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Street daughter jail
30 June 2001

THE daughter of Coronation Street's Johnny Briggs has been jailed for three-and-a-half years after turning to crime with her lover. Karen Briggs, 35, was sentenced for two-and-a-half years for her part in a burglary with two unnamed men in which pub landlord Ronald Hintz was stabbed. Briggs, whose father plays Mike Baldwin in the hit ITV soap, was also sentenced at the Old Bailey to an additional 12 months for theft for a robbery with boyfriend Gregory Crabtree on a Staines railway station.

The court heard the mother-of-one turned to more serious crime after she met Crabtree. Steven Hadley, defending, said Briggs was attracted to the glamour of the crimes. "He (Crabtree) is a professional criminal and the pattern of her offending once in a relationship with him - she was locked in a world of armed robbers," Mr Hadley said.

Briggs, who was addicted to heroin, was convicted of burglary after hatching a plan with two male accomplices to steal from victim Ronald Hintz in June last year. Mr Hintz, 58, was landlord of a pub in West Ashford, Surrey, where Briggs was a regular. He was pistol-whipped and knifed in the chest by the men - an injury from which he later recovered - and handed over £2,200.

Briggs claimed she had gone to sell her Vauxhall Cavalier car to Mr Hintz but later admitted in evidence that on the day of the sale she was persuaded by an unnamed friend to go ahead with the burglary. In the station robbery Briggs acted as a decoy, telling the station office clerk this car lights were on. As the clerk left his office, he was attacked by Crabtree and robbed at knifepoint of more than £2,000. Crabtree, who was convicted of robbery, will be sentenced at a later date.

Copying Alma
28 June 2001

THE death of Corrie character Alma has led to a surge of interest in religion-free funerals. Her "humanist" send-off last week had no prayers or hymns, only poems and eulogies.

The British Humanist Association has since received more than 400 calls. The non-religious charity has 4000 members, including Stephen Fry and London mayor Ken Livingstone.

Roy to be confronted over Wayne in Coronation Street
27 June 2001

Roy is to be confronted by Wayne's mother in Coronation Street. Sheila Hayes tells the cafe owner she wants to give him his £5,000 back in return for her son. But Wayne makes it clear he doesn't want to go home while his step father Alex is still there and tries to persuade her to stay with Roy and Hayley as well.

David Neilson, who plays Roy, said: "I think Roy has been acting irrationally throughout the whole period. "He has been naive in thinking that Alex will leave it there - blackmailers rarely stop after receiving just one payment - and this situation could quite possibly end up tearing the couple apart."

He told Inside Soap that the couple would also struggle to keep their secret from the authorities.

Corrie's Roy and Hayley on the run
26 June 2001 by Simon Holden

Roy and Hayley Cropper are to go on the run with their foster son in new Coronation Street episodes. Young Wayne will be taken on holiday to a campsite, but the trip turns sour when he discovers they bought him from his abusive father for £5,000. A Corrie spokesman told TV Plus: "The secret deal organised by Roy and Hayley is about to become public and they decide to flee with Wayne. The trip will have repercussions for months to come."

The Croppers will be joined on their camping holiday by Martin Platt and Sally Webster. They are enjoying a forbidden holiday romance under canvas in Cheshire. Sally brings her daughters Rosie and Sophie along, too. The adults get drunk and end up in bed together.

But the action will also centre on a hotel nearby. The holiday scenes will be shown on July 23, 27 and 30.

Granada under threat from foreign buyers
25 June 2001 by David Teather

Granada, the largest of the ITV companies, has admitted to having been approached by a number of potential buyers from mainland Europe. The disclosure came in a leaked letter to the government from Granada chairman Charles Allen warning that ITV could face a disastrous future if there were any further delays to the enactment of the communications bill.

In a letter to Tony Blair, Mr Allen suggested that ITV could fall prey to an overseas bidder if the obstacles to a Granada merger with its ITV rival, Carlton Communications, were not removed in time. The result could be that investment in British programming and jobs were lost. He also made an implicit threat to pull the plug on ONdigital, the company's pay-TV platform, unless the government moved fast. The letter portrayed Granada, which makes Britain's favourite soap, Coronation Street, as a company under siege. It underlined how crucial a merger with Carlton was viewed by senior Granada executives.

Mr Allen disclosed that the business had already received approaches from overseas predators because of its depressed share price. Without the benefits of consolidation with Carlton, he warned, there was no guarantee that Granada would be able to keep its independence. No buyers were named but they could include the likes of TF1, Mediaset or RTL.

The letter was sent last Monday when Mr Allen learned that the communications bill would not be included in the Queen's speech setting out the government's legislative programme. The bill will remove two rules barring a merger between Granada and Carlton. Further delays to the bill would damage the Granada share price further still, he said. "The current share price incorporates a consolidation premium which is based on the perceived value of a consolidated ITV company. They will become cheaper still and more vulnerable if there is a block on that consolidation."

A foreign owner, he said, would almost certainly cut ITV's £1bn a year investment in programming which sustains 5,000 jobs. Many Granada jobs were in unemployment blackspots in the north of England, Mr Allen said. "If we lose our independence, the price could be high."

The axe is hanging most clearly over ONdigital. The letter said: "Even if we remain independent, a further depressed share price could exhaust our own shareholders' tolerance in our continuing investment in ONdigital. "The plans tabled by the European companies who have approached us do not feature ONdigital. These companies consider that a retreat from the platform would be well received by the market." Granada, and Carlton, its partner in ONdigital, have committed to invest £1.1bn in the platform to take it to break-even.

The comments will carry particular resonance for the government, which has made much of a digital Britain. At the time of the Queen's speech last week, the government maintained it would still meet its timetable for legislation to be enacted by 2003. The removal of two rules, one banning a single company from owning the weekday and weekend ITV franchises in London, the other setting a limit on audience share, would not guarantee the merger of Granada and Carlton.

The communications bill will place responsibility for the putative merger in the hands of the competition authorities which will still represent a significant challenge. Between them, Granada and Carlton account for 50-60% of the television advertising market in Britain, and further consolidation could face strong opposition from advertisers.

The letter, co-signed by chief executive Steve Morrison, asked that "full consideration should be given to whether there is any way that the artificial restrictions on ITV companies can be removed in this parliamentary session". Granada refused to comment last night.

ITV faces worst ever ad slump
25 June 2001

ITV will this year suffer its worst slump in advertising since the start of commercial television 50 years ago, the Financial Times newspaper has reported. Total UK advertising spending will drop 0.8% this year - the first annual downturn since the recession of the early 1990s - the newspaper said a survey by advertising forecaster Zenith Media would suggest. Less than three months ago, Zenith had forecast 3.6% growth in advertising spending for this year.

It said newspaper advertising had since weakened and the picture was even grimmer for commercial television. The FT said ITV would see revenue slip 8.9%. Earlier this month, Granada, one of ITV's main owners, said it had experienced a 10% slump in ad revenue in the nine months to June.

One of the reasons behind the slump is the cutback in global ad spending by US multinationals in the face of economic slowdown. In a leaked letter to Tony Blair, Granada chief executive Charles Allen recently warned that delays in legislation on cross-media ownership were making his company vulnerable to takeover approaches from foreign companies.

Mrs Ken's common assault
24 June 2001 by Carole Malone

ANYONE who saw ITV's Ken And Me with Corrie's Bill Roache couldn't fail to have been appalled by his unutterably snotty wife Sara, who is patently delusional and believes herself to be royalty. What else could account for that shrill and piercing voice which speaks with authority on absolutely everything and her belief that she is a doyenne of style and good taste, when in fact her house looks like a 19th Century brothel.

One imagines Mrs Roache thinks of the hoi polloi in the same way David Attenborough thinks about his apes - an interesting species but not one you'd want to get too close to. And of course she will be proud of the fact she treats everyone absolutely equally - with disdain and total contempt.

So what joy to see Cheshire's Queen Bee make an unholy show of herself this week outside Crewe County Court, where Billy Boy was appearing for not paying off his pounds 600,000 debts - incurred when he sued the newspaper that claimed he was boring.

Upset at having her picture taken outside court, Mrs Roache whacked a cameraman across the head with a heavy file and screamed "You little sh*t". One imagines such a lapse of decorum will not have gone down well at the Rotary Club. However it WILL have sent Mrs Roache hot-footing it to the nearest anger management consultant and left everyone she has ever lorded it over clapping and cheering.

My pal Lynne is real star
24 June 2001 by Carol Morris-Roe

IT made me smile to hear Amanda Barrie reminisce about old school Corrie stars like Pat Pheonix, who always turned up for work dressed like Hollywood icons. She told how Lynne Perrie, who played Ivy Brennan, once wore an evening gown to an afternoon rehearsal - just to greet fans camped outside the studios.

Lynne and I once spent a week in Southern Ireland together to work on her autobiography. It was cold, wet and windy and I advised her that wellies, plenty of jumpers and a pack-a-mac would be all she'd need. Lynne wasn't having that. She filled four suitcases with sequined full-length frocks - all with matching shoes, bags, gloves, hats, lipsticks and nail varnishes. "My fans expect it of me and if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here," she said. "I can't let them down." And she didn't. Every person who approached her was given a warm smile, a signed picture and a hilarious insight on life on Britain's most famous street.

A refreshing change to the new breed of stars who crave the fame then cry foul when the fans who have lined their pockets dare to ask for an autograph. It's sad to hear Lynne is in hospital at the moment with heart problems. Get well soon, chuck.

Alma's twin tragedy
24 June 2001 by Ian Hyland

DOUBLE tragedy for Amanda Barrie; two wakes in the same week and Ken Barlow was at both of them.

First she said goodbye to Alma in a top-quality episode of Coronation Street (ITV, Wednesday) before waving farewell to her career by appearing on Star Lives (ITV, Friday). The omens weren't great when the announcer introduced her as Amanda Berry - ah, how soon we forget. Then Carol Vorderman said "she is the long-suffering Alma," which was wrong on two counts. She WAS Alma, and as anyone who's been watching Corrie knows, her suffering wasn't actually that long. Oh, but she suffered on Star Lives, especially when racing pundit John McSideburns browbeat her into agreeing to appear on his show - still Amanda, a booking's a booking.

Then she had to put up with the likes of Bill Roache, Barbara Knox and Sue Nicholls saying how much they'll miss her on Corrie, each wearing an expression that screamed "I'm next". Her torture was complete when Carol asked her age and the audience cheered when she said she was 65. "It's a bit bloody much when you get a round of applause for your age," said Amanda. You should savour it, Amanda; it might be the last one for some time.

TV Star's Daughter in Sting Claim
23 June 2001

THE daughter of Coronation Street star Johnny Briggs told a court yesterday how she led a wealthy publican into a sting. Karen Briggs, 35, said she desperately needed £2000 to pay rent arrears. But her father, who plays Cockney businessman Mike Baldwin in the soap, was out of the country when she wanted to contact him.

An Old Bailey jury heard that she arranged to sell her car to a friend, publican Ronald Hintz. But a male friend hatched a plan to rob him of the £2200 if she went to his house and let them in. Briggs, who stayed with her mum in London after her parents split, said she "wasn't 100 per cent for it but wasn't 100 per cent against" the robbery plan.

She told the court that she got "cold feet" about the plan but two men went ahead and Mr Hintz was pistol-whipped and stabbed in the attack. She said she helped lead the man and an accomplice to Mr Hintz's home in New Denham, Buckinghamshire. But she refused to name the male friend she alleges came up with the robbery idea. She said: "It wouldn't be very wise for me to name him - he stabbed Ron on the night of the offence."

Mr Hintz told police that he saw mother-of-one Briggs leaving with his two attackers.

Coronation Street star keen to start rehearsing again
22 June 2001

Former Coronation Street star Amanda Barrie is looking forward to getting back to rehearsing. Her character Alma died of cancer last week. Now she has landed a panto role as the Wicked Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Amanda told Ananova she was keen to do more live theatre now she had left Coronation Street. "I'm interested in anything at all, particularly anything you can rehearse," she said. She said the soap's schedule was so hectic that the cast were always busy learning lines and had no time to rehearse. "It's like being a taxi driver doing The Knowledge every night," said Amanda. "You really do go into a restaurant and learn the menu."

She will play opposite Billy Pearce in the panto at the Alhambra in Bradford from December 14 until February 3. She will be excited as well as nervous when she returns to the stage. "If you take a 14-year gap from anything, if you stop for 14 years you lose the trick of the stamina - and you're also 14 years older," she said. "I shall be terrified. I shall probably be wrapped around poor Billy's neck."

Amanda enjoyed her stint on Coronation Street but said she never quite got the hang of it. "I don't think I ever got the knack of television," she said. "I had to try to. I thought 'I really must stay until I've cracked it'."

Snap! The wife of Corrie's Ken Barlow stars in real life drama of her own
22 June 2001

CORONATION Street star Bill Roache watched helplessly yesterday as his wife Sara lashed out at a television crew. The couple had just left a county court hearing where creditors had called for the actor to pay off debts.

As the cameras started rolling, angry Sara, who is also Roache's business manager, ran at Carlton Central TV's Malcolm Powell, who was filming, and shouted "You little s**t". She hit him several times on his back and head with a red plastic file and also lashed out at a freelance reporter. Then Sara and her husband, who plays Corrie's mild-mannered Ken Barlow, drove away from the court in Crewe, Cheshire, in a silver Volvo estate.

Reporter Thirzah Wildman, 22, who dodged the swinging file, said: "All I asked was how it went but that seemed to upset them. I was quite surprised by her reaction - it seemed way over the top. The cameraman was more shocked than hurt. I don't think he could believe what was happening. "Bill Roache seemed very embarrassed by his wife's behaviour."

Creditors are demanding a slice of his wages to repay debts, following his bankruptcy in 1999. The firm acting for his creditors said yesterday: "Mr Roache owes about £600,000 and he is bankrupt. "We have made an application for an order to see whether Mr Roache can make further payments from his income." His creditors are understood to include the Inland Revenue.

Roache was declared bankrupt in 1999 with debts of around £300,000. Eight years earlier he had been forced to pay legal costs of £120,000, despite winning a £50,000 libel action against The Sun newspaper for calling him "boring". He ran up more debts when he unsuccessfully tried to sue the firm of lawyers who had advised him in that action. He invented a board game called Libel in a bid to raise money but it did not sell very well.

Roache, who is back with ex-wife Deirdre in the Street, earns more than £160,000. He is the only surviving member of the original Coronation Street cast of 40 years ago and is among stars fighting a move by Granada TV to cut wages by 25 per cent. Yesterday a spokeswoman for Coronation Street declined to comment on the court hearing.

Frumpy pumpy
21 June 2001

CORRIE'S dowdy Gail Platt is to be transformed into the soap's new maneater. Bosses are to spice up her sex life after she sees ex-hubby Martin embark on an affair with her best pal, Sally. And actress Helen Worth, who has played Gail for 26 years, can't wait to get stuck into the steamy storyline. But Gail's passionate romance with smoothie newcomer Richard Hillman - who was seen for the first time in last night's funeral episode - sparks a rift with her lusty mum Audrey, who also desperately tries to seduce him.

The plot is all part of a summer of sex on the Street. Richard, played by ex-Grange Hill star Brian Capron, reveals himself as Alma's cousin and makes friends with her old pals. He initially targets Audrey, who inherits most of Alma's cash, and offers to help her with investments. But it's Gail he really fancies. And the feeling is mutual - Gail begs him to take her to bed.

A Street source said: "Poor Gail has had a miserable time. We couldn't remember the last time she had a good time - now she's set for some sizzling excitement." "It's a bit of a shocker as it's so unlike Gail - but she's desperate for love." "The spin-off scenes involving her mum Audrey will be tremendous. She is devastated seeing Gail with Richard but Gail doesn't care that Audrey is raging with jealousy."

Ken in court
21 June 2001

CORRIE star Bill Roache yesterday faced demands from creditors over the huge legal bill he was ordered to pay over his "boring Ken" libel action. Roache, alias Ken Barlow, appeared at Crewe County Court to fight the move. The 65-year-old was accompanied by his wife Sara, who also acts as his business manager.

He looked embarrassed as he arrived for the start of the two-day hearing held behind closed doors, But a spokeswoman for the county's Official Receiver in Bankruptcy said it concerned an "application for an income payments order".

Street actress told to shut up during her death scene
20 June 2001

Coronation Street's actress Amanda Barrie missed her own on-screen death by gabbing on the phone to friends. Amanda, who played cancer stricken Alma in the soap, was told to shut up by pals during Sunday's tear-jerking episode.

As millions of Corrie fans watched Alma's farewell the actress was busy chatting on the phone. "I annoyed everyone by being on the phone," Amanda told Ananova from the launch of her latest role in panto. "Some friends came across to watch me die and they kept shushing me because the phone kept ringing. I sort of half watched it."

Amanda will play the wicked queen in Snow White and The Seven Dwarves at the Alhambra in Bradford.

Corrie's Sally and Martin to be lovers
20 June 2001 by Derek Robins

Corrie divorcees Sally Webster and Martin Platt are to become lovers in a shock storyline at the end of July. The couple get it together when they go on a camping holiday with their children. Sally gets drunk and they sleep together. A Corrie spokeswoman said: "Sally has been through a lot, with her divorce from Kevin and being jilted by Danny so she's more likely to go for a man she knows and can trust."

Street veterans Sally Whittaker and Sean Wilson burst out laughing when they discovered their characters Sally and Martin are to become lovers. "They had a laugh when they found out they'd have to do kissing scenes as they've known each other a long time. They both joined Corrie in the mid-80s. "But viewers can expect sparks to fly when Kevin and Gail find out about it, even though both couples are divorced," a Corrie insider revealed.

Becoming Sally Webster's lover will be something of a family affair for Corrie's Martin Platt as he bedded her younger sister Gina in the late '80s. Sally and Kevin actually caught them in bed together, thinking they were being burgled. As a result Martin had a fight with Gina's boyfriend. Later he wed Gail and they divorced after his fling with nurse Cathy Power. A Corrie spokeswoman said: "There are likely to be fireworks about the romance as Sally is Gail's best pal."

Bosses hope Martin and Sally's affair will bring some light relief to the soap after the trauma of Alma's death from cervical cancer. A Corrie spokeswoman added: "It's a very lighthearted story when they fall for each other on the camping trip. "They go with their kids David, Rosie and Sophie and Hayley, Roy, Wayne and Todd. There are some very funny moments, especially when Roy decides to take charge."

Soap stabbing trial begins
20 June 2001

The trial of a man accused of stabbing Coronation Street star John Savident is due to start Today. Michael James Smith, 28, of Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, is accused of wounding Mr Savident, 62, with intent to cause him grievous bodily harm on 1 December last year. He is also charged with robbing him of a wallet, credit cards, keys, a watch, a ring, a money clip, an invitation card and cash on the same date.

