which comes as more of a shock: The laugh, the legs, the cleavage, or the ease with which she arranges herself on the floor and poses for the camera. Helen Worth is in her element. And for good reason. For the first time in her 26-year Coronation Street career, the actress is playing herself in front of the lens.

Until today, Helen - who has just celebrated her 50th birthday - was Britain's most private television star, a woman determined to hide behind Gail, the dowdy screen character who made her famous. "I think this might surprise a few people," admits the petite actress as she climbs on to a bed and hitches her scarlet skirt around her, revealing legs a woman half her age would die for.

She gyrates her tiny hips. She runs her fingers through her hair. She wonders aloud if this is the sort of thing a 50-year-old woman should be doing - then decides that it is. You can hear her hoots of laughter right down the hallway of the Manchester hotel. You wouldn't be able to tell from the aplomb with which she carries herself, but this is her first ever newspaper photoshoot as Helen, rather than Gail. And tellingly, there isn't a shapeless cardigan, or trademark scowl, in sight. Instead, Helen's hair is coiffed into an elegant, yet fashionable, style. Her dress is size eight and her lips are the brightest red.

When celebrity photographer Sven Arnstein asks her to pose for some shots outside, she is delighted to oblige. As Helen picks her way across the cobbles in five-inch heels, all wiggle and infectious giggle, it is hard to believe that this is the woman once dubbed a "recluse". In fact, she and her exposed tummy cause quite a commotion. Passers-by stand and stare. The hotel porter looks, and looks again, then asks a colleague: "Was that Gail?" The answer is a resounding no.

The minute this perfectly-groomed woman opens her mouth you know that she and Gail live in different worlds. Her clipped tones, as she asks for peppermint tea, of all things, betray little evidence of her Lancashire roots. Gail Platt might be mumsy and much-maligned - but Helen Worth is anything but.

A fitness addict with her own personal trainer, her wardrobe is bursting with Ralph Lauren and Gucci, her passion is theatre and her favourite restaurant is The Ivy, the smart London eaterie beloved by the stars. When she talks, it is of architecture and world travel rather than the price of carrots in the corner shop. "My world isn't exactly Weatherfield," she laughs. "I have to say that I do like the fine things in life, and I'm now at an age where I can finally enjoy them without feeling guilty about it."

Next week, in her first-ever interview about her private life, Helen will finally tell the story of how she became one of Britain's best loved actresses. In a moving and inspirational series, she will reveal the joys and heartache behind one of the longest soap careers in the country. And it has been a life as full of drama as her on-screen existence.

Helen will tell of the slow and painful collapse of her marriage to actor Michael Angelis, a union thought to be one of the strongest in showbiz. She will reveal her heartbreak over the death of her mother, mown down by a car when Helen was just 20. And she will talk of the backstage dramas of over a quarter of a century on the Street. "It is time to put the record straight," she says, explaining her decision to break the long silence. "Now that I have got to 50, and survived all the ups and downs on the way, I realise that I'm actually a survivor. "Perhaps my story will help others believe they can be too."

Groomed for the stage from the age of three, Helen admits that she had an unconventional childhood. By the age of 12, she was living in London, 400 miles from her mum and dad, and supporting herself. She was barely out of her teens when Helen lost the mother who had steered her path into the world of showbiz. Gladys Wigglesworth died just before her own 50th birthday when she was knocked down by a car while out walking the family dog. She never saw her daughter land the television role that would change her life.

Helen was 24 when she landed the role of Gail Potter. She was young and naive when legendary figures like Vi Carson, Doris Speed and Pat Phoenix came into her life, becoming like a second family to her. Coronation Street has never been just a job to Helen Worth. It also filled a huge gap in more recent years, when Helen's husband - and partner of 21 years - left her after a highly-publicised affair.

It has taken three years for Helen to adjust to the reality of being a single woman again. She talks of those dark days with astonishing candour. "So many women define themselves by their relationship with a man," she reveals. "It took me a long time to realise that I could be happy on my own. "A lot of women go through difficult times like this, and now I can understand why some of them go under. That period of my life was the most unhappy time I have known. At the time, I couldn't see any way out."

Next week Helen will talk about the moment her husband Michael sat her down and told her he was having an affair - and her struggle to rebuild her life after he walked out of her life. "I want to tell everyone that no matter what you go through, you can survive. You can even be happy again. "I am 50, I am single and I have never been happier. And I want to shout it from the rooftops."

Street Fighting Man
10 March 2001

Chris Gascoyne took a deep breath and went up to the door of the Coronation Street studio. Through the window he could see all the familiar faces he'd grown up with. Feeling overawed he felt like turning around and walking away again, but he couldn't. He'd just landed the part of Peter Barlow, Ken's estranged son, and was the new star of the Street.

"I turned to the security guy on the door and said, `There's no way I can go in there'," recalls Chris. "The entire cast was there for a photo shoot to mark the show's 40th anniversary. I walked in and went bright red. We all had to get in a line, posing with a champagne glass, and I could see everyone looking, thinking, `Who the hell is the little bloke on the end'?"

Joining the cast was a baptism of fire for Chris, whose TV debut was in the first Adrian Mole series and who has since appeared in Soldier, Soldier and The Locksmith. Not only was he to play most of his scenes opposite Street stalwart William Roache, but his first appearance was on the live episode on December 9, 2000, watched by a record-breaking 18 million viewers.

"I had about ten minutes of euphoria when my agent told me I'd got the part," says Chris, 33. "I was signing on at the time and was like, `Wow, I can pay my tax bill'! Then I rang my mum who was chuffed because Corrie's her favourite programme. And then I spent the whole night not being able to sleep, worrying about the live episode. "I just wasn't sure I could do it. We had five days to rehearse and then the cameras were rolling. I actually forgot one of my lines. My brain went completely blank. I don't think anyone  noticed, but I still can't bear to watch it."

Chris must be doing something right. Since joining the soap as drunken womaniser Peter, prone to brawling in the Rovers, he is now the pivot of one of its strongest storylines.

After years of being estranged from dad Ken, Peter turned up on his doorstep having quit the Navy. He caused friction between Ken and Deirdre, then in a drunken moment blurted out that his sister Susan had a secret 12- year-old boy called Adam. When Mike Baldwin discovered he has another son he tracked Adam and Susan down to Glasgow. She tried to flee to Ireland but was killed in a car crash, leaving Peter feeling guilty and drowning his sorrows over her death, and sparking a nasty custody battle over Adam between grandad Barlow and dad Baldwin.

It's dramatic stuff, and Chris's achievement is all the more remarkable because he has overcome dyslexia. "It wasn't really recognised when I was a kid," he shrugs. "I still have problems with dyslexia, but I don't let it bother me. It came out when a teacher at drama school asked me to read a play in front of the class. I was nervous, started sweating and as I stumbled over the words he spotted it. He said, `Chris, you're dyslexic, but it has nothing to do with your acting so don't worry about it'. I felt such relief to know what it was.

"I wasn't as open about it when I first finished drama school and I probably lost a few jobs trying to blag my way through auditions. Now I'm more open about being dyslexic. If anything, it's helped me become an actor because it made me stop wanting to be academic and encouraged me to use my imagination instead. And look where it's got me - Coronation Street."

It's certainly a long way from the Nottinghamshire mining village of Huthwaite where he was raised by his father Derek, a florist, and mum Marian.

"It was a rough place. I can't think of many days when I wasn't in a fight," he says. "But there was that sense of community spirit, of neighbours looking out for one another. I remember the Miners' Strike of '84 and the pit closures. We weren't affected too badly, but it did take the heart out of the place."

Being dyslexic, Chris found school a nightmare. He would skive off or mess about in lessons to get himself sent out of the classroom. Fortunately his drama teacher, Alan Tipton,  saw something in Chris and encouraged him to take part in school plays.

"I remember thinking, `I can do this. I've found something that fits me'," says Chris. "Learning the lines took some doing, though. Mum used to test me and I'd have to think of the words in pictures, what they meant. I still think in pictures now when I'm learning my lines for Coronation Street."

He got his first big break at 16, when casting directors visited his youth theatre scouting for a bullying Barry Kent for the 1980s Adrian Mole series. But his experience of child fame left him disillusioned with acting as a profession and uncomfortable with fame. For the next four years he drifted along until he gradually realised how much he missed acting and decided to take it seriously.

He spent three years training at London's prestigious Central School Of Speech And Drama, and between auditions took low paid jobs, including earning £1.70 an hour delivering pizzas. For a year he lived on a barge on the Thames with two friends. "It sounds romantic, but it was horrible - damp and so cold in the winter," he says. "We were all out of work and used to sit there in pants and vest, smoking and not saying anything for hours. I was glad to get off when it started to sink."

Luckily, Soldier, Soldier put him on the map. He played lady-killer squaddie Tony Rossi from September 1997 until the series ended three months later - while simultaneously appearing in The Locksmith with Warren Clarke - and it turned Chris into a heartthrob overnight. "My mates thought it was hysterical because I'm not a womaniser at all," he says. "That is definitely a gift I've never had, though not from want of trying."