On Tuesday during the jury selection process, Judge Harold Singer asked 49 potential jurors how much they knew of the press coverage of the incident. The judge told the jury panel: "John Savident is, as you may know, in fact known more popularly as Fred Elliott in Coronation Street. "If you watch Coronation Street you will recollect that Fred Elliott is the burly butcher."

He went on to ask the potential jurors if any of them knew any of the actors or staff on Coronation Street - or anyone involved in Granada television, which makes the soap opera There was no response, but when the judge went on to ask whether any of them "had read any article about this incident involving these two men, the details of which you think you remember", eight of them raised their hands and were asked to stand down.

The defendant pleads not guilty to all charges.

Amanda's story bleat sickens me
20 June 2001 by Sue Carroll

WHEN a dying woman wrote to Coronation Street's Amanda Barrie begging her to stop producers turning Alma's cervical cancer into entertainment, the actress didn't reply. The distraught viewer, a cervical cancer sufferer herself, felt certain she hadn't much longer to live and was concerned that her children, who watched the Street, would be upset. "What could I say?" explains Amanda. "That I didn't have control of the storyline?"

Well, frankly, yes, that's precisely what she should have said, because it's the truth. Professional actors, whether they're performers in Britain's top soap or smalltown rep are paid to deliver lines, not pontificate about the role. It's a bit rich, now she's left the show, to hear Miss Barrie whinge about the demise of her character being a "cheap ratings ploy" and express anger at "irresponsible" scripts. "I didn't like it one bit," she moans. Really? If she felt so strongly about the issue it would not have been impossible to walk away from the hugely paid job and wave goodbye to her contract on principle. It's not uncommon in Hollywood for movie stars to quit a movie because the script offends their sensibilities. Are we to believe that the same isn't possible in Manchester?

What she did in the event was worse, to take the money, play the part then express her tortured regrets to a newspaper for yet another sackload of money. To me this is inexcusable and much more of a betrayal to a trusting audience. I wouldn't deny there were areas of the storyline which were implausible. It seems unlikely from talking to experts that Alma Halliwell's illness would have been diagnosed as terminal with such haste. Or that her death would have come so quickly. And for families who have mothers, wives and daughters suffering from cervical cancer it cannot have made comfortable viewing.

The reality, according to the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, is that two-thirds of sufferers make full recoveries. It's also worth mentioning that I was probably not the only woman who watched the final episode and made a mental note to call my doctor The fact that one Manchester hospital claims it is dealing with 1,000 smear tests a day as opposed to 2,000 a week indicates the plot had a more positive than negative response.

Not that this should be an excuse for pious programme makers to congratulate hemselves on their moral rectitude. They have only one aim. To put bums on seats. Increasingly soaps, in their battle for existence, have taken it upon themselves to deal with "issues". Between them they've been through the entire catalogue of human catastrophes and back again, some requiring more willing suspension of disbelief than others.

The days when funerals, weddings and births were enough to manipulate us into tuning in are over. We expect high-powered drama whether it's rampant infidelity, homicide, rape or euthanasia. "I believe the Street belongs to the nation," bleats Amanda. "The company which makes it, is just its caretaker." Yes, and it's their job to keep us glued to it. And they succeed. Fifteen million of us tuned in to watch Alma die.

As for Miss Barrie's regret. I'll believe it when she tells us that the vast sum she earned from her part in the storyline "she didn't like one bit" is on the way to a cancer charity of her choice.

Shut it Alma
19 June 2001

CORONATION Street bosses and cancer charities last night backed the storyline where Alma Halliwell died of the disease. They hit back after actress Amanda Barrie, who played Alma, slammed her death from cervical cancer in Sunday's episode as negative and "a cheap ratings ploy".

Coronation Street executive Andrea Wonfor, who gave the script her blessing, revealed her own battle with breast cancer. Her emotions were used as the foundation for Alma's rollercoaster to despair. And cancer organisations said calls from women booking smear tests or wanting information have doubled and in some areas trebled because of the show.

Andrea, 56, head of Granada Creative, was diagnosed in 1995 after discovering a lump under her arm. Like Alma, one doctor said there was nothing to worry about. Andrea said: "I knew instinctively something was wrong so I went for a second opinion. This time it was a woman doctor who sent me straight for a biopsy." Tests showed the cancer was spreading to her lymph glands. Andrea had surgery followed by six months of radiotherapy and chemotherapy and has since been given the all-clear.

She said of Amanda's fierce criticism: "She is a great actress and gave a terrific performance so I was saddened to read her negative comments. "Last week when she went to a MacMillan Cancer Relief event on our behalf she was being very positive about the storyline." She added: "It was all based on medical fact and double-checked with medical advisers. "We knew we could reach all the women in Britain with the message that early warning and vigilance was better than the consequences suffered by Alma. A storyline like this is in the best tradition of Coronation Street, which is not to shy away from campaigning issues. "Sometimes you have to be extreme to put something into the public conscience. "Based on medical evidence there were enough cases like Alma to justify making this storyline as radical as possible. "The Christie hospital in Manchester have told us they are dealing with 1,000 smears a day, compared with 2,000 a week before Alma's diagnosis. "Surely that is testament that it has had a positive effect on women. The fact that so many more than ever are now asking for smear tests proves the message has hit home."

Cancer charities praised the show for tackling the subject. Jane Maher, chief medical officer of MacMillan Cancer Relief and a consultant oncologist, said: "For a soap to take on such a delicate and at times taboo subject is a positive step because it has opened the whole issue up to debate. "My message to those behind the soaps is to carry on talking about cancer and explode the myths surrounding it."

Cancerlink, a national self-help organisation, noted "an unprecedented" rise in callers to its information line as a result of Alma's death. Spokeswoman Clare Benjamin said: "You could almost time the calls to the end of each episode. "We shouldn't look upon this as taboo. I think it was very brave to take this on. What Coronation Street has done is become a forum and it has started a huge debate on the whole subject, which means more people are asking for information and that is a great step forward."

Dr Anne Szarewski, cervical cancer expert at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, said: "The publicity from Coronation Street appears to have spurred women on to attend smear tests so the effect has been a positive one."

Even Amanda admitted that the plot had raised cancer awareness. She told GMTV: "The only thing that really worried me was that I thought it was such a horrible tale that it would put people off - but it hasn't."

Sally & Martin set sparks flying in Corrie affair
19 June 2001

CORONATION Street's losers in love Sally Webster and Martin Platt are to be thrown together in a shock summer romance. It happens when the couple, both nursing broken hearts in the top ITV series, take their kids camping. In the storyline, Sally takes her girls Rosie and Sophie for a weekend away with Martin, his son David and step daughter Sarah-Lou, and foster parents Roy and Hayley Cropper with their youngster Wayne.

Sally and Martin start chatting around the camp fire. Then the booze takes effect and the action hots up. When the kids are fast asleep, Sally - best pal of Martin's ex-wife Gail - and Martin start chatting around the camp fire. Sally has a glass of wine too many, the booze takes effect and the action hots up and she ends up sleeping with Martin, whose big friend of Sally's ex Kevin.

But when Sally Whittaker and Sean Wilson, who play the two characters, read the storyline, they fell about laughing. They have been best pals since joining the soap 16 years ago. Yesterday, they walked up the road to the studios arm-in-arm, laughing and joking and looking every bit a couple of lovers. One onlooker said : "They were really lovey- dovey - you could have been mistaken for them filming their new romance."

A Street spokeswoman said the steamy scenes would be screened at the end of July and added: "Sally has had her fingers burned with men in the past and feels she can't trust strangers any more - but she has known Martin for a long time". The romance is bound to ignite fireworks when Gail discovers Sally is dating Martin.

Alma goes - but how many more ?
19 June 2001

ALMA Halliwell might have passed on, but could it be last orders for others at the Rovers? The Street's stars, who've been getting angry over pay, shouldn't assume they have bosses over a barrel. Gossips at Corrie HQ claim the show's executive producer Jane Macnaught has confidential contingency plans - well, they were until now - to kill off more than seven characters by commissioning a series of cast-depleting plot lines

The scheme was hatched at a secret meeting at a Southport hotel, apparently, where senior figures discussed staging a fire at the Rovers (death count: three), a shoot-out at the Post Office (death count: four), and a "mad cow-like problem" (death count: indeterminate).

It's all being rubbished by Granada, however. "We've never had a forward- planning meeting in Southport and everyone has been offered new contracts," says press officer Alison Sinclair. "I've spoken to Jane Macnaught and she thinks it's laughable. It's the biggest laugh we've had all day."

Corrie star - "We don't do much"
18 June 2001 by Simon Holden

Actress Amanda Barrie has admitted that soap stars get paid for "doing nothing". Amanda quit Corrie last night after 20 years playing Alma Halliwell, who died after suffering cervical cancer. Last week it was disclosed that long- serving stars in the soap are paid more than Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Amanda told GMTV: "You get paid for waiting. It's like an airport. "You get paid for sitting around. I want to get fit and work on stage again." The actress says she and her highly paid colleagues spend most of their working time sitting in the Granada Studio Green Room waiting to do their scenes. The Green Room is a refreshments lounge near the sets.

Cast members are still in a pay row with Corrie makers Granada TV. The company wants to stop senior stars getting paid extra for going on holiday and to reduce the number of public appearances they make. A Coronation Street spokesman denied that the cast "sit around all day" while working. She told TV Plus: "An actor may be in four scenes in a day but there may be a gap in between where they will learn lines, be in costume or make-up."

About 14.4 million people saw Alma breathe her last on Sunday night. ITV cornered 62% of the TV audience. Wildlife On One was watched by a mere 2.9 million.

Corrie veteran Bill Roache is paid more than £166,000 a year for portraying Ken Barlow, while Barbara Knox, who plays Rita, gets about £180,000. Prime Minister Tony Blair receives £147,000 per annum.

Corrie under fire for cancer death
18 June 2001

Coronation Street's scriptwriters are under fire from one of their top actresses after her character was killed off as a result of cancer. Amanda Barrie accused them of mounting a "cheap ratings ploy" over the cancer death of Alma Halliwell. The 63-year-old actress, who has played Alma for more than two decades, said she was "horrified" when the news of her character's impending death was broken.

Barrie, who has had her own real-life cancer scare, argued that the scriptwriters had missed the chance to include anything "remotely uplifting" in the storyline. "As Alma's illness and deterioration proceeded with such amazing speed I really did feel I was being asked to take part in a cheap ratings ploy. I didn't like it one bit."

In the storyline, Alma is summoned to a third smear test appointment after missing her first and falling victim to a hospital blunder on her second. She is given a terminal diagnosis and told treatment is futile by a consultant as soon as the results of the repeat test are revealed.

The actress said the script got it all wrong, "I knew it was wrong. Cervical cancer takes years and years to develop." "No consultant would make a pronouncement as quickly and as bluntly as that. And no woman would have reached that stage without severe symptoms, which Alma didn't have." "I felt straight away that it gave completely the wrong message."

In an effort to make the story more realistic Barrie offered to have her hair shaved off in order to portray Alma as undergoing chemotherapy. But storyline editor Di Burrows told her "there would be no question of that". Barrie added, "It didn't occur to me then that I would go so quickly. It's the speed of it all which I think has been the worst aspect."

The character's death was an emotional episode, with friends and enemies from the Street uniting in their grief. An ITV spokesman said they were trying to make the long-running soap more hard-hitting, "We're hoping that the storyline will show there's so many more issues surrounding cancer, including the effects on others."

Alma's cancer death is the latest in a line of Coronation Street plots designed to boost the ratings. They included the harrowing rape of Toyah Battersby.

Corrie tear-jerker as Alma loses cancer battle
17 June 2001

Coronation Street's Alma has lost her battle against cervical cancer in a tear-jerking episode. In her final moments Alma, played by Amanda Barrie, lay ashen-faced in Audrey Roberts' house as her close friends said their goodbyes. It is hoped the show will prove a ratings winner for the ITV soap. Alma's funeral will be screened on Wednesday. Mike and Audrey will then travel to the Lake District to scatter her ashes.

A Coronation Street spokeswoman said the scenes had been difficult to film: "It was so moving and really devastating for them all to watch her go like that. "It has been an incredibly moving performance by Amanda and Sue Nicholls. We're hoping that the storyline will show there's so many more issues surrounding cancer including the effects on others."

In the emotion-filled episode former husband Mike Baldwin, played by Johnny Briggs, and his rival Ken Barlow (Bill Roache), were united in grief at her bedside. Alma's distraught best friend Audrey (Sue Nicholls) her daughter Gail Platt (Helen Worth) and Curly Watts, played by Kevin Kennedy, also broke down as she passed away.

Barrie made the decision to quit the soap after playing the character for 20 years, but was unhappy at the way the character was written out. She branded the cancer storyline a "cheap ratings ploy" and "medically inaccurate". She thought it would put women off having smear tests after a hospital blunder and missed appointment meant Alma's condition was untreatable.

Amanda Barrie on holiday in Spain
Issue No 667 19 June 2001

As Coronation Street viewers watch brave Alma Halliwell come to terms with terminal illness, it's a comfort to know that the woman who plays her ñ the equally feisty Amanda Barrie - is looking forward to a wonderful life that Weatherfield folk can only dream of. She will henceforth divide her time between her stylish flat in London's theatreland and her luxury penthouse on Spain's Costa Blanca.

Unlike many Street actors who have been shocked to find themselves written out of the show, it was very much Amanda's decision to leave. "I don't think soaps nowadays are written for older people" she says, "I'm not young enough to keep having romances, for a start! And there are all those challenges I've avoided, which I'd like to have the opportunity to take on now"

Amanda was particularly anxious about Alma's controversial cervical cancer exit storyline because, 15 years ago, she had her own cancer scare, followed by a hysterectomy. She has been well ever since - her problem was, it turned out, gynaecological - but she says: "I remember waiting for my results. I really was afraid that I had cancer and some tests came back borderline. I was in a cold sweat all the time. My strongest feeling about what has happened to Alma is that if one woman stayed away from her doctor because of anything she's seen in the show then that would be unforgivable"

For more on Amanda Barrie, her real-life health dramas and her plans for the future, see this week's HELLO! Magazine, on sale now.

Alma's mourners told not to wear black
17 June 2001

Mourners at Alma's funeral in Coronation Street will not be dressed in black at the character's own request. It will also be an upbeat occasion with lively music.

Soap fans will see Alma, played by Amanda Barrie, die from cervical cancer in Sunday's episode. Her funeral will be screened on ITV on Wednesday. Audrey is introduced to Alma's cousin Richard Hillman. And at the wake they play Alma's video in which she thanks them all for their friendship and tells Mike she will always love him.

Doctor's and fans angry at Alma's demise
17 June 2001 by Simon Holden

The death of one of Britain's best- loved soap characters has not gone down well with thousands of fans. Alma Halliwell has succumbed to cervical cancer because actress Amanda Barrie wants to leave the show after 20 years.

Two doctors have already complained to TV regulator the ITC about the storyline and TV Plus has received dozens of letters from viewers asking why she just can't leave Weatherfield gracefully. The medical professionals said that Corrie has presented the very "worst- case scenario" by showing her dying so fast after diagnosis. They are not happy that after just one test she has refused all other treatment options.

Many other fans believe the story is far too melodramatic and unnecessary. TV regulator the ITC has already raised the issue of Alma's death with Granada Television, which makes the soap. A spokesman told TV Plus: "We will let the the current story play itself out before raising the issue again." A viewer from West Bromwich, West Midlands, said: "Not only does Alma get a consultation in a week or so, she gets offered radiotherapy straight away. My father waited eight weeks."

Granada says the Alma cancer story has been carefully researched and scripted so as not to offend viewers. Barrie, 65, has been applauded for her performance. She intially opposed the story saying "How dare they use an issue as sensitive as this just to win more viewers?" But she changed her view and hopes the story will encourage more women to have smear tests.

Tears as Street says farewell to Alma
17 June 2001

Much-loved Coronation Street character Alma Halliwell will lose her battle against cervical cancer surrounded by friends. The show is expected to be a ratings winner as millions of fans tune in to watch her last moments. Alma will pass away at the home of close friend Audrey Roberts (Sue Nicholls). At her deathbed will be ex-husband Mike Baldwin, former lover Ken Barlow, Mike's scheming wife Linda Baldwin, and Curly Watts.

Viewers have followed closely as Alma, played by Amanda Barrie, discovered she had cervical cancer. They watched her trying to cope with the devastating news that a missed appointment and a hospital blunder meant it was untreatable. Barrie attacked the storyline as a "cheap ratings ploy" and "medically inaccurate".

It is the latest in a line of hard-hitting Coronation Street plots designed to pull in the ratings and followed the harrowing rape of Toyah Battersby (Georgia Taylor). A Street insider said it had been difficult to film, adding: "It was so moving and really devastating for them all to watch her go like that. "In the coming weeks people will see her friends struggling to cope."

Millions expected to say farewell to Corrie favourite
16 June 2001

Millions of viewers are expected to tune into Coronation Street on Sunday night to watch one of the show's favourite characters die. Viewers have seen Alma Halliwell refuse treatment since being diagnosed with cervical cancer after missing a smear test.

Amanda Barrie, who played Alma, had announced she wanted to leave the show after 11 years in the soap.

Alma's funeral will be shown on Wednesday night.

Alma storyline moves stars
15 June 2001 by TV Plus reporters

Corrie star Sue Nicholls has spoken of the personal impact of the heart-rending Alma storyline. Nicholls, 57, has been at the centre of the tragic cervical cancer plot as pal Audrey Roberts.

She said: "It does get sadder and sadder and I know it's been very emotive and there's been lots of controversy. "But it made me go for a smear test which I kept putting off and I now know the signs of this cancer."

Nicholls insists Corrie has got the Alma storyline just right. "The only feedback I have had has been very positive," she told This Morning. "I have two friends who have had cancer and they say it's mirrored their own situation. "We (Amanda Barrie and herself) both knew we had to get it right because we knew it was going to affect a lot of people. Amanda really did her homework. There is no self-pity in her performance. It's just spot on."

Alma turns to wicked queen after quitting the Street
15 June 2001

Amanda Barrie will turn to panto after the death of her Coronation Street character.

Alma will die in Sunday's episode after a battle against cancer. The first new role she has announced after leaving the soap is as the Wicked Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. She will play opposite Billy Pearce at the Alhambra in Bradford from December 14 until February 2.

On Sunday, viewers will see Mike put his fury at Linda's betrayal behind him to be at his ex-wife's side for her final hours. Ken and Mike's feud is also forgotten as they unite to make Alma as comfortable as possible. And Audrey arrives back from London unaware of how little time Alma has left. Curly manages to find her and they make it to the house with just moments to spare.