Well, he can't be doing too badly having been with girlfriend Caroline Harding, who starred in the BBC1 series Fish, for seven months. They were introduced by a friend at a comedy club, although it took Chris three weeks to pluck up the courage to ask her out. Today, with Caroline living in Brighton and Chris relocated to Manchester, they snatch weekends together when they can.

"Distance just makes you miss someone as opposed to causing problems," he says with a shrug. But is it serious? "Yes. I mean, you never know. I hope so. Seeing my parents so happily married makes me think I'd like what they had," he says. "I'm close to both of them, particularly my dad. He died two years ago and I still miss him. He was proud of me, I think. He never said it, but I'm sure he was. He saw me in Soldier, Soldier and always used to record it. He loved Coronation Street. He'd have been so happy to know I was in it now. Maybe he does... "I definitely want to be a dad. I want to take my kids to the Goose Fair and rediscover all the things I used to love doing. Just normal stuff, nothing more. They're the best things in life. Which are also the hardest to get."

If Chris's career and determination to act is anything to go by, it shouldn't be too long before the rest falls into place.

Census data stranger than fiction
10 March 2001
A 200th anniversary study of Britain's census data has thrown up some uncanny links between fiction and reality. In 1871 London boasted a real life Albert Square - but it was a haunt of "prostitutes, sailors and brothel keepers" that makes the soap square look positively genteel.

In 1861 Mrs E. Sharples was a cotton mill worker living at 2 Coronation Street in Manchester. There was a Rover's Return beerhouse, too - but in a different part of Manchester.

A Granada spokesman described the discovery as "an amazing co-incidence. "I don't think the show's creator Tony Warren had any of this in mind when he was writing the first shows in 1960," he said.

London's Albert Square - long-demolished - was close to the Shadwell basin in East London. The census of 1871 shows that about 60 of the residents were "fallen women" and five of its 16 houses were actually brothels. There was no Queen Vic pub - but there was a Victoria Lodge which was home to eight prostitutes and a couple of sailors.

Genealogist Audrey Collins, who carried out the research for census-takers the Office of National Statistics, described the place a "a bit of a rough neighbourhood". "Phil Mitchell may not have been shot in the 19th century Albert Square but I think he stood a good chance of being stabbed."

Researchers from the ONS are making preparations for the latest ten-yearly census, due to start on 29 April. The first British census took place in 1801, in part because of concerns about demographer Thomas Malthus' theories, which suggested that Britain's population might outstrip its food supply.

And look out for a Corrie favourite becoming one of this year's census enumerators.... I wonder who that could be ? Graham

Corrie star's a saucy sausage
9 March 2001 by John Mahoney

CORRIE star John Savident had GMTV viewers in stitches with a string of saucy quips. Joker John - who plays butcher Fred Elliott - revealed women fans write to him saying they "would like my sausage between their chops".

Blushing host Lorraine Kelly went into fits of giglgles and told the 62-year-old - whose character is famed for his catchphrase "I say": "Your naughty comments will have us taken off the air!" He then cheekily claimed he "didn't understand" what the lewd letters meant. But John - a member of the British Sausage Appreciation Society - had Lorraine giggling again when he added: "A good sausage must be as thick as a barge hook with very little shrinkage."

His saucy antics show he has recovered from the stabbing ordeal at his Manchester flat last December when a man knifed him in the throat.

His Street co-star Sean Wilson also joined in the morning fun. Sean, who plays Weatherfield's love rat nurse Martin Platt, suggested a scene from the hit soap showed Fred Elliot performing a sex act. He said: "It was you and a sausage in a double-hander." The pair then burst into fits of laughter.

John also revealed he was getting sick of fans yelling his trademark catchphrase when they see him in public. The star groaned: "They think it's the first time I've heard it, bless them, but they say it again and again. They also ask for chops a lot."

A GMTV insider admitted yesterday: "The conversation was getting a bit fruity, which to be honest we didn't expect from these two. "But they were only having a laugh. "Nobody was offended and Lorraine thought they were a class act."

And a close friend of John's added: "He's got a really great sense of humour. "If you ever get him on the subject of meat, especially sausages, he's well away and there's no stopping him."

Maxine's baby blues strike a chord
9 March 2001 by Jonathan Donald

Corrie star Tracy Shaw has been deluged with letters from women who face similar fertility problems to her character, Maxine Peacock. Hairdresser Maxine has been driven to tears through her failure to conceive with husband Ashley (Steven Arnold). Shaw, 27, said: "I've been receiving a lot of letters from women going through this. They're pleased that we're doing this storyline. A lot of women do have problems."