Chaos as Corrie star goes sick
14 June 2001

CORONATION Street suffered fresh turmoil yesterday after pregnant star Jacqueline Pirie went sick and threw crucial filming schedules into chaos. A team of scriptwriters was called to an emergency summit to rapidly re-write some sensational scenes involving her character, cheating factory boss Linda Baldwin.

This week Corrie fans saw bitchy Linda seduce textile boss Harvey Reubens in retaliation for TV husband Mike Baldwin visiting his ex-wife Alma on her sick bed. Who Linda finished up with was key to forthcoming episodes.

A Street production source said: "People had to move very quickly to halt the chaos. It called on some clever work by the scriptwriters." Other Corrie stars - already in dispute with the company over new contracts - found themselves having to fit in and work around the revamped storylines.

Jacqueline's illness was put down to complications with her pregnancy.

Granada turns job axe on management
14 June 2001 by George Trefgarne, Financial Correspondent

GRANADA announced that 100 managers would lose their jobs yesterday as a campaign to cut costs at ITV gathered pace. Charles Allen, chairman, said the job cuts were part of a programme to save £60m a year by 2004. He described it as a "delayering" of management, which will make ITV "more efficient, more focused and more effective". Further job losses at ITV Network Centre will be announced in two weeks. The news temporarily arrested the slump in Granada's shares, but they fell back in late trading to close unchanged at 167p. Carlton, the other big ITV company, fell 1 to 373p.

Three of a kind: Steve Morrison, Charles Allen and Henry Staunton at the head of Granada

The two companies are suffering from declining advertising sales coupled with the cost of their loss-making digital television enterprise, ITV Digital, running at £150m a year each. Investment in ITV Digital is being scaled back and a third backer being sought to help shoulder the burden. Steve Morrison, chief executive, said a partner could come from outside the media. "ITV Digital is an attractive operation for other industries," he said. "Especially as the new integrated TVs cut the cost of hooking up new customers to £40, compared with £200 for Sky and £600 for cable." In April, the companies said total spending on ITV Digital would be £1.1 billion, not £1.2 billion as planned and it will break even with 1.7m customers, not 2m. No profits will be seen until 2004, not next year, as first hoped.

The ITV cost-cutting has even extended to slashing the wages on Coronation Street, the flagship soap made by Granada. Some of the veterans, such as Barbara Knox, 67, who plays Rita Sullivan, and Bill Roache, 69, who plays Ken Barlow, are facing wage cuts of up to £50,000 a year as their contracts are updated and holiday pay cut. There is talk of strike action and Granada faces an emergency meeting with representatives of actors' union Equity today.

Granada reported its plunge into the red yesterday. Losses at continuing operations were £69m in the six months to March, compared to pre-tax profits of £289m in the same period last year. However, if exceptionals and goodwill are added back in, the company showed pre-tax profits of £17m. That compares to £58m on a pro-forma basis last year.

Granada is to reorganise around two divisions: platforms and content. The latter will be run by Simon Shaps, while a new executive is being sought for the platform division, which will include the new sports channel. The hope is that every 1pc recovery in advertising will lead to a 3pc increase in profits. Mr Allen had little comfort on advertising revenues yesterday. He said it was 5.4pc down in the first half and advanced bookings for July were down 17-18pc. "It is pretty clear that advertising is weak across all Western economies," he said.

One blow to ITV has been the failure of the Survivor programme to attract big audiences. Mr Morrison said: "It's not a flop. We are now down to 10 contestants and I hope audiences will pick up as we get towards the end. " "This Monday, we added 1.5m viewers, taking it to 6.5m, which is much more than Big Brother on Channel 4. In the Morrison household, my 14-year-old daughter is absolutely hooked."

Coronation Street actors 'will not strike,' say TV bosses
12 June 2001

Coronation Street bosses are confident the soap's stars will not strike in a dispute over pay. Members of the cast were reported to be upset over a proposed cut in their salaries. But a Granada TV spokesman said there is "no question of a strike."

Street veterans Barbara Knox and Bill Roache are said to earn £171,000 and £166,000 per year respectively. They reportedly face pay cuts of up to 30% under new contracts that limit their appearances in the series.

The Granada TV spokeswoman said the soap stars' salaries were "private and confidential" and she was unable to confirm their reported pay levels. But she added: "Granada is currently in discussion with the cast of Coronation Street, but there is no question of a strike at all."

Alma backs Corrie cancer death plot
12 June 2001 by Derek Robbins

Corrie actress Amanda Barrie, whose character Alma Halliwell will die from cervical cancer on Sunday, has backed the controversial soap storyline. Amanda, 61, who'd initially opposed the plot, said: "It's good to help boost cancer awareness by showing it in soaps." She gave her backing last night at a glittering event to raise funds for the Macmillan Cancer Relief charity - attended by Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles.

Amanda revealed she had to think long and hard about the death of the character she's played for the last 12 years. "The only thing that really worried me was that I thought it was such a horrible tale it'd put people off, but it hasn't. There's been a huge increase in scans and smears."

Corrie story producer Di Burrows says the scenes when Alma dies are "harrowing". She told TV Times: "We've never done anything like this before - it's very harrowing viewing. "We see all of it really, because having embarked on the story we knew we had to see it through. "As an actress it's a huge challenge to live your own death, especially a character you've played for years. She gives a fantastic performance."

Di says she was shocked by the criticism aimed at the cervical cancer plot. "The backlash took us by surprise but it made us all the more determined to be accurate. Once people saw we were handling it sensitively the general feeling changed." Of the moving scenes with Alma and Audrey, she added: "It's struck a strong chord with viewers who've liked the female bonding."

Coronation Street cast could strike over pay
12 June 2001

Coronation Street stars are threatening to strike after facing huge wage cuts. Actors from the soap will meet representatives of their union Equity on Thursday. Veterans like Barbara Knox and Bill Roache have discovered their pay packets could be slashed by up to 30% under new contracts.

Equity's films, television and radio expert Andy Prodger told The Sun: "Cast members are very angry that Granada TV made proposals that mean a significant reduction in earnings. "Granada are looking at a situation where they don't like what they agreed in the past. But these were freely entered into. "There now has to be a negotiation and hopefully we'll resolve these issues. "We don't want to contemplate there being the need for industrial action. But you can never rule anything out."

Granada has refused to comment on the strike threat.

The Street still captivates viewers 41 years on
12 June 2001 by Clara Ferreira-Marques

The stiff upper lips of television executives quivered 41 years ago when they watched pilot episodes of "Coronation Street", the first TV soap to focus on working class characters. Since then many others have followed, but it was with the ups and downs of residents on a cobbled street of terraced houses, based on industrial Salford, that Granada Television defied British broadcasting tradition.

"[When it began] in 1960 Granada was still bringing all its leading actors up from London. Northern actors were considered to have unfashionable accents," the show's creator Tony Warren recalled. "We set out to change that."

Even after the streets of tightly packed red-brick houses have all but disappeared from Manchester's suburbs, millions of people still tune in four times a week to watch what Granada says is the world's longest-running television series. Four decades after the first episode was transmitted live, a cast of thousands has celebrated 25 births, 51 weddings and mourned 82 deaths. And the show, watched by more than 17 million viewers, is still going strong.

"It was meant to be going for 13 weeks, [and] it just carried on," Daran Little, one of the soap's 15 scriptwriters, said. "It is still top of the ratings." "If people continue to watch it, it will continue to carry on. It is a never-ending story," he said.

Only one character, Ken Barlow, has remained in the soap since it began, earning actor Bill Roache a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's longest serving soap star. "In some of the other British soap operas, the average life span of a character is much less than ours. You can be on "Coronation Street" for 10, 20, 30, 40 years," Little said.

The show is now broadcast to more than 20 countries, including China, with a Cantonese version whose title translates as "Joy Luck Street". "I think most people want to belong to a community. People appreciate the idea of these seven little houses ... (where) everyone knows everyone else's business," Little said. "They may not get the jokes, but they get the sense of community."

The show, known to fans and insiders simply as the Street, was almost called Florizel - after the young prince in Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale" - until one of the studio's helpers suggested it sounded like a detergent, and the creators set about finding a catchier name. Celebrities have lined up to pay their respects to Britain's longest serving television community. Prince Charles drank a pint of beer on the set of the Rovers' Return pub during a special anniversary episode. And Prime Minister Tony Blair - too busy to watch the show himself - asked the show's publicists to brief him on the campaign to free Deirdre Rashid, after the character was jailed for theft three years ago.

The smudged line between the "Coronation Street" set and reality becomes even less clear when the problems of the characters merge with those of viewers. Telephone numbers for viewers seeking advice were publicised when one character was raped, and when another found she was suffering from cancer. But Daran Little says the show is not about social education. "We're not a social realism programme in the sense that some soaps go out of their way to talk about issues," he said. "We don't do that. We're more domestic."

Nevertheless, a tour of the show's studios betrays a sharp eye for social detail. Actors' wardrobes are bought within the characters' actual budget, and all houses are carefully constructed and decorated. Walking around the set, publicist Alison Sinclair pointed to the mess of pots and pans piled up in the Duckworth family's kitchen, where family photographs and an embroidered Blackpool Tower fill the walls. "It's the kind of mess they would have," she said. "Household bills to pay, clothes in the laundry basket."

But the series remains fictional, scriptwriter Little says, despite the full page spreads dedicated to characters in Britain's mass-circulation newspapers. "It's a story. We don't pretend to be real," he said. "Baddies get caught on 'Coronation Street', and there is always someone who will make you a cup of tea."

Charles joins Street star in anti-cancer battle
11 June 2001

The Prince of Wales teamed up with actress Amanda Barrie in the battle against cancer at a charity extravaganza. Ms Barrie, who plays Alma Halliwell in Coronation Street, posed with Charles in the grounds of Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire. She was among other celebrities, including Elton John and Kylie Minogue, at the biggest ever gathering of fashion designers in the UK in aid of the Macmillan Cancer Relief charity. The Prince, a fan of Coronation Street in which Alma is about to die of cervical cancer, asked Barrie: "Have you gone yet?"

Barrie told Charles, who was at the event with Camilla Parker Bowles, that her character was due to die next week. She said later: "I told him I was 'going' soon. It's very good for soaps if it can help boost cancer awareness. It's all to the good." Mrs Parker Bowles later confided to Ms Barrie that she was a fan of the TV soap, the actress said.

The Prince later posed in the Versace pavilion with Naomi Campbell, Sophie Dahl, Patsy Kensit and Donatella Versace. As the group chatted, Donatella fingered the Prince's lapel and told him she hoped it was a Versace design. The Prince, whose dinner suit was made by Anderson & Shepherd of Savile Row, laughed. Dahl said she had asked Charles about Prince William's gap year. She said: "He said William was having a wonderful time. He was charming."

About 500 guests, paying at least £550 a ticket, were expected at the champagne reception. The centrepiece of the event was seven pavilions, each representing a showcase of different international fashion designers such as Giorgio Armani, Sir Paul Smith and Asprey & Garrard.

Corrie Changed My Sarah...
10 June 2001

THE vision of Miss Bettabuys posing in a skimpy blue swimsuit with a sash draped across her chest is one of the most enduring images in Coronation Street's long history. Actress Sarah Lancashire appeared to ooze confidence as she faced the TV cameras. But she was shaking with nerves inside. "God! It seemed to go on for ever and ever and ever," she confided in her husband Gary Hargreaves when she returned to their home in Oldham, Greater Manchester, that night in 1991. "She loathed standing around in front of those people, half-naked in a supermarket," says Gary. "She hated being seen as a clothes-horse, and for a while all Coronation Street seemed to do was send her on model shoots. She wanted to be an actor, not a model."

It was the first sign of the deep insecurity which was to plague Sarah during the Street career which made her a national star as barmaid Raquel Wolstenhulme. Now Gary, 46 - who met her when she was a shy 17-year-old - has spoken for the first time about the breakdown of his 10-year marriage to Britain's highest-paid TV actress. He decided to speak out after Sarah declared in an interview that she had got married only because she was pregnant and that leaving her husband had been "lovely". He called her remarks "rubbish" yesterday. But Sarah, 36 - busy unpacking boxes at the luxurious £1million house where she moved in with her fiance, BBC executive Peter Salmon, last month - refused to expand on her version of why their marriage broke up.

Gary believes the pressure of TV stardom was the real reason why it fell apart. Sarah had been spotted in a local play. Gary, a musician and education consultant, says: "She went for a casting at Granada and came home to tell me she had a part in Coronation Street. We thought she would be in it for five weeks, not five years. "It's hard to believe, but Sarah was terrified of failure, and from day one on the Street she felt insecure. Her fame was a big shock for us all - and especially for her. I was happy to support and comfort her, but it was always hard to convince her how talented she really was."

Today, Gary thinks their relationship might have been saved if the demands of the Street had not been so heavy. He says: "I don't think Coronation Street does any of the cast's relationships any favours. The workload is unbearable, particularly for the bigger characters. Raquel was given so many cracking storylines that Sarah just crumbled under the pressure. "Our kitchen cupboards were full of chocolate, Complan and Weetabix. She used to say she needed the Complan to keep her blood sugar level up and she would get through several boxes a week. She just craved sugar. "She started getting too thin when she was working very hard and burning weight off. She would ask: 'Am I too thin?', but I would reassure her because I knew she would bounce back."

HE reveals: "Sarah did a great job in creating Raquel - she based her on a dippy blonde with a heart of gold she worked with in a bar years before. "But it was just so hard to combine the character with a normal family life."

At first, they enjoyed the fame. Gary, who had worked for years on the showbiz circuit, helped her to cope with life in the public eye. "In the early years, Sarah needed me at Coronation Street parties," he says. "She was more daunted by them than I was. I had worked with Sean Wilson (Martin Platt) and Mark Le Vel (Kevin Webster) when they were kids at a workshop in Manchester. Bill Tarmey (Jack Duckworth) had been in a band with me."

But as Sarah became established, she began to grow apart from her husband. The effervescent blonde on the screen bore no resemblance to the frazzled woman who came home to Gary and sons Thomas, now 13, and Matthew, 11. "Sarah was ratty and irritable," says Gary. "She would come in knackered, have a row with me and then go to bed. The next day, the cycle would start all over again. There was no such thing as normal family life." To make matters worse, the unspoilt girl he had fallen in love with changed.

Gary says: "Sarah became ashamed of me, I think, particularly of what I did for living and how I looked. I have a slight weight problem and she was constantly calling me fat. "If we were on holiday in Ibiza or Majorca and I was in swimming trunks, she would say: 'Breathe in.' I like beer, but she tried to make me drink shorts to look more sophisticated. I know one thing: her adoring public would not recognise the real Sarah Lancashire.

She even tried to make me tone down my broad Oldham accent because it sounded too common. "After she left the Street, we were in the car and she shrieked: 'Hi!' down the mobile phone in such an affected voice, it made me feel sick. She had always said her worst nightmare was becoming a luvvie type. At that moment I realised she has become one. "She was hugely popular with the executives at Granada. At Christmas dinners, the bosses would demand she sat next to them. Her personality drew them like magnets. Some of these people are frightful bores. And they certainly had no interest in me. I started to grow sick of being called Mr Sarah Lancashire. The food was always terrible. There would be a tiny piece of meat swimming in a green juice with an olive plonked on top."

By 1994 Gary had given up a lecturing job to concentrate on composing. He wrote TV jingles and music for panto. But Sarah was not happy. "She had no interest in what I was doing," he says. "As a self-employed man starting out, I wasn't bringing in loads of money. She would call me a sponging layabout. She made me feel I had ceased to exist." Gary recalls a Granada event at which Victoria Wood was performing. He says: "Sarah went over to talk to her, and because I was a great fan I went to join them. But Sarah suddenly put her arm out and said: 'Not now, Gary, please.' I no longer fitted in."

Sarah became desperate for some respite from her exhausting schedule. Gary remembers her screaming: "I just can't stand it any more. All they care about is their bloody show. I'm bloody sick of it!" As she dissolved into tears, Gary put his arm around his wife and begged her to walk away from the soap which had made her a star. "Things were terrible," he says. "Sarah used to have to leave at the crack of dawn to have her Raquel hairstyle done. In the end, her hair was like a big lump of straw. They bought her a £3,000 wig."

Sarah refused to employ help in the house and spent the little spare time she had manically digging up the back garden. "She was physically and emotionally shattered," says Gary. "She had always suffered from emotional and anxiety problems and had been on and off tablets a lot of her life. The minute she found she was pregnant with our youngest, she decided to come off Diazepam pills. She didn't realise how difficult it would be. She came off a quarter of a tablet at a time, and there was anxiety, tearfulness and nervousness."

Everywhere they went, Sarah was recognised. "Her fame was a huge problem," says Gary. "We couldn't go out like a normal couple without people coming up asking for autographs. "She would be lovely to the fans, but would then take her frustrations out on me. In the end, we couldn't even go for a quiet drink together. She had to make sure she looked all right, had decent clothes on." She took on too many outside jobs. Gary says: "Sarah is terrible at making the most basic decisions and piled too much pressure on herself. Whatever people asked her to do, she said Yes, even though she was exhausted.

WE still had the occasional funny time. She was asked to judge a sausage-tasting competition and she really hates sausages. I had to do it for her in secret. "We laughed when a job lot of sausages was delivered to our home."

They got on well with Kevin Kennedy - Sarah's screen husband Curly Watts - Charlie Lawson (Jim Macdonald) and Phil Middlemiss (Des Barnes), and took their sons to watch Corrie cricket matches. Gary says: "Sarah and Phil were quite close and they had had a screen relationship. They would be quite flirty."

But there were too few good times. "We were rowing constantly," says Gary. "It was terrible. She made all the decisions and I was left out in the cold. "My overdraft was going up towards £2,000 and there would be cheques on the mantelpiece for £3,000 she had earned for personal appearances. She made it clear the money was hers. I began to irritate her just by breathing. "She wouldn't tell me what she earned. It just felt wrong that, earlier in the relationship, I did not earn much but was happy to give her every penny I had."

Matters reached breaking-point as Sarah filmed Raquel's honeymoon with Curly on the QE2 at Christmas 1995. "We rowed so ferociously beforehand that I nearly didn't go," says Gary. "She was filming most of the day. The boys and I spent loads of time together, but we saw hardly any of Sarah. "She and Kevin have huge respect for each other and he was terribly nervous about being in bed with her. To put him at his ease, she donned a huge pair of white Y- fronts and woolly socks under the covers." Her attitude changed abruptly when Kevin turned up drunk the next day. Gary says: "Sarah tore him off a strip. She can be really sweet or destroy a person, depending on how she is feeling at the time."

When they returned, Sarah demanded that Gary leave the family home. "I walked out without packing a bag and took myself to Wales for four days," he says. "I didn't even ring home. I couldn't handle it any more. "I came back. When we weren't rowing, there were times when we would sit at home crying, asking each other what on earth we were doing to each other. Hours later, she would be shrieking at me to get out of her life and leave. It was madness."