The desperate couple, who wed in 1999, have given up alcohol and taken up a strict vegetarian diet - despite Ashley being a butcher. Ashley has also recently got himself into a compromising situation with neighbour, Charlie Ramsden. She saw him exposing himself in the garden to lower his body temperature.

Shaw says she would like to have children herself with fiance Robert Ashworth, who's a TV director. She said: "I'd like to have a baby if I can but Robert and I haven't made any firm plans yet. He says he is never going to change nappies. I'll have to change that before we have a family of our own."

Airport gun scare for Street's Sally
9 March 2001
CORONATION Street star Sally Whittaker was nearly arrested on holiday - because son Sam packed his toy gun. She was only able to relax when customs officers discovered it was an imitation. Sally, who plays Sally Webster, suffered the scare when they jetted off to Barbados for a two-week winter break. She didn't see Sam, three, shove the toy pistol in his rucksack.

Sally, 38, said yesterday: "The first I knew was when security at Barbados took the bag away. "I was absolutely mortfied, but the officials were really good about it. "They obviously realised it was Sam's. "But they told us they would have to confiscate the gun for the return flight."

Sally, from Bowdon, Cheshire, flew out to the plush Almond Beach Resort with scriptwriter husband Tim, Sam and daughter Phoebe, five. She is now set for a busy filming schedule. Her screen character is torn between new man Danny and ex-husband Kevin, who she still carries a torch for!

Corrie's Deirdre told to change her specs
7 March 2001

Coronation Street's Deirdre Rachid has been told to change her specs. Style experts say her large owl-shaped glasses are out of fashion and need to be updated.

A Manchester optician says he even uses the soap character as an example to customers of how their new glasses won't look. "If you went to most opticians in Britain today you would struggle to find a pair like Deirdre wears," he told the Express. "They are almost a novelty item."

Actress Anne Kirkbride has worn the same style of glasses in the soap for 28 years. They were all the rage when she joined the show in 1972. But a Granada spokeswoman told Ananova the soap had no plans to change them. "Everyone knows those glasses are Deirdre's trademark," she said.

US Corrie fans frantic to see 5,000th episode
7 March 2001 by Jonathan Donald

A US couple who've become devoted fans of Coronation Street are distraught at having to miss the 5,000th episode. TV history will be made on Sunday when the soap is screened - but Gail and Peter Drake, both 50, of Troutdale, Oregon, won't be among the audience.

Gail told TV Plus: "Wow - that many episodes is just something else. "We're pulling teeth because we don't have the technology to see it. We've just got to figure something out. "We became hooked about six years ago," said Gail, who runs an internet company with her husband. "It's mostly the characters are so loveable. There's also something more wholesome about it than US soaps. "It's not smutty, not a lot of bad language, everyone seems to look out for each other and it's so funny."

Vera Duckworth is the favourite Corrie character of the devoted fans. Gail said: "Vera, bless her heart, she's just so real and has this great sense of humour."

But the couple admit to sometimes being bamboozled by the language used by the people of Weatherfield. "Fred Elliot is so funny but at times we just don't understand him," said Gail. "And what are mushy peas?"

The couple, whose home is crammed with Corrie magazines and books, say their ambition is to visit the set. "It'll cost about $2,500 (£2,000) for a new satellite dish, and even then the channel that shows it is three months behind," said Gail. "I fear we'll just have to miss it."

Lee relishes life after Jez
7 March 2001 by Derek Robins

Life couldn't be better for Lee Boardman six months after his Corrie character Jez Quigley was killed off. Lee, 28, weds his 22-year-old fiancee Jenny James, who plays Corrie barmaid Geena, in May after a whirlwind romance. And his career is going from strength to strength as well: he's just filmed a guest role in The Bill; his movie POV has won critical acclaim in America; and he has several other movie projects on the boil.

Lee and Jenny fell in love working on the Corrie set last year and Lee proposed in July in a rose-filled hotel room. He said: "We're getting married in Cheshire - we live in Manchester since Jenny is in Corrie for the foreseeable future. "We'll have a champagne reception at a posh hotel and then a long honeymoon as we've both been working hard."

Corrie fans will be relieved to know that Lee is a gentle soul compared to his evil alter ego Jez Quigley. Jez's idea of romance was to kidnap Leanne Battersby after wooing her with flowers and jewellery. Lee couldn't be more different. He says he first realised fiancee Jenny James was the woman for him when he cared for her after she was struck down with food poisoning on a trip to the Lake District.

Viewers will see this gentle side when Lee cradles a baby in a forthcoming episode of ITV's The Bill. Lee, who one day wants kids, plays an ex-drug dealer who's also a doting dad in a story to be shown in July. He said: "One minute the character is volatile, the next, a gentle dad. Nursing a nine-week-old baby made me momentarily broody."

Lee thought Corrie fans wouldn't recognise him as bad boy Jez after he was killed off in September, but he was wrong. He said: "I've grown back Jez's trademark shaved eyebrow and I've got a crew cut and stubble rather than a beard but it hasn't worked. "Recognition happens on a daily basis even when I'm wearing a baseball cap, scarf and dark glasses. But I don't get fed up with being recognised - it's a sign you're doing well."

Lee thinks it was a "brave decision" to quit Corrie but he doesn't regret it. Lee, whose character Jez died as he tried to kill Steve McDonald in his hospital bed, said: "I was determined not to stay - I didn't want to go back to Corrie year after year. "I got offered every psycho role going after Jez but I want to do lots of different things and I think I'm beginning to achieve that."

The ex-Corrie villain looks set for film fame. POV, a movie about a supermarket documentary, has gone down a storm in New York. He said: "It's meant to be a film about a man with cancer but a film-maker decides he wants to spice it up with the staff having live sex. "Later this year I'm making a film, The Goddess And The Bouncer, with Emily Woof. I'm the wimpish brother of a Scouse bouncer who wants to impress Emily's character."

Lee also hopes he'll hit the bullseye with a film about darts that his company, 15\ Productions, is making. He said: "It's called 180, a Spinal Tap-style spoof documentary about the world of darts. I'm a darts player called Jack Russell - based on a guy I knew as a student. "Darts is the new rock 'n' roll and I've been practising my throwing for the past four months - I've got my average score up to 100."

TV role for Curly's girl
7 March 2001

THE wife of Coronation Street's Kevin Kennedy is to become a TV presenter.

Clare Kennedy, 29, will host Girls' Night In on health channel Wellbeing. She will tell how she helped Kevin, the Street's Curly Watts, win his fight against alcoholism - and ask couples to test out condoms. An insider said: "Clare's frank and brave and has what it takes to tackle all sorts of issues head on."

Jokers saved Janice
7 March 2001 by John Mahoney

CORONATION Street's Vicky Entwistle told yesterday of the studio pranks that made her smile again after her arrest for "butting" a skinhead. And she thanked pal Tracy Shaw for organising the jokes that cheered her up.

Nervous Vicky, who is nothing like her loudmouth character Janice Battersby, was concerned about how the top soap's cast would react to her grilling by cops over her alleged attack on the burly bloke a foot taller than her. But terrific Tracy - adored by millions as sexy Maxine Peacock - made sure she got back her sense of humour quickly by egging on Street mates to lighten her mood. Within seconds of downcast Vicky returning from her ordeal and walking on to the set next day, police sirens began wailing and sound technicians played The Bill theme over the tannoy. Then the props department handed 32year-old five-footer Vicky a jewellery box with a pair of handcuffs inside! And she couldn't help but burst out laughing - thanks to Tracy.

Vicky opened her heart for the first time after returning from holiday in Jamaica to discover police won't be charging her with assault on Robert Hall. The 40-year-old told cops that the £74,000-a-year star had chinned him - causing cuts and bruises to his face - when the pair clashed late at night in Manchester's Gay Village. The pint-sized actress insisted it was just an innocent knock of heads which sparked his injuries 200 yards from her apartment.

But now Vicky is pondering whether to abandon city centre life and return to her rural roots in the Lancashire countryside. She said: "Despite everyone on the Street giving me that boost, I feel very vulnerable. I'm considering if I should move back because this incident was very frightening. You look at things like Jill Dando and it makes you think ..." "I won't go out alone again and will be on constant guard everywhere."

Vicky, giving her version of January's events, added: "Because of the rough and ready character I play I feel a target - even though I can assure everyone I'd never dream of slapping anyone in my life. "This man was just out with some friends and I was walking home with my friend. I think he was excited to see somebody off the telly. "He charged and grabbed hold of me and was swinging me around - not meaning to frighten me, I'm sure. "But I did feel very threatened and tried to hide down behind my handbag - so that his head was right above my head. "When I realised he just wanted a cuddle, I lifted my head up - and we clashed. "He was hurt and I was upset for him. I was astonished when this allegation was brought against me. "After all, he'd apologised profusely for grabbing me!"

But, despite her worries about being hounded as a celebrity, Vicky has no plans to quit Corrie. She said: "I trained for eight years to be an actress and I'm not about to give up just for one silly incident."