Raquel's last Corrie scene, early in 1996, had her setting off for a new life abroad as a beauty therapist. At about the same time, Gary moved out. "Our relationship just hadn't had a chance," he says. "Towards the end of Corrie, she was working so hard she became terribly stressed and down. She would often burst into tears and suffer incredible mood swings. I tried to be helpful, but she just shut me out."

He found a cottage, and they decided that she should have the children. Once Sarah had left the Street and they had divorced in April 1997, they tried to rebuild their friendship. Gary says: "Until the moment she said she had only married me because she was pregnant, I thought - and hoped - that was the way we would stay." But that is unlikely to happen now.

Brookie favourite is Corrie stalker
9 June 2001

FORMER Brookie hairdresser Sam Kane has been revealed as the Internet stalker who will terrorise Corrie's gymslip mum Sarah Platt. The Liverpool actor plays Gary, who poses as a teenager and kidnaps the single mum. It's a far cry from his role in Brookside as camp Peter Phelan, whose loud shirts and bouffant hair was a hit with fans.

As a father of two, 32-year-old Sam, married to former glamour girl Linda Lusardi, 41, is delighted to help carry such a strong message. He said: "It terrifies me to think that in a few years my daughter or son could be exposed to who knows what kind of unsuitable people and subjects on the Internet. "Young people generally will take more notice of a character they know on television than an authoritative figure like a teacher, politician or even a parent. "Personally, it's great to have the chance to play a controversial character."

The dramatic storyline will unfold next month as Sarah, played by Tina O'Brien, struggles with lonely life as a teenage mum. She turns to chatrooms and is quickly befriended by "teenager" Gary. But Gary is a grown man who preys on young girls and Sarah agrees to meet him with terrifying consequences. Viewers will have to wait until July 15 to see if she escapes unscathed.

Granada chiefs claim to be working closely with experts to highlight the growing menace of adults who prey on youngsters in chatrooms. Sam added: "It seems totally ludicrous that there is no form of regulation on it."

Ken may quit soap over pay cut threat
7 June 2001

CORONATION Street veteran Bill Roache is battling soap bosses over a 25 per cent pay cut. They want to cut costs by slashing the £160,000-a-year wage packet of the actor who plays Ken Barlow in the top soap. And Roache's wife Sara said her husband could walk out on the Street after more than 40 years if the talks break down. She said: "It's now under discussion. Obviously they're not going to sit back without putting up a fight."

Other high earners like Barbara Knox, who plays Rita Sullivan, favourite Liz Dawn who plays Vera Duckworth and Johnnie Briggs, Mike Baldwin in the series, also face pay cuts. They could appear in fewer episodes with cheaper actors used in an increasing number of shows.

News of the feud comes after it emerged that many of the soap's experienced stars had become disillusioned by recent storylines. One insider said: "Leading members of the cast aren't happy with the writing. There's a feeling they're not having as much fun. "They miss the comedy. They used to look forward to the light-hearted lines but many feel the current writers aren't on the same wavelength."

The Street's writing team has seen a big shake-up in the last couple of years, with the loss of key figures. One former writer said: "Now a lot comes from the producer - the writers are more or less told what to do. "You can drop a bomb on the place, have incest or rape, but it's not what the Street's about. People loved it because it wasn't like that."

A Street spokeswoman refused to discuss the pay claims yesterday.

Rings joy for Janice
6 June 2001

THERE was joy for Coronation Street star Vicky Entwistle yesterday when she was reunited with her missing rings. Her platinum and diamond engagement ring and a gold prayer ring went missing after a sunbed session at a beauty centre.

Vicky, 34, who plays Janice Battersby, offered a £300 reward for their return. A woman who handed in the rings at a shop in Accrington, Lancashire, would not take the reward.

Soap bosses shut up shop at Freshco
5 June 2001

THE CASH crisis at Coronation Street is forcing the best-known shop in the country out of business. Producers have been told to slash costs - and the fictional Freshco supermarket is top of their hit-list.

Scenes at the store are filmed at a real supermarket near the Granada studios in Manchester. But the TV money men say it costs too much to hire the store and have ordered it be axed. Now scriptwriters are busy severing most of Freshco's links with the Street.

Supermarket supervisor Alma Halliwell is being killed off, while store boss Curly Watts will soon leave his job. Newly-elected Weatherfield councillor Curly, played by Kevin Kennedy, will become a full-time house husband to care for the baby he and police officer wife Emma are expecting and concentrate on his political career. His departure will leave shopping trolley collector Ken Barlow as the only major character left at Freshco.

An insider said: "There will be no point hiring the supermarket just to watch Ken pushing a few trolleys around. "Freshco will still exist and be spoken about but the viewers will not see it any more." The shop has been the location of some gripping storylines, including last year's armed siege and the chilling death of stalker Anne Malone in a freezer.

Freshco's demise comes only weeks after many top Corrie stars were told their pay is being cut as part of a bid to save £500,000. Some have been offered contracts that would slash the number of episodes they are in and cut their wages by up to a third.

Bride Tracy heads for sun
5 June 2001

BEAMING newly-wed Tracy Shaw jetted off on honeymoon with husband Robert Ashworth yesterday. The Coronation Street star left her home in Manchester, saying only she was off "somewhere very hot and a long way away".

Tracy, 27, who plays Maxine Peacock, tenderly kissed TV producer Robert as they loaded their suitcases into the car. The couple have sold their wedding and honeymoon pictures in a reported £250,000 magazine deal.

Alma: my amazing secret life
3 June 2001

CORONATION Street star Amanda Barrie has opened her heart to millions of fans as they prepare to mourn her much-loved character. On the eve of Alma Baldwin's death after 20 years in the soap, the Sunday People can reveal her true-life amazing secrets. They include:

• She is BLIND in one of her beautiful eyes.
• She has been ordered not to WEEP over Alma's death because it could make her totally blind.
• She was hounded by a stalker who MURDERED a lookalike neighbour believing it was Amanda.
• She was propositioned by a Royal go-between to SEDUCE Prince Charles when he was a teenager.
• She was looked after by PROSTITUTES when she started her showbusiness career as a chorus line dancer.

Many Corrie fans will weep two weeks today when Alma dies from cancer - but Amanda dare not because those big luminous eyes are failing. The actress - who is determined to renew her stage career - is blind in her left and the other takes the awful strain. Amanda, 65, says nervously: "So far the right eye is holding but I must not cry. Crying upsets it. I am so frightened that it will go. I just can't bear the thought of going totally blind."

Her first symptom, in 1995, was when she began to see claw-like shapes at the edge of her vision in her left eye. A specialist diagnosed central retinal occlusion, which leaves her with only the edge of her vision. Six months later as she dressed to go out in her flat in London's Covent Garden, she glanced at the lamp stand in her bedroom and was horrified because she couldn't see the centre of it. She stumbled downstairs to an optician in the flat below. He saw her eye was filling with blood and took her to hospital.

Amanda says: "Suddenly I could no longer see the world clearly. It was like peering through the windscreen when you're in a car wash. "I used to worry about the bags under my eyes. Now I couldn't care less as long as I can see. "Mostly I hate the idea of never being able to stand on a stage and look out at the audience. That's what I've loved, it has been the biggest part of me. "I try not to think about what might happen. I have always been a fighter and I will fight as hard for my sight as I have for everything in my life. I won't give up."

Looking at her background you can understand why she refuses to give in. Amanda learned how to look after herself at a very early age. At just 13, as rebellious Shirley Ann Broadbent, she left home in Ashton- Under-Lyne, near Manchester, to work for a theatre company in London. Her parents, in the throes of divorce, saw how much she craved a stage career and were happy for her to go. So she made her home in seedy 1950s Soho and rubbed shoulders with other young starlets like Barbara Windsor.

Shirley Ann picked the stage name Amanda Barrie and her guardian angels were the hookers on the streets. She says: "The prostitutes, who all seemed really ancient to me at the time, used to look after me. They would see me home. "There was no question of getting drawn into their way of life. In those days, the prostitutes would have sent a young girl packing. "But they made sure I was all right and I felt safer in Soho in those days than I have anywhere in my life."

All that changed a few years later when Amanda moved to Glasgow and began to get love letters after a picture of her wearing a skimpy bikini was published. The letters became threatening, followed by menacing phone calls. Amanda recalls: "Eventually we told the police and they used to escort me to and from the theatre. "Then one day I came home to find the girl whose room was directly below mine had been murdered. "They never caught the killer, but after she died I never got another letter or call again. "She looked just like me. She was my height, my size and hair colour. "I'm convinced it was a case of mistaken identity. The stalker killed this girl thinking she was me.

"Years later I was stalked again when I was in Coronation Street. This man used to follow me home and stayed outside my flat screaming all night. "I was absolutely terrified. I couldn't help thinking about what happened in Glasgow but the police told me they couldn't do anything unless he attacked. So I was forced to put up with him until one day when he just disappeared."

Many soap stars come into contact with the Royal family. But few can top Amanda's incredible story which has never fully been revealed before. She was just 23 and on the verge of Carry On film fame when upper-crust actor James Robertson-Justice, a close friend of Prince Philip for 20 years, made an astonishing proposition over a drink in a bar. She recalls: "He was obviously very embarrassed and went round and round in circles before it came out. "Finally, he admitted he was one of eight people who had been selected to help `launch the Royal males into their future lives' as he put it. "Between them, they had to choose anyone they thought would be suitable to teach 15-year-old Prince Charles about sex and James had decided I would be suitable. "He actually said: `We don't really want people who are experienced, but on the other hand, they obviously have to know the ropes. "Frankly, the main thing one needs is a sense of humour and I know you have got that'." Amanda declined politely. She says: "I had this terrible image of having to face the Queen over breakfast. What would she say? `So, Amanda, how was it?' "

Amanda's funny image stems from roles like Cleopatra in Carry On Cleo, when she became famous for fluttering her huge eyelashes at Sid James. But for all her different gifts - not least the ability to make viewers laugh or cry - she keeps her dainty size fours on the ground and has never made it a secret that she felt it was time to quit the Street.

She announced her decision before the show's 40th anniversary in November last year. Amanda says: "I thought it was time I bowed out in the hope that there's another show in me. It's time to hand over to the youngsters. "I've had a happy time and I feel proud to have been in the Street but everything has it's time."

Clearly it is her fear of total blindness that has led her to try for stardom on the stage again - she is going on tour in Alan Bennett's play Lady In The Van. But with a wink she says: "I never think of Amanda Barrie as a star - when I bother to think at all. It always comes out as that girl from Ashton-Under-Lyne."

TRIBUTES TO ACTRESS WHO BRIGHTENED UP OUR DAY

• Former Corrie star Denise Welch says: "Her character Alma always brightened up my day. She was always my favourite even before I joined the Street."
• TV presenter Lorraine Kelly says: "Alma's death is really sad. The quality of Amanda's acting has been terrific - it has been so difficult to watch."
• Oasis star and lifelong Corrie fan, Noel Gallagher says: "Amanda is one of the best actresses on the Street and it's so sad she's leaving."
• Bill star Samantha Robson says: "It is a travesty Amanda's going. She's portrayed Alma with a conviction that is a tribute to all cancer sufferers."
• TV presenter Vanessa Feltz says: "Amanda is a fantastic actress. She has played Alma with sensitivity, vulnerability and with guts. We will miss her."

Tracy says 'I Choo' at £100,000 wedding
3 June 2001

SHE has had more than her fair share of heartbreaks but actress Tracy Shaw finally married the man of her dreams yesterday. The Coronation Street star wed TV producer Robert Ashworth in a spectacular celebration a million miles away from the terrace houses of Weatherfield.

Stars of Corrie, past and present, turned out to share her big day at 17th Century Knowsley Hall on Merseyside. Tracy's dress, made by London designer Kyri, was a 1940s style off-the- shoulder full-length dress made from raw silk imported from India. Her £1,600 shoes were by Jimmy Choo. The wedding cost £100,000, with the bill for flowers alone coming to £10,000. One guest said: "She looked lovely - really stunning. She giggled nervously before the start but she wiped a tear away as Robert made his vows."

More than 50 minders were hired for the event after Tracy sold coverage of the day to a celebrity magazine. The 100 guests included Street favourites Liz Dawn (Vera Duckworth), Steven Arnold (Ashley Peacock), Julie Hesmondhalgh (Hayley Cropper), Kevin Kennedy (Curly Watts), Sue Cleever (Eileen Grimshaw), Vicky Entwhistle (Janice Battersby), John Savident (Fred Elliott) and Shobna Gulati (Sunita Parekhr).

The Royle Family's Ricky Tomlinson was master of ceremonies and his screen wife Sue Johnston was matron of honour. Other guests included former Street star Angela Griffin, who is now in the hospital drama Holby City, and Emmerdale's Gary Turner.

Tracy, 27, whose weight once plummeted to five-and-a-half stone as she battled anorexia, has left a string of broken romances behind her. Previous boyfriends include footballer Dwight Yorke and Simply Red singer Mick Hucknall. She had a roller-coaster affair with entertainer Darren Day, to whom she was once engaged.

Tracy - the Street's hairdresser Maxine - met Robert, 29, through a mutual friend and the couple became engaged after a whirlwind six-month romance. Fifty chefs and caterers from a hotel prepared the wedding breakfast of Scottish smoked salmon, Aberdeen sirloin and game. The couple were toasted with Bollinger champagne.

Tracy's parents Karl and Ann, both 46, whose 25-year marriage broke down last year amid bitter recriminations, called a truce to be at the wedding.

Street bride and grope !
3 June 2001

THIS is the amazing picture of stunning Coronation Street star Tracy Shaw being naughtily groped by a half-naked DJ - just hours before her fairytale wedding to handsome TV producer Robert Ashwood. Drunken Joel Ross was only wearing a pair of Calvin Klein underpants as he cheekily slid his left hand all over micro-skirted Tracy's bottom while they danced closely together during her boozy hen party at a trendy Manchester bar.

And last night 24-year-old radio DJ Joel, who also dropped his pants in front of her to moon at people outside in the street, said: "Tracy has a great bum - pert and in great condition. "It felt lovely. I don't know any man who wouldn't have done what I did, given half the chance. "Tracy got on her hands and knees and started crawling around the room. All you could see was her bum waggling across the floor in a tight black skirt. She looked great."

But it was a completely different Tracy who turned up yesterday at stately Knowsley Hall, Merseyside, for her £100,000 marriage. This time the 27-year-old actress, who plays hairdresser Maxine Peacock, wore an elegant off-white, full-length off-the-shoulder 1940s-style dress made from the finest raw silk imported from India. And after saying her wedding vows, emotional Tracy cried as top-hatted Robert, 29, repeated his own in the 17th-Century chapel.

Corrie cast members including Stephen Arnold (Ashley), Julie Hesmondhalgh (Hayley), Kevin Kennedy (Curly), Vicky Entwistle (Janice), Sue Cleaver (Eileen Grimshaw), John Savident (Fred Elliott), Liz Dawn (Vera Duckworth) and Shobna Gulati with Emmerdale star boyfirend Gary Turner arrived in a fleet of limos and black cabs.

Later the 100 guests toasted them in Bollinger champagne - all except for Royle Family star Ricky Tomlinson who wished them well with a swig of his favourite mild beer - before they jetted off to honeymoon on a secret desert island paradise.

Meanwhile DJ Joel, who presents the breakfast show on Manchester FM station Key 103, was still recovering from his bawdy 24th birthday party at Simply Red singer Mick Hucknall's Barca cafe bar. He'd already "had a skinful" when Tracy and Corrie Street friends gatecrashed from her hen party in the next room.

Joel said: "I was delighted to see her. but she was completely tanked up. She had been drinking these bright pink drinks, I think they were Sea-breezes." Joel had been stripped down to his underpants by the time he invited Tracy to dance. But he said: "She didn't mind. I don't know why I put my hand on her bum, but I'm glad I did. After all it is a nice a***, isn't it? "At one point I even dropped my undies and started pulling moonies at the window to people outside and Tracy thought it was a good laugh. "Mind you she wasn't much better. Kevin Kennedy, who plays Curly Watts, began playing with the band we had booked, and Tracy was on hands and knees in front of him kissing his feet. "I thought she would be a bit stuck up but she was really down to earth and natural. She told me how much in love she is and described her wedding dress. "Her hubby Robert is a lucky guy, that's for sure. I wish Tracy and him all the best."

Why our little Louis is God's gift to us
2 June 2001 by Angela Hagan

On a hazy day last summer, Tim Healy was sprawled on the sofa in his Cheshire home watching the Wimbledon tennis championships when his wife Denise Welch calmly announced, "I'm pregnant". Neither spoke another word for two hours. Instead, they watched top seed Martina Hingis lose her battle to take the women's trophy. After the match, Denise's announcement suddenly sunk in and hit Tim like a ton of bricks. In his broad Geordie accent, he tentatively asked her, "Well, what do you feel about it, like?" She simply replied, "I feel great".

Recalling that moment almost one year later, Tim, who is now the proud father of 13-week-old Louis as well as Matthew, 12, hoots with laughter. "To be honest, I just didn't believe it and thought it might be a false alarm at first. It took a couple of months for it all to sink in," he says. "In fact, it took a lot longer than that. "In all honesty, I hadn't wanted another child. I'd always been happy with just Matthew. I'd thought, `We've got a fantastic little boy and he doesn't need anyone else. He's got us and we've got him'. "Besides, we hadn't even been trying for a baby. I'm 49 and Denise is 42, so we weren't exactly expecting this to happen, although I think Denise had always hoped we'd have another."

As Denise busied herself, making arrangements for the new addition to their household, Tim - who's back on our screens in this week`s episode of Murder In Mind - spent those first few weeks in a state of denial. "But then, as Denise got bigger and bigger I knew it was for real," he says with a laugh and a shake of his head.

He couldn't be blamed for worrying about his wife being pregnant again. After she gave birth to Matthew, Denise suffered severe post-natal depression which lasted for a year. But any concerns he had about that paled in comparison to the problems the couple faced once Louis was born at Manchester's Hope Hospital in March.

It was obvious that something was wrong when Louis was not feeding properly. For a fraught week, Tim and Denise could only stand by and watch as he underwent tests in a special care unit. He was later diagnosed as having Hirschsprung's disease, in which part of the bowel has no nerve endings, and has since had an operation to rectify this. "We are just taking things day by day," says Tim quietly. "We have to keep taking Louis back for check-ups. He was a gift from God, otherwise why didn't we have him in the last 12 years? I mean, we weren't even trying. But it's wonderful to have this little baby. And he's so laid-back. He sleeps right through, just like Matthew did as a baby. He's like his dad - he likes his sleep."

As for Denise, Tim says not only is there no hint of post-natal depression this time around, but she has never been happier. Denise, who left Coronation Street after four years as landlady Natalie to have Louis, is now taking a well-earned break. "Having the baby was something she needed, she's complete now," he says. "She found what she needed to have. I have never seen her looking so good either - she looks five years younger. She doesn't want to go back to work at the moment... or ever again the way she feels. "Matthew, his big brother, is besotted with the baby too. We worried at one stage that he might get a bit jealous, but once he realised that our feelings haven't changed towards him he was OK. He only ever wants to be with Louis now. He adores him and he's been a great help."

The age gap between his two sons, and indeed between himself and Louis, doesn't worry Tim too much either. "I'm going to have a two-year-old and a son in puberty, at 14, all at the same time. It will be tough," he says with a grin. "It just means that I will be taking Louis for his first pint when I'm 67. I'm not worried about it. I was in my late thirties when I had Matthew, so I'm used to being an older dad. Anyway, it's not just me, look at Clint Eastwood and David Jason. The great thing about being an older father is you are more settled and more financially sorted, so you know you can support your children. I suppose there are pros and cons about the whole thing."

The only setback that Tim can see is that he has had to shelve any plans for early retirement. "I've got to work for the next 20 years at least now, but that's OK because I love my job," he says. "I feel the same about it now as I did when I was 20, so I'm very lucky. Last year I only did about two or three parts, but this year I'm working all the way through from January to Christmas." His latest role is in Vigilante, this week's instalment of the gripping Sunday night crime drama series Murder In Mind, which concerns the death of a suspected local paedophile. Tim plays Detective Chief Inspector Duggan who unwittingly assigns the killer - a member of his own police squad - to investigate the case. "Usually I'm cast as the villain, so to get the chance to play a senior policeman was a very nice promotion," he says with a smile.

Forthcoming roles include playing a reformed alcoholic in an ITV drama, The Jury, and teaming up with Bob Hoskins for a Christmas film called The Lost World. Plus, Auf Wiedersehen Pet fans are in for a treat when Tim returns to the role of moody foreman Dennis, which made him famous, for a remake of the hit 1970s series, to be shown later this year. Despite this hectic schedule, Tim makes sure he's not missing out on his baby son's first few precious months.

Even though he clearly adores his children, he practically has a choking fit when asked if he'd ever have another. "No way, man!" he splutters. "I'm too old. No more children for me. The only thing I'll be doing is getting the snip. Yes, I'm going to have to sort that out next..."

Lee's clean bill of health
2 June 2001

Former soap star Lee Boardman on why his father's heart scare is forcing him to shape up for the future. Last month saw the real soap wedding of the year when former Corrie villain Lee Boardman married Street star Jennifer James. Now, with a wife and a new career away from Weatherfield, Lee has everything to live for - and he is determined to make sure that he does.

After making his wedding vows, Lee caught the eye of his proud dad Hal among the congregation at Manchester Town Hall, and made another, silent promise to himself to change his lifestyle. He fears that if he doesn't start taking better care of his health he may suffer from the same heart trouble that nearly killed his father nine years ago. "Dad had to have a five-way heart bypass," explains Lee, 29, who makes his first TV appearance since leaving the Street in Friday's episode of The Bill. "He was a very fit man and for a few years was a sergeant in the army, but his diet left a lot to be desired. He's from Salford and was brought up with not very much money. They used to eat the wrong things and those habits stayed with him. That's how his arteries furred up. "I'd see him clutching his chest and ask if he was all right and he'd just say, `Yeah, I'm fine', but he'd be having mild heart attacks. There were two or three months when we thought he wasn't going to make it and that he'd die. The specialist said that he should have had a fatal heart attack about eight years earlier, but my dad's built like an ox."

Now, as Lee starts married life with Jennifer, who plays bubbly Rovers barmaid Geena, he's determined not to experience the same health problems. "I want to live a long life and see my children and grandchildren grow up, because my dad very nearly didn't," he says. "I'm 13 stone and I want to shave about two stone off. I piled on the pounds in Corrie. At weekends I'd go away with Simon Gregson, who plays Steve McDonald, and we'd stay in good hotels, eat the nicest food and drink the best wine. I'll still do that now and again, but I'm also in the gym every day and am cooking things that are low in fat."

As head chef at their home in Mere, Cheshire, which he and Jennifer have been renovating, Lee can watch what he eats. "I do all the cooking. My mum taught me how when I was ten. She said, 'Women love men who cook', and she was right! It's pathetic for blokes to pretend they can't cook or iron a shirt. I can do all that... and I'm fantastic in bed as well," he adds with a grin.

Lee and Jennifer met on the set of Coronation Street, but only got together when a group of Corrie stars went to the Lake District. Two hours after their first kiss, he proposed. And he kept on doing so until she finally said yes. They married on May 12 - FA Cup Final Day.

Salford-born Lee left the Street last September when his character, the murderous, drug-pushing thug Jez Quigley, was killed off. "Since then, every part I've been offered has been for a baddie," he says. "The Bill was the first role that wasn't straight rent-a-psycho." In the cop drama, Lee plays Dave Carter, a loser who is caught shoplifting. When it emerges that Dave used to work for a drug dealer called Terry Barlow, DI Cullen offers to cut Dave a deal, if he helps him nail Barlow. It's not the first time Lee's starred in The Bill. "Four years ago I played a restaurant owner called Mike, who was a Cockney Greek. But the Greek community in North  London put in an official complaint saying I wasn't Greek. But I'm not from London either..."

Despite enjoying himself, Lee wouldn't want to be a regular on the show. "I didn't leave one long-running series to join another," he says. "I want variety. I'd do a couple of series of something, but I couldn't go in week-in, week-out, year after year. Although when I heard Corrie were doing a live episode I temporarily regretted leaving. I would have given my eye-teeth to do that. It must have been the biggest buzz going."

We will next see Lee, who also runs a film company called 15 And A Half Productions, in a new comedy drama series, Caribbean Diaries. Set in 1986, it's about a group of cricket fans who go to the West Indies to see a Test match. It will be filmed partly in Manchester, but will also involve Lee spending several months in St Lucia. "It's a fantastic part and the scripts are unbelievable - a dream job... But no matter what happens in the future, if one of my company's films wins a Bafta or I win an Oscar, it won't come close to my wedding day. Jenny looked so beautiful. I'm the luckiest man alive, and I know it."

I thought he'd die
2 June 2001

THE wife of Coronation Street's Kevin Kennedy has told of her fear after he threatened to commit suicide at the height of his alcoholism. His threat came after Clare Kennedy, 31, abandoned him in a last, desperate gamble as she tried to sort their lives out. She fled to her parents after finding Kevin, who plays Curly Watts in the soap, unconscious beside empty vodka bottles.

She said: "I couldn't stand by and watch someone I love kill himself. "I didn't do it out of anger. It was a very carefully thought out decision. "I had no idea whether he would choose to give up drinking. All I could do was what was right for me. "I felt terrible leaving him but I knew it was the only way."

Kevin bombarded her with phone calls and even threatened suicide but Clare refused to speak to him. Only when he was admitted to The Priory rehabilitation clinic did she return to him. While there, she decided to visit a therapist herself as she, too, had been drinking heavily.

She said: "I was trying so hard to fix things for Kev, I was being pulled under with it." Clare no longer drinks and Kevin has been on the wagon for two-and-a-half years. She said: "Our relationship has changed. Now I am his wife and lover, not mother and minder."

Clare is also training to be a family therapist, specialising in addiction, and has a new job as a presenter on a health show on cable TV. The couple, who live in south Manchester, have been together for 10 years. Kevin has a son, Ryan, 15, from a previous relationship and Clare would also like to be a mum one day - but is in no rush.

She said: "It's not something I'm yearning for just yet. I'm just enjoying the way my life has changed."

Shaw thing for lucky stripper
2 June 2001

CORONATION Street star Tracy Shaw celebrated her last night of freedom with a clinch from an amateur stripper. Joel Ross, who was at a party for his 24th birthday, stripped down to his boxer shorts and snogged Tracy at her wild hen night in Manchester's bar Barca.

The DJ was there with 70 mates for his bash, which ended up becoming a joint party with Tracy's 40 pals. He said: "I was set on and stripped by three girls, including Tracy, who looked really sexy. "In the end, we became one big party. It was all a good laugh and Tracy gave me a hug and a kiss."

Soap pals at the bash included Naomi Russell, who plays Bobbi Lewis, Suranne Jones, who plays Corrie bad boy Steve Macdonald's wife Karen Phillips, and Kevin Kennedy (Curly Watts), who amazed guests with his "spirited" vocal performance. Kevin belted out hits like Mustang Sally for more than an hour, backed by the Hill Street Blues Band. As he sang badly, Tracy stumbled onstage and tripped over the drum kit. But the party girl, who will marry TV producer Robert Ashworth today, was still one of the last to leave at 3am.

Coronation Street baby is played by identical twins
1 June 2001

Identical twins who feature in Coronation Street are so alike even their parents do not know which one is on screen. Amy and Emily Walton both appear in the series as teenage mum Sarah Louise Platt's daughter Bethany. Coronation Street bosses admit they do not know which twin featured in scenes showing Bethany's first birthday party.

The twins' mother, Shirley Walton, 35, of Greater Manchester, told the Daily Express: "I have to confess we find it difficult to remember who is figuring in any particular episode because shooting takes place well in advance of transmission and we often cannot decide who is on the screen when we watch the show."

A Coronation Street spokeswoman said: "We can honestly say we have no idea which child appears in the birthday sequence."

Soap's storyline increases hospital's smear test workload
1 June 2001

A hospital in Manchester has been inundated with cervical smear tests to process since Coronation Street's Alma was diagnosed with cancer.The city's Christie Hospital has had 1,000 smear tests a day to analyse rather than the 2,000 tests a week it normally deals with. The hospital has only seen an increase since the storyline about Alma hit television screens.

Alma Halliwell, played by actress Amanda Barrie, missed a smear test in the soap. The storyline also involved a mix-up over test results. "Our workload has doubled and it coincides with the Coronation Street storyline," Yvonne Wright, the hospital's deputy laboratory manager told the Manchester Evening News. "It is a good thing, because it will undoubtedly save lives, but it is a nightmare to deal with."

In her 30 years working in screening she said: "I have never known an increase like this even when there has been other publicity about scares." The centre aims to process tests within two or three weeks but is currently taking around a month.

A spokeswoman for Granada TV said: "We have had a number of letters of praise for our storyline from health authorities and are delighted at the impact it has had on prompting women to act. If it saves just one life then it has been worthwhile."

Soap star 'gutted' by theft
1 June 2001

CORONATION Street star Vicky Entwistle told yesterday how she was heartbroken after thieves stole her most prized jewellery. Vicky, who plays loudmouth Janice Battersby, left a platinum and diamond engagement ring - from a former fiance - and a gold prayer ring behind a chair during a 10-minute sunbed session. She was topping up her tan for tomorrow's glitzy wedding of co-star Tracy Shaw at a former stately home on Merseyside.

But Vicky, 34, forgot the rings and only realised they were missing when on her way back to Granada's Manchester TV studios to film a Street episode. Frantic with worry, she hurriedly rang the beauty salon near her home in Accrington, Lancs, but the rings had been stolen.

Now Vicky is offering a £300 reward for the rings' return. She said: "They were of great sentimental value - I'm really gutted." Police are studying closed circuit TV footage to try to identify two women who followed the star into the beauty salon.

Corrie's Mark Baldwin set to return
30 May 2001

Paul Fox is returning to Coronation Street this summer. He says he is going to be back in the ITV soap for a few episodes but may be asked to stay. The 22-year-old actor plays Mike Baldwin's adulterous son Mark.

He left last year after his character revealed he had been having an affaif with Mike Baldwin's fiancee Linda Sykes. "I'm just going to dip in, cause a bit of trouble and then who knows what will happen next," he told Unmissable TV.

He adds he was daunted to be offered such a big role in Coronation Street. "It's great to get the recognition for it," he says. "You know Johnny Briggs is such a popular character so it was always going to be a heavy-duty storyline. But it's brilliant and I'm really, really thrilled.

Corrie crematorium booking upsets families
30 May 2001 by Simon Holden

Grieving relatives from two families were told funerals could not take place today - because the crematorium was being used for Coronation Street. Granada TV hired Agecroft Cemetery in Salford for £500 to record the service for cancer victim Alma Halliwell. Relatives of the two men who had died were furious after being offered another venue. Salford Council gave its "sincere apologies" but said there had been a long-standing arrangement.

The council issued a statement saying: "We deeply regret we have been unable to fulfil requests from grieving relatives for two services." Granada, who make Corrie, booked the crematorium six weeks ago for the funeral of Alma, who dies after a botched smear test.

Death of Coronation Street character 'could save lives'
29 May 2001

Medical experts say Coronation Street's cancer storyline could save lives. More woman are asking for smear tests after it was revealed Alma Baldwin will die from cervical cancer in the soap. The character, played by Amanda Barrie, could have been saved had she not missed a routine smear.

The Macmillan Cancer Relief charity has praised the show's message, according to The Sun. A spokeswoman said: "It's great news that this storyline has highlighted the importance to women across the country of having regular smears. Reminding women through popular programmes like this will save lives." The Christie Hospital in Manchester says the number of smear tests it carries out has gone up from 2,000 a week to 3,000 a week since the storyline was revealed.

Tracy's tears
28 May 2001

CORONATION Street star Tracy Shaw has been left devastated after a close pal lost her fight for life following a 12-month battle with cancer. Tracy, who plays hairdresser Maxine Peacock, attended the wedding and funeral of beautiful actress Rachel France within three months. Street stars have just been filming heart-breaking scenes showing Alma, played by Amanda Barrie, dying of cervical cancer - but for Tracy her tears were really for her tragic pal.

Rachel's decline is shown in a series of photographs charting her brave struggle against the disease.Tracy met Rachel, 27, when they were classmates at the prestigious Arden school of Theatre in Manchester. Rachel studied there after spending a year at the Italia Conti School of Drama in London, before returning to the family home in Hartford, Cheshire. But she and Tracy formed an immediate bond and stayed in touch as their careers took drastically different paths.

Bride-to-be Tracy told celebrity magazine OK Weekly how Rachel had been looking forward to attending Tracy's show-business wedding to TV producer Robert Ashworth next month. But tragically she died on May 15. Now Rachel's mum Sue has told how her daughter had been praying she would stay alive long enough to enjoy Tracy's big day.

Sue, a designer, said: "She was thrilled to be invited and it gave her something to look forward to. "The thought of it was keeping her going. She and Tracy met more than 10 years ago but Rachel was the sort of person who made good friends and kept in touch with people from all the chapters in her life. "She came back to Manchester to study for three years at the Arden Theatre School and Tracy went off into television. "Their paths never crossed professionally as Rachel worked mainly in the theatre. "But she did have parts in several series including Dangerfield and Hetty Wainthrop Investigates. "They always kept in touch and Tracy is a lovely girl. "She came to Rachel's wedding and it was a wonderful day. "Several months later she was at the funeral and came over to say how sorry she was. "The saddest thing is that Rachel always wanted to be famous - now she is but only in a tragic way."

Street star left 'devastated' by wage cuts
27 May 2001

The wife of Coronation Street actor William Roache, says he has been "kicked in the teeth" over plans to cut actors pay. Many of the Street's main major characters have been told they will see their wages cut by up to £50,000 .

Sara Roache says her husband has given his life to the show for 40 years but is now being treated with disloyalty and disdain. "He is devastated. It is a real kick in the teeth for him and the others, she told the News of the World. Bosses were happy to use him and use him when it was the live episode. He put himself out an awful lot for that as he always does. And this is how they repay him". "Bill and the others have been the life-blood of Coronation Street for years and they feel betrayed," said Mrs Roache. "It is appalling that they can treat people like this. Bill is just astounded they could do it. Everyone affected by this is just reeling under the harshness of it."

Mrs Roache said her husband, who plays Ken Barlow, and many other of Coronation Street's best known actors are seeking legal advice: "Bill and the others just will not accept this. They are seeking legal advice and are all going to get together and have a chat". "I doubt they would down tools and walk out as they are too professional. But it is possible some could quit".

Street stars face pay cut
27 May 2001

Some of the stars of ITV soap Coronation Street could see their salaries fall by thousands of pounds following changes to their contracts, it has been reported. Granada TV bosses have confirmed that the amount paid to certain actors has been brought into line with their fellow cast members and the rest of the industry.

The Sun newspaper reported that some leading cast members could get pay cuts of up to £50,000 per year. It claims the salary reductions have resulted from a new rule which prevents cast members from appearing in more than 80 episodes each year. According to The Sun, Barbara Knox, who plays Rita, will lose £50,000 while Bill Roache, who plays Ken Barlow, will lose £40,000.

A spokeswoman for Granada admitted that changes to contracts have been made, but refused to discuss specific details. She said: "Some members of the Coronation Street cast have received their contract offers for next year, the exact details of which are confidential. "They have been awarded a pay rise of 6.5%, more than double the rate of inflation. "Programme enhancement measures have been implemented to allow us to spend more money on production of the show. "This has led to some adjustments in contracts to bring those affected in line with other cast members and the rest of the industry."

EastEnders triumph at UK soap awards
27 May 2001

Martin Kemp and Tamzin Outhwaite in EastEnders EastEnders has swept the boards for the second year at the annual British Soap Awards in London on Saturday. Judy Finnigan and Richard Madeley presented the ceremony which saw EastEnders win best British soap, best actor, best actress, best newcomer and the sexiest male and female in UK soaps.

EastEnders' Melanie, played by Tamzin Outhwaite, picked up the sexiest female award for the second year running, while Martin Kemp - last year's villain of the year - was the sexiest man. Former Spandau Ballet guitarist Kemp, who plays Steve Owen in the BBC soap, also picked up the best actor prize and paid tribute to the EastEnders press team for his fame. EastEnders fever gripped the nation earlier in the year as viewers were teased and tormented about the identity of Phil Mitchell's would-be assassin. Fittingly Steve McFadden, who plays Mitchell, was awarded the villain of the year title. Natalie Cassidy - aka Sonia Jackson - won the best actress prize.

It was the first evening awards ceremony for the This Morning team since Finnigan's dress slipped off at the National Television Awards last year. As the couple opened the evening, Finnigan quipped: "I'm so excited I can feel my dress starting to fall down already." Finnigan and Madeley have said that they particularly enjoy the ceremony, which they are presenting for the third time, because of the famous names in the audience. "It's a fantastic treat for the viewer to see the stars all dolled up, since in all the soaps the actors have to dress down because they are about ordinary folk living in ordinary places," said Finnigan.