Street star tells of headbutt 'nightmare'
7 March 2001
Coronation Street star Vicky Entwistle says she is considering moving to the countryside after she was accused of headbutting a fan following a night out. The actress, who plays Janice Battersby, says she was elated after the police decided to take no action against her following the allegations. But she says she had been left feeling very vulnerable after an evening out in Manchester turned into a "nightmare" for her.

Entwistle, 32, told a press conference at Manchester's Granada Studios that she took a 10-day break to Jamaica following the allegations but could not stop thinking about the claims. "I just feel elated that it's all over. It has been a nightmare ordeal for me and my family. Obviously I came back from holiday and found out from the Crown Prosecution Service that there were no charges which has been such a relief. "I felt like I had the whole world on my shoulders. I'm glad I had the opportunity to take off and spend some quiet time but also the thoughts of this were still in my mind constantly, I feel very vulnerable."

Entwistle, who lives in Manchester with prop hand boyfriend Andrew Chapman, said she was considering moving to the countryside in Lancashire, where she has been staying since her ordeal began. "I'm really considering whether to move back to the country or not," the actress said.

Entwistle, who is 5ft tall, was accused of head-butting 6ft phone helpline operator Robert Hall following a night out in Manchester's gay village in January. She was questioned by police and later released on police bail. Two weeks ago she heard that the allegations would not be pursued.

I pulled my hunky new Toyah boy in a club
4 March 2001

BESOTTED Coronation Street star Georgia Taylor told last night how she has fallen head over heels in love - with a man she chatted up in a nightclub. Georgia - who plays Rovers barmaid Toyah Battersby - was so smitten with hunky musician Mark Eyden that she broke all her normal rules and made the first move. And 10 months on, she is absolutely delighted that she did. For after a wonderful whirlwind romance she and Mark are living together and Georgia says she has never been so happy in her life.

As she gazes adoringly at Mark - who is a few months younger than her and so technically her toy boy - Georgia, 21, says: "He is the most gorgeous, fantastic man I have ever met. From the moment we first spoke I hoped it would be serious. "We got along so well that we thought of ourselves as a couple almost from the word go. It was as if we were meant to be."

When she met Mark, Georgia had been single for about nine months and wasn't particularly looking for her Mr Right. She says her fame had tended to attract men who were only interested in her because she was a star - so she was a little wary of getting involved with anyone and certainly never normally considered chatting a bloke up. But as soon as she saw Mark in a club in Stoke-on-Trent, all her normal doubts and reservations flew out the window.

Georgia says: "I was on a girlie night out with my best friend Nicole. I definitely wasn't looking to meet anyone. I was single and perfectly happy with it. "But I think it's absolutely true what people say - as soon as you stop looking the right person comes along. "I fancied Mark straight away. I remember saying to Nicole: 'He's the most beautiful man I've ever seen. See if you can find out if he's got a girlfriend.' "I've never been like that with anyone before. But to be honest, because I thought he was so gorgeous I assumed he was either going to be an idiot or arrogant. But he wasn't. He was great."

Mark, 20, who sings and plays guitar for a band called Marlo, also fancied Georgia, but because she was famous he didn't want to go up to her. He says: "I didn't want to say anything until I thought she was interested." Luckily, best friend Nicole was prepared to play the go-between and soon Mark and Georgia were chatting away like they had known each other for years. And when they got out on to the dance floor it was bold Georgia who made the first move. She says: "The first time we kissed was wonderful. The DJ was playing The Time Is Now by Moloko. I loved that song and I remember thinking: 'Perfect timing.' "Now I always ask Mark if I hadn't been the one to kiss him, would he have done it - and he doesn't think he would. "Because of Coronation Street, Mark was worried that I'd think he was talking to me for the wrong reasons. So I'm glad I decided to take the initiative."

The couple arranged to meet up the next night in Manchester - and it was obvious right from the start that they had something special. Georgia says: "From our first meeting I hoped it would be serious. I hoped Mark would turn out to be as lovely as he seemed. And he didn't let me down. "The more time we spent together, the more I liked him. "And when he told me he was a musician, I thought it was fantastic. I love the fact he's talented creatively."

But while it was Georgia who made the first move, Mark was the first to admit he was in love - just THREE WEEKS after they met. He says: "It was a bit premature, I do admit. But I was so convinced. It's been said before, but when it feels so right, you can't help but say it."

Georgia was shocked but overjoyed by his declaration of love. She says: "We were in a bar when he took me into a corner and said: 'Don't get freaked out, but I've just got to tell you that I love you.' "I was totally taken aback. I really felt the same, but I was frightened by just how quickly things were happening. But things have just got better and better."

Mark soon got the seal of approval from Georgia's Corrie friends - including Vicky Entwhistle who plays her screen mum Janice. "Vicky thinks he's great and that means a lot because she's always been honest and quite protective of me. If she thinks a man's taking the Mickey she'll be very straight."

The couple have become very close in a very short space of time, but Georgia says their relationship has never felt rushed. Things have moved along with a natuiral momentum all of its own. Just a few weeks ago she asked Mark to move into her flat in Manchester. She says: "It's been a really gradual thing. It just feels like our home now. "Although we joke about being old and married, we've no plans to get engaged just at the moment. "We're just having fun being together. I can't imagine being without Mark. He has made me the happiest I've ever been."

After her TV wedding woes, street Sally takes the plunge
4 March 2001
CORONATION Street star Sally Whittaker washes away her on-screen wedding blues...with an unplanned soaking in Barbados. While her character, miserable Sally Webster, would seem more at home on a wet weekend in Whitby, actress Sally Whittaker was soaking up the sun on a Caribbean holiday with husband Tom Dyneveor and children Phoebe, four and Sam, two.

Back in Weatherfield, Sally is having second thoughts about marrying shopkeeper Danny, because she still has the hots for her ex, Kevin. But Sally, 38, left her screen alter ego's woes back in chilly Britain as she went water-skiing in a turquoise one-piece swimsuit. And it all seemed to be going swimmingly, until the speedboat picked up speed and Sally overbalanced, losing control of her skis. Fortunately her blushes were saved by the cloud of spray.

Corrie kid's a mini me jokes dad
4 March 2001
THE husband of ex-Corrie star Denise Welch visited his wife in hospital after the birth of their son and said: "Poor b****r - he looks just like me!"

Actor Tim Healey, 50, was speaking for the first time since Denise, 43, who played Rovers landlady Natalie, gave birth to 7lb 3oz Louis on Friday. Tim, who starred in TV's hilarious Auf Weidersehen Pet, told the Sunday People: "He is my absolute double - poor b****r. He's just a mini version of his dad. But he's a right little cracker."Unshaven and carrying a Selfridges bag containing "a few bits and bobs" for Denise, Tim arrived at Manchester's Hope Hospital early yesterday.

He then revealed that little Louis, the couple's second child, had been keeping everyone awake. "He's been making a lot of noise in the ward," said Tim. "He's obviously very healthy and has a good pair of lungs." Denise quit Coronation Street when her pregnancy made it impossible to continue with the rigourous demands of filming - but producers have not ruled out a dramatic return.

Why Eastender Billy is Right Up My Street
3 March 2001 by Rebecca Fletcher

Angela Lonsdale on how the support of friend Perry Fenwick, through thick and thin, has ended in them becoming rival soap stars and falling in love. Four years ago Angela Lonsdale and her good friend Perry Fenwick were sat in their local, drowning their sorrows. As struggling actors with no job prospects on the horizon, both were feeling a bit low. Until Angela suddenly slapped Perry on the knee and said, "You know what? None of this matters, because one day you'll be in EastEnders and I'll be in Coronation Street!"

If Angela had known what a prophet she'd prove to be, the pair would probably have celebrated with a bag of peanuts. For not only is she now dominating the Street's storylines as policewoman Emma Watts, but Perry's career is also riding high, thanks to his role as EastEnders' Billy Mitchell.

On top of that, the pair have since become an item after realising their feelings ran much deeper than just friendship. "People might think it's strange that we're both in two of the top soaps in the country, but it's not to me," laughs Angela. "We were mates long before we started going out together. "We used to go down to our local, The Red Lion in Islington, North London for drinks together. We were sat there, neither of us were working so we felt a bit down, and I remember telling him not to worry because he'd be on EastEnders and I'd be on Corrie. I swear to God I said that, and it happened."

Angela is bright, bubbly and fizzing with energy, and it's clear the 31-year-old has everything she wished for. Dressed in jeans that hug her tiny waist, the star emblazoned on her pink top pretty much sums up the impact she's made on Corrie since joining the cast 12 months ago. She found herself slap-bang in the middle of major storylines, including her romance with Curly and taking control of an armed siege in Freshcos. And Angela will be taking centre stage again in an hour-long special a week on Sunday, marking Coronation Street's 5,000th episode. The verdict from the inquest into the siege where Emma shot Linda Sykes's brother, brings with it another tense and terrifying situation.

"It's getting dangerous being in the Street," laughs Angela. "Seriously though, it's an honour to be the focus of the 5,000th episode, it just keeps getting better. Often as an actress you're just someone's sister or girlfriend, but I've had action storylines from the word go."