Their thoughts were borne out by fans waiting outside in the hope of catching a glimpse of their TV heroes. Bafta-winning Emmerdale had to be content with awards for the most spectacular scene of the year - for when Andy Sugden burned down the barn - and hero of the year in Clive Hornby. Viewers voted for six of the 16 categories on offer, and the other 10 were decided by a panel of critics and soap representatives.

The soaps in competition were Brookside, Coronation Street, EastEnders, Emmerdale, Family Affairs and Hollyoaks. Coronation Street did win the best storyline award for the Mark, Linda and Mike love triangle, and the best on-screen partnership for Bill Tarmey and Liz Dawn who play Vera and Jack Duckworth.

The British Soap Awards 2001 can be seen on ITV on Wednesday at 8pm

• Sexiest male - Martin Kemp (Steve Owen) EastEnders
• Sexiest female - Tamzin Outhwaite (Melanie Healy) EastEnders
• Best comedy performance - Sarah White (Bev McLoughlin) Brookside
• Best newcomer - Jessie Wallace (Kat Slater) Eastenders
• Best dramatic performance - Georgia Taylor (Toyah Battersby) Coronation Street
• Spectacular scene of the year - Emmerdale - for Andy Sugden burning the barn
• Best storyline - Paul Fox, Jacqueline Chadwick, Johnny Briggs - Coronation Street - for Mark, Linda and Mike love triangle
• Hero of the year - Clive Hornby (Jack Sugden) Emmerdale
• Villain of the year - Steve McFaddan (Phil Mitchell) EastEnders
• Best on-screen partnership - William Tarmey and Elizabeth Dawn (Jack and Vera Duckworth) Coronation Street
• Best exit - Naomi Radcliffe (Alison Webster) Coronation Street
• Special achievement award - Phil Redmond
• Best single episode - Friday 8 December 2000 Coronation Street - the live episode
• Best actress - Natalie Cassidy (Sonia Jackson) EastEnders
• Best actor - Martin Kemp (Steve Owen) EastEnders
• Best British soap - EastEnders

White Wedderfield
27 May 2001 by Olivia Buxton

THIS is the joyous moment when TV's favourite soap stars lined up to celebrate Coronation Street's wedding of the year. But, we can reveal, that just before this happy scene they were all in tears as they watched Jennifer James (Rovers barmaid Geena) marry actor Lee Boardman (bad boy Jez Quigley). Vera Duckworth sniffed into her hankie, Ken Barlow dabbed his cheeks and Deirdre stifled a sob.

Happy bride Jennifer, 23, was overcome by the emotionally-charged atmosphere. And even Lee, 26 - whose psycho character Jez terrorised Weatherfield - wept when he saw stunning Jennifer in her tiara and fairytale white dress. He said: "It was such an emotional day and Jenny looked so beautiful, I couldn't stop the tears."

More than 30 members of the Corrie cast and crew joined the happy couple for the wedding at Manchester Town Hall. Jennifer's pal Jaqueline Pirie was her chief bridesmaid - returning the favour after Geena was Linda Baldwin's "best woman" on screen. Tracy Shaw (Maxine) - who gets married herself on Saturday - said: "I hope I look as beautiful as Jennifer." The high spot for Liz Dawn (Vera) was when Jenny's mum Shirley read a poem she had written. Liz said: "It was one of the most moving things I've ever heard."

Lee fell for Jennifer the moment he saw her at the Granada studios a year ago. He said: "I assumed she was Spanish until she opened her mouth and spoke with a broad Lancashire accent! She made me laugh and was incredibly sexy. We just clicked." Lee proposed shortly afterwards - and carried on asking until she agreed. He followed that up with an "official" proposal in a hotel - where he booked a suite and scattered it with dozens of red roses.

Jennifer said: "It was very romantic. He is handsome and sexy. "Getting married has cemented our love. I can't wait for people to start calling me Mrs Boardman."

Cock-a-hoop Cockneys
27 May 2001 by Rachel Palmer

Cockney drama EastEnders stole the show at the British Soap Awards, walking off with seven gongs. Among its haul were prizes for best soap, best actor for Martin Kemp, who plays shifty Steve Owen, and best actress for Natalie Cassidy's portrayal of teen mum Sonia. Accepting the best soap prize on behalf of the cast, Wendy Richards, who plays Pauline Fowler, said: "It's a tremendous show to work on. We're all very proud of it."

Kemp promised fans the show is in for more twists and turns. After the ceremony he told TV Plus: I've been looking at some of the scripts and it only gets better from here on. Fans have a lot to look forward to. "I love playing the role. People love the villain. I always find it extremely boring playing the good guy."

Coronation Street's gritty storyline involving the rape of Toyah Battersby won actress Georgia Taylor the award for best dramatic performance She said: "I'm going to have to go before I do a Gwynny" - a reference to Gwyneth Paltrow's famous tearful Oscar acceptance speech. Corrie bosses were accused of using the graphic storyline as a ratings stunt.

All eyes were trained on co-host Judy Finnigan's dress to see whether she revealed more than planned. She joked: "I am so excited I can feel my dress starting to fall down already." Husband and co-host Richard Madeley added: "Don't worry Judy is wearing her best award show bra." At last autumn's National Television Awards, Judy's dress famously fell open to reveal her cleavage.

Corrie set to dominate British Soap Awards
26 May 2001

Coronation Street dominates the nominations for the British Soap Awards. It is represented in nearly all of the shortlists for Saturday's ceremony.

There are 16 categories in the British Soap Awards. These include Best Actor, Best Soap, Sexiest Actor, Best On-Screen Partnership, Best Storyline and Best Exit.

Brookside, Hollyoaks, EastEnders, Emmerdale and Family Affairs are also in the running for the awards being presented by Richard and Judy. The awards will be broadcast on ITV on Wednesday at 8pm.

Jack's the Lad
25 May 2001 by Andrew Billen

 It has been a bugger of a day. Bill Tarmey, better known as Coronation Street's Jack Duckworth, has been waiting for hours for a scene they never shoot. Giving up, he drives Liz Dawn, better known as Mrs Vera Duckworth, home, telling her he fancies doing an interview with me like he fancies a hole in the head. In Granadaland's perma-rain, he drives on to Ashton-under-Lyne, soothing himself with his favourite in-car listening, a Star Trek story tape. But at home his wife Alma, better known as Ali, has worse news. ITV has yet again postponed showing Jack and Bill, a documentary celebrating his 60th birthday, a delay that will further put back the release of an album of MOR songs, In My Life.

Furious, Tarmey walks the few hundred yards to the Broad Oak Hotel, where on Wednesday nights such as this he puts the "vocals" in the Brian Cowdry Trio. He brings the thunder in with him.  Shedding a heavy overcoat to reveal a care-worn cardigan, he wanly poses for a picture that whatever film is used will show his face in monochrome. "I cannot tell you how angry and hurt I am," he says.

In the pub's restaurant now, with a pint before him, he recites a chronology of the sales opportunities that have whooshed by since he recorded the album: Christmas Day, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Grandmother's Day, Easter Day ... "Missed the bloody lot, haven't we?"

ITV, whose offering would obviously help sales, is barmy to offend Tarmey, one of the few faces that instantly spell out its initials. Its own research shows that the dilapidated, bickering Duckworths are its prime soap's favourite characters. Tarmey's performances as the treacherous, pathologically idle Jack - for years far too lazy to replace his Band Aided spectacles - are regularly the funniest on television today. At a time when a lust for ratings has meant Under-The-Weatherfield suffering not only Toyah's rape but Alma's slow withering from cervical cancer, Jack reminds us of the Street's origins as a comedy of working-class manners.

"You want to cut your wrists by the time you've watched half of them," he agrees when I remark on how gloomy our soaps have become. "Good God, when I go home I want to be entertained. If I've got the television on, I want to be entertained. If I want to see drugs and all the bad news in life, then I turn on the News. There's plenty of that there. Or read the bloody newspaper."

The truth is that Coronation Street is much changed, in tone, frequency, cast size and audience dmographic, since he joined it - but this is not surprising, since he joined it so long ago. He arrived in the mid-Seventies as an extra, hoping to supplement his earnings as a club singer. He graduated to small, non-recurring roles and in 1979 blossomed into Vera's until then unseen hubby.

Was Jack based on anyone? Yes, he says, partly on a friend and partly on his "old pop". His old pop, as opposed to his real father, was Bob Cleworth, an able seaman who married his mother after her first husband died in the war. Bob was himself honoured for his heroism on naval convoys to Russia.

Did Bob recognise himself? "No, and I never told him. I was just doing a thing today on the show. I say to Vera, 'Do us a favour, lovey, have a word with your lass and tell her not to put her doings in the sink.'  That's my old man. He couldn't say knickers. Very hard for him. 'The doings. You know. In the sink.'"

In his early days, this untutored actor would shake with fear. Lines were pasted on the sides of cornflakes packets and inside sugar bowls. He was fortunate in his friends. Spotting his nerves, Julie Goodyear, who had played Bet Lynch from 1966, persuaded a director not to let Tarmey know when he was recording a scene. Another time, the late Bryan Mosley (Alf Roberts) gave him some advice when he repeatedly fluffed a line. "Get annoyed with them buggers in there laughing at you, because they shouldn't. And get annoyed with yourself, because you are better than this."

In 1987 his mother, Lilian, died. The day of her funeral, he had to be back to film Alf and Audrey Roberts's wedding reception. "She went down at one o'clock. At twenty past one I was having a drink with my dad - one drink and one sandwich - got in a car, came to Granada Television and at half past two I was sat at a table with a plastic nose on and a funny hat, doing the scene. I just sat there crying and Julie Goodyear and Liz Dawn and the guy that was dancing with Julie picked me up and got me on the floor and hid me from the cameras."

Bill excuses himself and spends a surprisingly long time fiddling with sound levels and his composure. He eventually returns, fuming about amateurs who meddle with the balance. I've bought him a Guinness. I am a gentleman. His life story resumes.

It was in October 1944, his father, Lilian's first husband, William Piddington, was killed driving an ambulance at the Battle of Arnhem. Although he adored his stepfather, his childhood was clouded by the unspeakable mystery over his own surname: if his "father", mother and brother were Cleworths, why was he a Piddington? "I wasn't allowed to talk about it. That was the way people were then. My mum thought it would hurt my old man if I went babbling on, as a child, about, you know, my dad."

Was she in love with both men? "I don't know. I really don't know. We didn't talk about it. The only time I ever spoke about it to my mum was when she was dying. She was on her deathbed, about a month before she died. I wouldn't have, only my rather large-mouthed sister went and said to my mum that Bill would like to talk about his dad." What did she tell him? "Not a lot that I didn't know."

This minor but troubling identity crisis was temporarily resolved in 1968 when, jacking in his work in the building trade, where he had been an apprentice asphalt spreader to Bob, he began singing professionally. "Piddington" being such an unwieldy name, a concert secretary illiterately suggested he adopt "Tarmey" instead, after the singer Mel Torme. Decades later, after his mother died, he amended his real name to Cleworth-Piddington, to honour both his "hero" fathers. He asked Bob if he minded. What did he say? "He had to go to the Gents. You don't see a grown man cry. He came back snivelling. Said it was a nice idea."

Tarmey wisely waited some five years after Bob's death to visit the rival father's grave in a war cemetery in Uden last September. The pilgrimage is recorded in the ITV documentary. Although flanked by his more stoic brother and his cousin, he breaks down at the stone. In a bar, he talks of his belief in an afterlife, worrying that when they meet in it, his father will be "younger" than he is. "I think we'd better end this conversation, gentlemen, or else I'll be in sodding tears," he concludes.

For a man who so relishes life, Tarmey has an unenviable awareness of his mortality. In 1976, at only 35, he had a heart attack while singing in a club and had a much more severe one in hospital an hour later. The next year, playing compere, he suffered a minor stroke. A sextuple heart-bypass was needed 11 years later, and he says he cried for a week after it. The bonus years since - the years since 1976, really - prompt his favourite observation that if he drops down dead tomorrow they'll have to unscrew the smile from his face. "I should have gone when I was 35."

In 1999, with the seemliness we've come to expect, Coronation Street decided it was time Jack, too, was temporarily felled by a heart attack. "It was very hard. Very. Very. Made me poorly, yes. Didn't do a lot for me. Ali said, 'Come on, you can do it', and I said, 'Yes, for Christ's sake, I'm supposed to be an actor and I know all about it, so, if I can't do it, who the hell can?' Ali and I watched it together afterwards. She just turned to me and said, 'Very good. Very good.'" But it made him depressed? "Yes, blood pressure went sky high, the stress thing. Oh dear me."

There are two things you notice talking to Bill. One is that he talks repeatedly about eliminating stress. This is partly on medical advice, although similar counsel has not led him to stop smoking or drinking. What he has done, following the Coronary Street plot, is to reduce his appearances on the show and spend more time in his villa in Tenerife.

His six grandchildren are another vital part of his relaxation regime but central to it is, without doubt, Ali. They met when he was a handsome (and he knew it) 14-year-old at a church club in east Manchester near the version of Coronation Street where he was brought up. They have been faithfully married for 39 years. His sincere rendition of You Are The Wind Beneath My Wings in her honour on his This Is Your Life in 1992 revived his musical career and led EMI to make three albums with him. The contract has been resuscitated with In My Life, which, such are the deprecations of time, now appears on its Classics label.

Despite his mantra of calm, the other thing you cannot fail to note is that Tarmey is a very emotional man, whose conversation comes with a large head frothy with laughter, tears and a kind of withheld rage. I ask why he started smoking again after stopping for six years. "I had a slight contretemps with some so-called musician that wasn't and I started again." To calm him down? "No, to calm down, I hit him."

How often does he get angry? "On occasions. Very few times in my life. Every now and again," he says all at once. "Where I work in Granada, if I get a little bit uptight and a bit silly and start stamping my feet about something like the sandwiches being late, I go outside. And I can see a building which is 486ft tall. I worked on that. One Christmas Eve I climbed down the outside of the scaffolding because all the hoists had frozen up. It was snowing. It took me a long, long time. So every now and again if I get a little bit - well, I just go out and look and say, 'Shut up, you fool!'"

Shortly after this sermon, he begins his act. "I'd like to sing a song that's quite nice," he says, mellower than mellow. He frowns, purses his lips, makes a start on Here's That Rainy Day and wanders off. He toys with the sound machine, lights a cigarette, orders a Guinness and has a chat with the barman. The Trio get on with it and six or seven minutes later, he returns to take up the slack of Johnny Burke's lyrics. A well-being infuses the room during these periods of tantric perambulation. Bill begins, at last, to look like the happy man he says he is.

A few days later EMI is "showcasing" him at a hotel in Covent Garden. At last I get to meet the famous Ali, who, despite a painful spine complaint, has come to London to bask in her husband's glory. With a worried expression, she asks about our interview conducted on such an inauspicious evening. I say it went well, although he got upset at times. "There is a side to Bill no one knows," she sighs. "As long as he wasn't rude."

Her husband's tuneful, soft, eccentrically phrased croon is pleasant CD-listening. It is rather less effective in this louche London dungeon, wallpapered with young men in haircuts, drinking complimentary champagne. Someone cruelly whispers to me that something in his voice "sucks all the oxygen out of the room". They should hear it in Ashton-under-Lyne on a bugger of a Wednesday night, where it's better therapy than Guinness, fags and Captain Jean-Luc Picard combined.

In My Life and ITV's Jack and Bill will be released soon. He hopes.

Street in cancer test alert
25 May 2001

THOUSANDS of women have demanded smear tests after watching Coronation Street's Alma Halliwell's battle with cervical cancer. GPs have been inundated with calls from those who have missed their regular smear. One woman told a nurse her husband insisted she have the test after seeing the soap.

A NHS Cervical Screening Programme spokeswoman said: "The storyline has acted as a prompt, reminding women their test is overdue. These are mainly women who did not accept their invitation for screening."

Around 3.5 million are tested each year. Cervical cancer kills 1,100 annually. Alma, played by Amanda Barrie, is given three months to live after a smear test mix-up.

Street Bill in album TV row
24 May 2001

CORONATION Street star Bill Tarmey has had a furious bust-up with soap bosses over the release of his new album. Bill, who plays Jack Duckworth, is angry that a TV special celebrating his 60th birthday has been repeatedly postponed. The actor had hoped to release an album of ballads called In My Life to coincide with the show.

Bill said: "I cannot tell you how angry and hurt I am. Christmas Day, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Grandmother's Day, Easter Day. Missed the lot haven't we?" Now Bill is demanding to know when the TV show Jack and Bill, which charts his 25 years in the soap, will be broadcast so he can release his album.

Last night a Granada Television spokesman said: "We want Jack and Bill to get the best possible audience. "It was pulled but only because Liverpool got through to the final of the UEFA Cup. We knew that if it went out against that on the BBC then it would have been crucified. "EMI are concerned but the release of the album is down to them, really."

Queen honours Street stalwart
23 May 2001

The Street's longest-serving resident and his MBE Coronation Street's longest-serving actor William Roache, who plays Ken Barlow, was made an MBE by the Queen on Tuesday. Roache, 69, who was honoured for services to TV drama, is the sole surviving member of the original cast which began the soap series in December 1960. This mammoth stint has won him a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's longest-serving actor in a television serial.

Roache joins other Street personalities who have been honoured, including actresses Violet Carson, Doris Speed, and Betty Driver, as well as the show's creator, Tony Warren. The series' longevity and influence earned it a Bafta special award this year.

During his record-breaking time on the hit soap, Roache's character has led an incident-packed life. Ken went to university and over the past four decades has gone through a selection of jobs from lecturer, taxi driver to small-time newspaper magnate. His love life has been busy, too. Ken's on and off relationship with former wife Deirdre, played by Anne Kirkbride, has been a long-running feature of the soap. He has also had affairs with the Street's Alma Baldwin, played by Amanda Barrie, and Denise Osbourne, played by Denise Black.

Speaking to reporters outside Buckingham Palace after the ceremony, he talked of his sadness at having to rush back to Granada Television's studios in Manchester to film the death scene of Alma Baldwin. "I don't confuse soap with reality - I don't, others do," Roache insisted. "But actually filming the death scene will be quite harrowing. I think it's the first time we've filmed an actual death scene."

Moments earlier, Roache had been talking to the Queen about her son. "I told Her Majesty that I'd met her son, the Prince of Wales, who appeared on the 40th anniversary show," he explained. "I said he played his part very well - its difficult to play yourself." He added: "Getting an MBE means a tremendous amount. I've been in the army and at public school, so I'm an institutional person - I support the monarchy."

Roache was accompanied to the Palace investiture by second wife Sara Mottram and their two children, Verity, 19, and William, 15.