Not to mention her high-profile wedding to Curly Watts, played by Kevin Kennedy, watched by 15million viewers at Christmas. "That was mind-blowing, too. I've never worn a wedding dress or walked down the aisle, so it felt like I was getting married in a way. I went on holiday to Jamaica with Perry over Christmas, so I missed seeing it on TV. And as I got off the plane home, all the air hostesses were going, 'Ooh, congratulations!' I was like, 'Oh God, everyone thinks I got married in Jamaica!'"

The role didn't come easily to Angela. It was something she fought for, despite a series of setbacks. Against the advice of sneering careers' advisers, drama schools who rejected her and casting directors who turned her down, she began a campaign to get into her favourite soap. "I've never told anyone this before," she confides, "but I wrote to Coronation Street 12 years ago, begging to be in it. I even suggested a storyline. I was doing a play at Newcastle Playhouse and I sat down with the secretary and the cleaner, who both loved Corrie too, and came up with a storyline. "I was to be a teacher at Ken's school and have an affair with him that doesn't work out. Then I'd have an affair with Mike to keep the rivalry going, and then we'd find out I was Alma's long-lost daughter. I got a letter back saying they were too busy to see me, but had I ever thought of being a storyline writer? It was hysterical."

Undeterred, Angela went to a series of auditions, including going for the barmaid's role, Sam, which eventually went to Tina Hobley. Then her close friend Denise Welch, the former Rovers landlady Natalie Barnes, stepped in. "We've been mates since I did my first play with her and Robson Green in the North East," says Angela. "We were like the Geordie mafia, always running into each other."

Denise suggested Angela when Corrie bosses were looking for someone to play her sister Debs, but the part went to Gabrielle Glaister. "I was just about to be interviewed when Gabby walked in the door and sat on the sofa next to me," says Angela. "I looked at her and thought, 'She'll get it'. You instinctively know these things at auditions. "It was two weeks before Christmas and I was up for three really good TV jobs - Coronation Street and two drama serials. I remember my agent ringing to tell me I hadn't got Corrie and then saying I hadn't got the others either. I thought, 'That's it, I'm never going to get another job', and thought about quitting.

1999 was a quiet year - I'd done an advert which kept me afloat financially, but artistically I was frustrated. I was fed up and had had enough of rejection. "It was my lowest point, but two weeks later my agent rang back. I thought she was ringing about a tax bill or something awful, so I jokingly said, 'Have you got a great job for me, then?' She said, 'I have actually. Coronation Street want to know if you'd possibly be interested in playing a policewoman who's Curly's girlfriend?' My mouth just fell open. "I was staying with my friend, actress Melanie Hill, and I told her, put my hand over the mouthpiece and we both screamed. The best thing was ringing my Uncle Lonnie - who's 84 and was in hospital. He always told me to aim for Corrie. Never mind that I'd performed at the Royal Court, he always said, 'No, it's Coronation Street you want to get on, my girl'. I knew he'd have to get out of bed to get to the phone, but I had to. It was the best news. He was so emotional."

As was Perry, who had been a rock to Angela throughout all her knockbacks. "He'd already got EastEnders. He'd started in it while I wasn't working," she says. "He was so pleased when I told him I'd got the job. We had a big celebration." The couple met more than five years ago through a mutual pal, but it wasn't until two years ago that they finally got together. So is there any friendly banter between them about being on rival soaps? "Nah, not at all," laughs Angela. Not even when her wedding to Curly won the Christmas ratings battle with Albert Square? "We didn't talk about it. In fact, we hardly ever talk about work. And certainly not ratings if we haven't seen each other all week."

For someone who hasn't been on the show long, Angela's proving a big hit with viewers. "If you're associated with a character that's as popular as Curly, you're halfway there," she says modestly. "I knew I was on to a winner when Liz Dawn, who plays Vera, gave me her approval. On the set on my first day, Liz asked who I was playing. I said, 'Erm, I'm Curly's new girlfriend'. She tapped me on the knee and whispered, 'It's about time Curly had a nice girl like you'. I was over the moon! And Kevin and I get on so well. We hit it off from day one when we had to be lovey-dovey for a photo shoot. We hadn't even met, but all the hugging broke the ice. We discovered we share the same dirty sense of humour."

Others may have found it daunting to follow in the footsteps of Sarah Lancashire who broke Curly's heart when she left. Her much-loved character Raquel was always going to be a hard act to follow. "I was so overjoyed to get the part that I didn't even think about Sarah," says Angela. "And we couldn't be more different physically and as characters. Sarah was fantastic and it would