Corrie-oke Queens: Soap lads find fame is a drag
21 May 2001

LOOK what happened when the men of Coronation Street entered a drag karaoke night. It was all down to Rovers' barmaid Shelley Unwin, who challenged the 10 to dress up for charity. Rovers Landlord Duggie Ferguson (John Bowe) made an outstanding Dolly Parton - with the aid of balloons - and cab drivers Steve McDonald (Simon Gregson) and Vikram Desai (Chris Bisson) were the Abba girls. Les Battersby (Bruce Jones) went for the leather look of rocker Suzy Quatro.

Then came the boys from the garage - Dennis Stringer, Kevin Webster, Tyrone Dobbs and Sam Kingston (Charles Dale, Michael Le Vell, Alan Halsall and Scott Wright) - as 1960s group The Shangri-Las. But the real dark horse was Norris Cole (Malcolm Hebden), who turned in a star performance as Eartha Kitt.

Simon Gregson said: "We all fell about laughing when we found out what the producers wanted us to do. "The Shangri-Las were hysterical. They were all tarted-up with wigs, dresses and lippy - then you saw the hairy legs and boots." But Simon says the chances of the cast being seen in drag again are slim. He grumbled: "It was fun but we were relieved to get the costumes off. Worst thing was definitely the tights - far too itchy."

The episode can be seen this coming Sunday.

Kidnap plot for Coronation Street
21 May 2001

Roy and Hayley Cropper are set to go on the run with a foster child in a forthcoming Coronation Street plot. The couple will kidnap 12-year-old Wayne, who they used to care for, to save him from his abusive stepfather, reports the News Of The World.

In the episodes to be screened next month, Wayne tells the Croppers he is being beaten by his stepfather Alex. Roy attempts to bribe him with £5,000 while the rest of the Street residents are at Alma's funeral on June 20. That doesn't work so the couple start scheming their runaway plot.

My life as a single mum - Shobna Gulati
20 May 2001 by Olivia Buxton

SHE only arrived in Coronation Street in March, but Shobna Gulati's pretty face is already a familiar one in millions of homes across the country. As Sunita Parekh, she plays a feisty British Asian who flees an arranged marriage, only to find herself disowned from her strictly religious family. As a feisty British Asian herself, 28-year-old Shobna has also suffered her fair share of hardship. But unlike Sunita, her family have been the saving of her.

Shobna's life was turned upside down seven years ago when she became unexpectedly pregnant - and the relationship she was in abruptly ended. Suddenly alone, Shobna, who grew up in Oldham, Lancs, where her father worked as a GP, was faced with the toughest decision of her life. If she kept the baby, she would have to tell her family and members of her local Asian community. And she feared that becoming a single mum would destroy her dreams of an acting career. "It was a tough time," she admits. "I had so many plans and never anticipated having a baby so young."

But Shobna, who had then just finished studying for a degree in Arabic and Middle Eastern politics at Manchester University, couldn't face the thought of an abortion. "I've always been responsible for my actions and there was no question of terminating the pregnancy," she says.

In Coronation Street, Sunita's parents leave her to fend for herself when she disobeys them and she's forced to find shelter with Dev (Jimmi Harkishin). "They tell her never to darken their doorstep again. It's a truly horrible experience for her, but I can understand their point of view as well as Sunita's," she says.

But in contrast, Shobna's family have supported her every step of the way in bringing up her little boy, Akshay, now six. "I was so nervous when I told my mum, but she was incredibly supportive and respected my decision to have the baby. "I wondered if some members of the local Asian community might think badly of me because there is still a stigma attached to being a single mum. But though I suppose tongues could have wagged at first behind my back, no-one has ever said anything to my face. "The incredible support of my family has enabled me to carry on working."

Shobna continued her acting career and landed roles in BBC1's Dinnerladies and EastEnders before being picked for Coronation Street. And she's enjoying being a mother, too. She glows when describing Akshay's birth..."It was the happiest day of my life, yet I burst into tears when I cradled him in my arms. I never cry normally. I just fell in love at first sight - he was gorgeous, with his shiny bald head, tiny eyes and fingers all screwed up. "Having Akshay is the best thing that's happened to me - though it can be hard being a mum. I've had to sacrifice my social life to care for him and I often turn down invitations to parties and film premieres so I can be at home with my son. He comes first."

While working on Dinnerladies, Shobna had to live in London while Akshay was cared for by her parents in Oldham. "It was awful being so far apart and sometimes I'd finish filming late on a Saturday night and drive 200 miles to Oldham just to be with him for Sunday. "I much prefer it now I'm working on Coronation Street in Manchester. If I'm filming late at Corrie, mum looks after Akshay and it's great to know he's nearby."

Unlike Sunita, Shobna's parents never pressurised her into either an "arranged" or an "introduced" marriage. "My family were liberal in that respect although my brother opted for an introduced marriage. But that was his choice and it proved a success," says Shobna. "My eldest sister married an Indian - who I refer to as an MFI, Man From India, and they now live in central India. "I had a strict but fair upbringing and my parents had high expectations for me to perform well academically. "I didn't want to let them down so I immersed myself in my studies. But my burning desire to become a dancer and actress was no secret and, as long as I succeeded in my studies, they didn't mind."

Shobna is not worried at all about being typecast in her role as Sunita. Since appearing in Dinnerladies she has taken part in Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado - as one of the three little maids. She says: "I used to think I'd never get a role as a Jane Austen-type heroine but over the past couple of years I have been amazed - especially in the theatre - how much people's attitudes have changed. The stereotypes are not as enforced as they once were."

Even so, over the years Shobna has had to face racial taunts. "One time I was with my son in a park in Manchester, playing on the climbing frame, when a kid started to throw stones at us and shout obscenities. They were deeply offensive and I was determined to do something. So I asked in a stern voice if he had meant what he said. The kid just looked embarrassed and, to be honest, I don't think he even understood what he'd been saying. "I feel sorry rather than angry because kids often repeat what they hear parents say without really knowing what it means. "I hope my role as Sunita will help to increase awareness but for the time being I'm just enjoying being in the Street. It's been a struggle to get here but the hard work has certainly paid off."

In fact, Shobna now admits she feels like the girl who has everything. "Thanks to the fantastic support of my family, I've been able to continue with my acting career, I've landed a great role in Britain's top soap - and to cap it all I have my wonderful son, Akshay. What more could any woman possibly want?"

Blair fails to win Corrie actress' vote
20 May 2001

A Coronation Street actress is reported to be voting for the Socialist Alliance. In an interview with Spiked Julie Hesmondalgh says Mr Blair is pseudo-presidential, egomaniacal and scary.

Julie, who plays Hayley, goes on to accuse New Labour of increasing privatisation and abandoning traditional Labour values. She says politicians' habit of associating themselves with soaps is "naff". "It's the common touch thing - let's make out we're just like ordinary folk because we watch Corrie, too," she said.

A spokeswoman for the Socialist Alliance says they aren't aware Ms Hesmondalgh plans to vote for them. Other well-known supporters include Mark Thomas, Ricky Tomlinson and Ken Loach who has directed their election broadcast.

Corrie star gets replacement shoes for wedding
20 May 2001

Tracy Shaw has been given a replacement pair of £1,600 Jimmy Choo shoes by OK! Magazine after hers were stolen at the BAFTA awards. The Coronation Street actress was devastated when she realised her shoes had gone because they'd been specially made for her wedding.

She had kicked them off to dance. They were to match the dress for her wedding to TV producer Robert Ashworth next month. "I was distraught when I went back and found the shoes weren't there any more," Tracy told the Daily Express. "I was a very common version of Cinderella, running down the corridor yelling 'I've lost my shoes!'"

The frock was made by designer Kyri and Tracy had spent a lot of time making sure everything matched and was perfect. "I was so embarrassed when I heard they'd stopped production to make me a new pair overnight!" she said.

Me get married?  Don't bet on it
19 May 2001 by Sue Crawford
As soap weddings go, this one is a real shocker. What started as a jokey wager, ends with loudmouth factory worker Karen getting hitched to Coronation Street's wideboy Steve McDonald. But the odds on Suranne Jones, who plays the not-so-blushing bride, doing something so rash in real life are vast. "Like Karen, I'm quite cheeky and mischievous, and I'd happily bet that I could get a man to take me for dinner or on holiday, but Karen takes it one step further," says Suranne. "Marriage is a huge step and never in a million years could I do it for a bet. If one day I do get married, then it will be for real - with the big wedding, the house and kids and a dog sitting in front of the fireplace, but at 22 with so many opportunities ahead it just seems so far away."

A month ago, Suranne moved into a flat with her friend and Street co- star Naomi Russell, who plays Bobbi Lewis. And she is determined to enjoy being young, free and single. "I just can't picture myself in a wedding dress walking up the aisle," she says. "Some women my age dream about it, but I don't have it in me to get married at the moment. I'm too young to settle down and, anyway, I've not met the right man. "I've just come out of a long-standing relationship. We were together for two years, but our lives were going in separate directions. We were both young, I was busy in Coronation Street and he had his own business. Eventually we agreed it wasn't working out. It was very amicable and we both agreed to move on."

When she does find Mr Right, Suranne's wedding will be nothing like her surprise screen one. In the Street, Karen is caught up in a bet with Janice Battersby, who suggests that Karen's boyfriends never take her seriously. To make sure she wins the ensuing wager, Karen persuades boyfriend Steve to propose to her in front of everyone in the Rovers. But when Janice refuses to pay up until she sees them walk down the aisle, Steve goes ahead and books the register office. Because it all happens so quickly, Karen nips to the shops and buys the first thing she sees for her big day - a loud, pink tiger-striped dress.

Although it's hardly a fairytale romance, this week's storyline is still a dream come true for Suranne. Last year she was living with her parents and working as a barmaid. Now, eight months after joining the Street, she is marrying an established character, played by Simon Gregson. It's still not all quite sunk in yet. "When I was 13 I'd go on the Granada Studios Tours," she says. "There were pictures of all the cast on the wall and my auntie used to point to them and say, `You fancy Steve McDonald, don't you?' He'd just joined the show then and was a bit of a heartthrob. I'd get very embarrassed and deny it. "The other day I started to feel sad that I'm not going to be Karen Phillips any more, I'm going to be Karen McDonald. I had to pull myself up and remind myself that it's not real. I'll still be Suranne Jones!"

Named after her great-grandmother, Suranne grew up in Oldham, Lancs, with her older brother Gary, a computer programmer. Her mum Jenny is a clerical officer and her dad Chris is an engineer. The family's only links with showbusiness are Suranne's cousin Elizabeth O'Grady, who used to be in Hollyoaks, and a great aunt who was a circus tightrope walker and tap dancer.

Suranne set her heart on becoming an actress at ten when a teacher suggested she join the Oldham Theatre Workshop. "I think it was because I was a loud kid and was always singing," she says. "I loved it from the first day. Other than that, I didn't enjoy my schooldays. I was always a bit of an oddbod and wanted to do drama while everyone else went to the park and drank beer and messed about. I was bullied a bit because of it. People would call me names, but I have a tough personality and it just made me stronger. "The teachers didn't understand why I was so determined to be an actress either. One of them used to call me `Missy Actress' in a sarcastic voice in front of the class, but that drove me on even more. Another teacher told my parents that his brother was having a hard time trying to get into comedy and acting, and that I should choose something else. Well, his brother was Steve Coogan and I ended up in Coronation Street, which just goes to show that you can make it if you really want to."

Suranne went to drama college for two years, appeared in a national tour of Rita, Sue And Bob Too, then spent eight weeks in eight different musicals on the Isle Of Man. But when she returned home the acting jobs dried up and she started doing barwork. On the verge of giving up on her acting ambitions, she was cast in a TV advert for Maltesers. A small role in the drama My Wonderful Life followed, and then she got auditions for Corrie's barmaid Geena Gregory and Emmerdale's Charity Dingle. "I reached the final four for Charity," she recalls. "But I knew I wouldn't get the part of Geena. I remember sitting at the audition with my dad and seeing Jennifer James bouncing out of the door. She looked so beautiful and confident that I just knew she'd get it."

She was right, but a few weeks later Coronation Streetbosses called again, saying that they had a new character - a brassy, loud, northern factory girl - and would Suranne like to join the show for three months. That was eight months ago and now, with her screen marriage, she is sure to be in the show for some time. "A year ago I was working in a bar, living with my mum and dad and couldn't afford a car," she says. "Now I've got a car, I've moved into my own home and have a fantastic job. I sometimes sit in my flat at night and think, `How on earth did I get here?' I've worked hard, but I know I'm lucky that someone up there has decided to give me this chance."

She is close to her family and still visits her parents every weekend. They have always been big Corrie fans and were overjoyed when she landed the part of Karen. "They've supported me throughout and have taped every single episode I've appeared in. They store them under the spare bed," she says. "I know they're incredibly proud of me. I actually appeared in Coronation Street when I was 17, playing a fashion student called Mandy - the girlfriend of Chris Collins. Just that one episode would have been enough for my mum. For me to be actually marrying Steve McDonald is like a dream come true."

Although for poor Karen, getting hitched to badboy Steve means the odds are they probably won't live happily ever after.

Soap star joins Esso boycott
17 May 2001

CORONATION Street star Bill Roache has joined singer Annie Lennox and model Bianca Jagger in a celebrity boycott of petrol giants Esso. Bill, 65, who plays Ken Barlow, is backing the Greenpeace Stop Esso campaign. The US firm are accused of leading a backlash against the Kyoto Agreement on cutting greenhouse gases.

Esso said the boycott would only hurt garage owners.

Soap 'Lost the Plot' on Cancer
16 May 2001

A SMEAR-test scandal victim has attacked TV bosses for showing Coronation Street's Alma Baldwin dying of cervical cancer. Pat Dunster fears the storyline will make cancer sufferers feel hopeless. She is angry that Alma, played by Amanda Barrie, is to die three months after being diagnosed following a hospital blunder.

Pat feels the storyline should not have been shown after this month's news that 14 women were killed by smear-test errors in Leicestershire. She said: "Anyone who has just been diagnosed and is watching must be thinking they are going to die too. "I've cried buckets watching what Alma's going through."

Pat, 60, of Whitstable, Kent, is wheelchair bound after life-saving surgery following the 1996 Kent and Canterbury smear-test scandal that killed eight. A Street spokesman said: "Alma admits she missed a smear test - she may not be in this position if she had not done that. We hope Alma's storyline prompts people to go for smear tests."

Tina's tangled web
15 May 2001
CORRIE youngster Tina O'Brien is to star in a storyline warning children about the dangers of paedophiles on the internet. A Government task force will help scriptwriters and Tina - the soap's Sarah Louise Platt - will also front a Home Office publicity campaign. The actress will highlight the problem of perverts preying on kids through computer chatrooms. And the special plot will reveal the frustration of police and parents over the problems in prosecuting the internet criminals.

Coronation Street viewers will see Sarah Louise spending more and more time in her bedroom visiting - a computer chatroom. She becomes particularly friendly with a cyber pal called Gary - who claims to be just 15 years old. He wins her friendship by pretending to have the same interests as her - a process known as "grooming". And when her new mate sends over a picture of himself - as a good-looking youth - she agrees to meet him. But, too late, the teenager discovers Gary is really in his thirties and has been lying to her all along.

The shock storyline will start next month and culminate in July with a frantic search for Sarah Louise as family and pals realise she is missing. Last night, Tina said: "I think this is a very serious issue and will also provide a gripping storyline. It's worth remembering you never really know who you're talking to on the net."

A Street spokeswoman said the story, which will start next month and climax in July, will suit Sarah Louise's character. She added: "She feels increasingly isolated since the birth of Bethany. She realises she can no longer have a normal childhood, all her friends are going out with boyfriends and she is lonely. On the internet she can be who she wants to be."

Paedophile Patrick Green was jailed last year after abusing a 13-year old girl he met in a chatroom. And last month, Judge David Morris, at Cardiff Crown Court, called for tighter controls after theologian Dr Anthony Gray was jailed for the on-line seduction of a 14-year-old boy.

DANGER ON THE NET

THE Corrie web porn campaign comes just three months after seven members of the biggest paedophile ring busted so far were jailed. The Wonderland Club got jail terms of just one to two-and-a-half years at Kingston Crown Court, London, for downloading 146,000 images.

That followed a term of just four months for rocker Gary Glitter, 55. In February, BA suspended five Heathrow staff over office PC porn and Scots weightlifting champ Alan Ogilvie, 32, of Leith, Edinburgh, was convicted of having 22,000 images of boys. In April, Welsh courthouse staff in Wrexham were found downloading porn at work. And next month, Bay City Roller Derek Longmuir may be struck off the UK nursing council. He lost his job at Edinburgh Royal after community service for child sex pictures.

Internet paedophile plot for Coronation Street
14 May 2001

Coronation Street is to use a storyline showing how children are at risk from paedophiles using internet chat rooms.

The plot will involve 15-year-old Sarah Louise Platt's character, played by Tina O'Brien. She will make friends with a person she believes is a 16-year-old boy in a chat room. He sends her a picture of himself, showing him as a good-looking teenager and she arranges to meet him.

The plot reaches a climax in an episode to be shown in July, when Sarah Louise visits her new friend Gary's house and is shown in by a man pretending to be his father. But the man has been plotting to trap the schoolgirl during their online conversations. Sarah Louise's friend, Candice alerts her parents who begin a frantic search for their daughter.

A spokesperson for Granada TV said: "Sarah Louise becomes obsessed with her new friend. She can be who she wants to be in the chat room and doesn't tell him she has a baby. "After she meets him and Martin, Gail and Candice realise what has happened, they rush to get Sarah Louise in a dramatic and tension-filled episode. "Pretending to be someone else over the internet is called grooming. The man pretending to be a young boy is actually in his late thirties. "

Coronation Street wins Bafta special award
13 May 2001

Coronation Street has won a special Bafta for its contribution to television over 40 years. The award made up for losing to Emmerdale in the Best Soap category.

Tracy Shaw, who plays Maxine in the show, said the Coronation Street cast were also pleased for their rivals. "Emmerdale deserved to win the Best Soap," she said. "They have had cracking storylines and we're as pleased as them."

Tracy said the secret to Coronation Street's success was "a good mix between real life stories and comedy". "It keeps up with times and the Alma storyline has been tackled beautifully," she said.

Stars flock to Corrie's big match
13 May 2001

CORONATION Street's Jez Quigley came back from the dead yesterday - to get married. Lee Boardman - who starred as the evil drug dealer - tied the knot with gorgeous Jennifer James who plays sexy Rovers barmaid Gina.

The stylish ceremony at Manchester Town Hall was packed with the soap's top names. But footie crazy Corrie actors Michael Le Vell (Kevin Webster) and Stephen Arnold (Ashley Peacock) couldn't wait for the wedding to be over - to watch the FA Cup Final!

While the official photographs were taken, they sprinted out to find a pub with a video screen. And Simon Gregson had to be despatched to bring them back to the main reception.

First to arrive yesterday was chief bridesmaid Jacqueline Pirie (Linda Baldwin) who drew up in a chauffeur-driven silver Mercedes. Corrie veteran Liz Dawn (Vera Duckworth) turned up to applause from on-lookers. One shouted out: "Nice hat". Liz replied: "Yes and it's not one of Cilla's."

Samia Ghadie, who plays Tyrone's girlfriend Maria, arrived with a mystery young man. Denise Welch (former Rovers landlady Natalie) was resplendent in cerise chiffon - and Anne Kirkbride (Deirdre Rashid) also looking astunning.

Lee, 28, and Jennifer, 21, fell in love on the Corrie set and got engaged last autumn. Talking about the rival attraction of the FA Cup final, a friend said: "Jennifer can't stand footie and Lee wasn't bothered. "So they knew there would be problems having the wedding the same time as the kick-off!"

Street bride's final fling
13 May 2001

CORONATION Street star Jennifer James kicked off married life yesterday - - just as the FA Cup Final got started. Jennifer, 21, who plays barmaid Geena, chose the time deliberately to keep her wedding to ex-Street star Lee Boardman firmly under wraps. Hello! magazine, who paid a fortune for the rights to the wedding and had confiscated cameras from guests, were left with a set of pictures minus some of the soap's biggest names arriving for the ceremony at Manchester Town Hall.

Jennifer arrived in a maroon strapless dress, emerging with three bridesmaids from a silver Mercedes with blacked-out windows. One of the 350 guests revealed that the couple had spent around £10,000 covering the Town Hall reception rooms and stairs with flowers. Jennifer met 26-year-old Lee when he was brought into the Street to play drugs peddler Jez Quigley. He proposed to her in Paris last year after a 19-week romance.

But her big day ended up a littler quieter than she wanted. As soon as the ceremony was over, half the congregation - including Street stars Kevin Kennedy and Denise Welch - sneaked off to the nearest pub to catch the final minutes of yesterday's big game. One guest said: "Jennifer expected some of the blokes to sneak off to the pub but when the women also started leaving she couldn't believe it.

Jennifer eventually dispatched Simon Gregson, who plays Steve McDonald, to the pub in his top hat to round up missing guests.Jennifer, 21, tied the knot with fellow actor Lee Boardman - who played Corrie bad boy Jez Quigley - in front of 350 guests at Manchester Town Hall.

Soap pubs slammed over staff
13 May 2001

BRITAIN'S TV barmaids are stroppy, amateurish and appalling, says a top brewery chief. And Richard Ellis, marketing manager of pubs giant Whitbread, says the staff at the Queen Vic and Rovers' Return are now putting prospective licensees off the pub trade.

Mr Ellis claims the appalling manner of EastEnders' landlady Peggy Mitchell, played by Barbara Windsor, drove customers away. And Queen Vic stand-in Kate Slater - Jessie Wallace - is stroppy and was taken on without even a day's training.

Coronation Street's bar staff are just as bad, according to Mr Ellis. He says service in the Rovers started to decline with Bet Gilroy and continued under Vera and Jack Duckworth. Now, he believes, it's reached its lowest point with barmaid Shelley Unwin, played by Sally Lindsay, who seems to be more interested in pulling men than pints.

He also cites Brookside's Bev's Bar, where there was drug-dealing on the premises, while Bev almost drank herself unconscious at a recent theme night. Writing in the pub trade's bible, The Morning Advertiser, Mr Ellis said: "We're sick of the pub industry always being made to look amateurish." And he has even thrown out a challenge to soap bosses and scriptwriters inviting them to attend a licensee's basic training course to get a clearer picture of the industry.

A BBC spokeswoman hit back, saying: "Like real life, the Queen Vic presents a myriad of personalities and abilities." And a Street spokesman said: "What you see in the Rovers is typical of the highs and lows of a pub. "As in all businesses, there good and bad managers."

I Beat Hear'Say Suzanne to be New Corrie Temptress
12 May 2001

CORRIE vixen Samia Ghadie beat Hear'say's Suzanne Shaw to her Street part - and the actress admits: "It's her loss, Pure and Simple." The 18-year-old beat blonde Suzanne to the role of kennel maid Maria Sutherland. And although Suzanne is part of the group whose single Pure and Simple became the fastest-selling debut of all time, Samia wouldn't trade places for the world.

The Salford lass, who starred with Robert Carlyle in the film There's Only One Jimmy Grimble, laughed: "I'd love to have a chat with Suzanne about it. "I'm not jealous in the slightest that she's in Hear'say. I think it's her loss she's not in Corrie. "She's missed a lot. We're such a big family and have such a good time, but they all look like they're having a good time, too. "Hear'say isn't my kind of music, but good luck to them."

Not that Samia should mind - ever since she joined the Weatherfield soap a year ago, she has been making headlines. The saucy firecracker was the talk of the nation when she bedded virgin Tyrone Dobbs, played by Alan Halsall. Now she hopes to follow in the footsteps of her Corrie idols, saying: "Jack and Vera are the King and Queen of Corrie - I hope Alan and I can become the young Jack and Vera."

Although Maria and Tyrone are now engaged, it hasn't been plain sailing for the young lovers. When she and stripper turned garage mechanic Sam got a rash at the same time from sharing an industrial cleaning product, Tyrone thought he was cheating on her with the stripper, causing more hilarity. So it's no wonder Corrie bosses are making sure Samia stays put by inviting her to live on the Street - at the Duckworths. And if their past storylines are anything to go by, Tyrone and Maria's lively love life could make for a few sleepless nights for Jack and Vera.

Samia is thrilled to be a resident of Weatherfield. As a child, she used to watch the soap and even did impersonations of some of the characters. She said: "I can't believe I'm living on the most famous street in the world." Samia, whose dark hair, green eyes and olive skin are inherited from her French-Lebanese dad, loves playing the part of Maria, but admits she's the polar opposite of the feisty kennel maid. She giggled: "I'm a square compared to her. I love the part because I'm not just a boring teenager. I speak my mind like her, but that's about it."

Samia has become one of the most high profile of the new Corrie youngsters and her storylines have helped give her a few red faces. From her mum Patsy to passers-by on the street, everyone seems to have a joke for her. She said: "I sit watching Corrie with my mum and my aunties and on the TV I'm going on about sex. "At one point, Maria always seemed to be dragging or trying to drag Tyrone up the stairs. "It was so embarrassing so I always excuse myself and pretend to go to the toilet. "Guys would shout out: 'We'll show Tyrone how it's done.' It's a touch sad.  "The rash storyline was a nightmare. People would shout out at me: 'Where's your rash? Do you want the name of my doctor?'"

Her fame has also spread abroad. Samia was coming home on a flight from a New York shopping trip. She said: "I was waiting for the toilet when this Canadian woman said: 'I know you, you're from Corrie.'"I was really chuffed that she'd recognised me and I asked what was going on in Corrie in Canada then realised that she thought I was Curly's wife, Emma, who is played by Angela Lonsdale."

Samia is dating actor Ciaran Griffiths, who takes all the cat-calling in his stride. The pair met on the set of Jimmy Grimble. It's a shoot she remembers with affection, especially when she thinks about Robert Carlyle. She admitted: "It's the only time I've ever been starstruck. I just couldn't speak when he came on set, but he was fantastic. "He came up to me and said: 'Hi Samia, I'm Bobby.' I couldn't believe he knew my name and was introducing himself as Bobby. "Within five minutes, he'd put me at my ease and gave me some secrets about how to learn lines."

Scots mean a lot to Samia. Her big break when she was 11 was in Cracker, when she appeared as Fitz's daughter's best friend Rosie. And she made a sci-fi programme, Life Force with Paul Fox, who played Mike Baldwin's son Mark, around Loch Lomond. She said: "I've always got funny memories of Scotland because in the series I played this girl who had wonky DNA and ended up ageing prematurely. "I had to be made up as a 90-year-old with all this wrinkly latex. It was really weird because I ended up walking and talking really slowly so I didn't move the latex."

After her big break in Cracker, she did stints in Children's Ward, Adam's Family Tree, was in Heartbeat twice and Cops and Doctors, where she had to pretend to give birth. Her success at an early age is perhaps thanks to her mum Patsy who, 30 years ago, used to belt out Lulu's Shout under the stage name of Bubbles Levine. Patsy left the stage when she met a French-Lebanese diver when she and her band Deep Emotion were touring the Middle East. He left the diving industry, she gave up showbiz and they moved to Salford to run an off-licence. Samia and her brother Tariq were born there and when their parents divorced, they chose to stay in Salford with Patsy.

It's a decision Samia has never had reason to regret. She said: "I'm definitely where I am because of my mum. She wasn't pushy, but was always there for me." She also made sure her daughter was well and truly grounded - something which being part of the nation's most popular soap has done nothing to change.

Tomorrow, Samia and the cast of Corrie will have a night out at the BAFTAs and, although she's looking forward to a night of showbiz glamour, her excitement is tempered by a healthy dose of Northern cynicism. She said: "It will be great fun, but I do find it a bit false. People come up and say: 'You're fantastic. Who do you play again?'"

'It has all been a bit bloody tricky'
11 May 2001 by Jan Moir

Actress Sarah Lancashire has a £1.3m TV deal and a new fiancé - how did a self-proclaimed late bloomer achieve so much? Jan Moir finds out

SARAH LANCASHIRE grins like a lovesick teenager, touches a hand to her heart and turns bright pink. "Look at me! It is very difficult to disguise how I feel, I am afraid. I just can't stop smiling," she says. And it's true. With a new diamond sparkling on her finger, a hot flush on her cheeks and that dreamy gleam in her eyes, she looks like a woman who is utterly drunk on love. "I am very happy with my life now," she confirms. "Everything is under control, nothing is running away from me and it has all turned out just how I hoped. I feel that my life really begins from this point forward."

The main source of her happiness, as her cat-that-got-the-double-cream smile testifies, is that, last month, she became engaged to marry Peter Salmon, the popular and well-regarded Head of BBC Sport. Although they met when Salmon was in charge of the Manchester studios where Lancashire became famous for her role as Raquel in Coronation Street, the couple became serious about each other only during the summer of 2000.

Salmon, who had been known until that point as a devoted family man, moved out of the home he shared with his lover of 20 years and their three children. After what was clearly a difficult time for all parties, he proposed to Lancashire when they were on holiday in New York over Easter. Out they went to find the ring: a small, square diamond on a plain gold band.

"I am not a particularly ostentatious person, so anything bigger would have been a total embarrassment to me," says Lancashire. Indeed, the outfit she is wearing today is so deliberately low key - scuffed boots, denim jeans and a jumper bobbled with age - that it could accurately be described as scruffy, and the only hint of grooming is a few badly applied coats of cloggy mascara. She keeps absent-mindedly pulling her hair in and out of a pony tail and modestly pulling down a little DKNY T-shirt when it rides up her tummy. "Ooh, I have put on a bit of weight and I didn't bother until I noticed that this size 14 top was too tight. Then I realised it was age 14, thank God," she cries.

She gives her engagement ring an admiring glance, then holds out her hand for inspection. "I chose it. I did. And I am very proud to be wearing it," she beams. "Marriage is not for everyone, but spiritually it is very necessary for me because I have a desire, a need to feel owned." Sarah, I say, primly. I am a little surprised to hear a young woman like yourself express such an archaic sentiment. "Not physically or mentally owned," she clucks. "I want to be owned spiritually. I want to belong to somebody. Marriage is a pact, a conspiracy of ownership. And I want that." And what forthright Sarah wants, one suspects, forthright Sarah usually gets.

The couple have just moved into a new home in Twickenham - where she has enrolled her young sons from her first marriage at local schools - and have decided to wait until 2002 to marry. "We just haven't got the bloody time this year," says Lancashire, who could design and run a degree course in Gritty Northern Realism (I'm Down To Earth, Me). She thinks that she will probably "just stick on my jeans and T-shirt" for the wedding and insists upon waiting so long because she wants it to be "a joyous occasion, rather than a pain in the arse".

She plans to hold the ceremony in private, despite lucrative inducements from Hello! She was, she says, aghast when the celebrity magazine got in touch, the day after their engagement was announced. "Absolutely horrified. I just thought, Oh no! I couldn't think of anything worse. We are not a public couple and we don't make our careers out of being a public couple. I know that people are interested but I don't even like talking about my relationship with Peter. And I guard it because it is very precious. It is not a piece of drama, it is real life. My normal life. And I value my normality."

Despite her deserved fame for creating Raquel - an innocent trapped in the body of a goddess - and a triumphant career thereafter, which has made her one of the most popular and highest-paid television actresses in Britain, Lancashire has known difficult, brittle times. Now aged 36, she met her first husband - a music teacher and composer - when she was 18; she married at 22 and quickly had two children. As well as the responsibility of a family, she has had to fight a long battle against depression that is only just beginning to abate. "I have never known what it feels like to wake up in the morning full of the joys of spring, and wander through the day feeling capable of coping."

She has contemplated suicide twice and - during her soap days - had a nervous breakdown. Eventually, in 1995, she left her marriage, which was also making her unhappy, and later divorced. "I got married only because I was pregnant. Simple as that. I am a very traditional girl and was horrified at the thought of having a child out of wedlock. I didn't want a child of mine to be different or have fingers pointed at," she says, adding that she was also emotionally paralysed by a fear of letting others down. "It all seems ridiculous. Now, I just tell people to get lost, and it feels great. But my marriage lasted for 10 years, which was 10 years longer than it should have done. It was tough."

Immediately after leaving her husband, Lancashire realised that she had lost her sense of identity, to the extent that she was unsure of her political beliefs, her hobbies - "Did I actually like going to pubs?" - or even if she liked driving the car or being in the passenger seat. For years afterwards, when people asked her if she had met anyone new, she would reply: "That is the last thing I bloody need, mate. I don't even want to look at a bloke for at least three years. And I didn't. But leaving my husband was really lovely, it was my renaissance. A very cleansing experience."Astonishingly, after this revelation, she then mentions that she is on rather good terms with her ex-husband now. "Oh, yes! He bought me this scarf from Debenhams," she says, waving a scabby old rag in the air.

Following a five-year period of singledom, a fresh course of therapy and liberal prescriptions of the anti-depressant Paroxetine, Sarah Lancashire is a now a new woman, someone who feels that she has "made a breakthrough, cracked it, learnt how to manage the depression". She also feels that she was "born a middle-aged woman" and is only now growing into herself. "Just about ready to go on a bus by myself, or ride a bike without stabilisers", is how she puts it. "Do everything at your own pace, or else you'll fall over and die of a stroke or heart attack," she adds.

The depression may have lifted, but that craggy, salty streak of northern pessimism is going to prove much harder to shift. Even when Lancashire was at drama school, which she attended only because she liked painting scenery, she was bemused by the thrusting ambition and dreams of her fellow pupils. "I just thought they were all taking something. They were desperately auditioning for the RSC or the National. And I thought: I'll audition for Oldham Rep because it's only a bus ride away and I'll be able to get home by half 10. "My expectations were so much smaller than everyone else's but, being from the North, I just thought: Be happy for what you can settle for, Sarah. Don't get above your station. Stick to what you know. And look what happened."

Although this is a cute story, it is difficult to believe that the singular Lancashire had absolutely no ambitions of her own and was entirely devoid of intent when clawing her way up the greasy pole. Although she protests that most of her adult life has been a complete surprise, no actress can end up with a £1.3 million "golden handcuffs" deal with independent television and a shelf groaning with awards simply by accident. In a business where the majority of performers would stampede over a field of grannies to get a plum part, it doesn't happen like that.

In her new series, The Glass, Lancashire turns in another excellent performance as the girlfriend of the director of a double-glazing company - much more interesting than it sounds - and even manages to make a snog with John Thaw look like a convincingly emotional moment. And despite that dizzy confusion over her T-shirt size and the abstracted air over her career, Lancashire can turn intense and exacting in a split second. "I am a stickler for damn good writing," she announces, crisply, at one point.

Perhaps because she is such an oddly old-fashioned girl - she has a rich interior life, in which she likes to imagine she is living in the sweet, innocent Thirties - she feels that it is unladylike to admit to ambition or enterprise. "Well, it has all been a bit bloody tricky," the future Mrs Salmon concludes. "But now I have my whole life ahead of me and I want every single, lovely moment of it. Before, my life was a bit of a labour, to be honest with you. But now it feels pretty damn wonderful." Then she smiles and blushes all over again.

Raquel is voted soap's top barmaid
10 May 2001

Raquel Watts from Coronation Street has been voted soap's top barmaid by a panel of experts. The former Rovers Return favourite, played by Sarah Lancashire, beat off EastEnders stars Mel Healy (Tamzin Outhwaite) and Tiffany Mitchell (Martine McCutcheon).

Writers on magazine Soaplife rated the bar beauties on their looks, friendliness and the way they dealt with customers. Bet Lynch, one of Corrie's best loved characters, only made it to fifth place while her old colleague Betty Turpin failed to make the top ten.

Soaplife editor Mike Hollingsworth said: "Everyone remembers Bet Lynch as the queen of the Rovers Return but it's Raquel Watts's unique combination of blonde bubbliness and push-up bra which gave her the ultimate pulling power."

Soaplife's top ten:

1. Raquel Watts - Coronation Street
2. Tricia Stokes - Emmerdale.
3. Mel Healy - EastEnders
4. Bet Lynch - Coronation Street
5. Tiffany Mitchell - EastEnders
6. Sharon Watts - EastEnders
7. Britt Woods - Emmerdale
8. Geena Gregory - Coronation Street
9. Lorraine Wicks - EastEnders
10. Tanya Pooley - Coronation Street

Margi celebrates soap hat trick
9 May 2001 by Derek Robbins

Margi Clarke is celebrating a hat trick of soap roles after landing a part in Channel 5's Family Affairs. Margi, 46, who was Tyrone's jailbird mum Jackie Dobbs in Corrie and also had a role in Brookie, plays the mother of baddie Pete Callan (David Easter) from next month.

Blonde Margi, who left Corrie in 1999, said: "It's brilliant being in all three - I might try for Emmerdale and EastEnders for the full set next!" The actress says reports that she suffered financial hardship after she left her role in Corrie two years ago have been "exaggerated".

Margi returned to TV earlier this year in an episode of Casualty and says: "I've had my ups and downs like anyone, but I'm all right now. "Although I wasn't on TV after Corrie I was busy directing two short films in Liverpool - Little Nemesis about religious gangsters and Top Birds, a history of the city's women."

Margi says soap fans can expect fireworks when she makes her debut in Family Affairs next month. Margi's character Joan turns up out of the blue when Callan is standing trial for the murder of Josh Matthews. The ex-Good Sex Guide presenter says: "She abandoned him when she was younger. She's a very hard-boiled character - the third rock from the sun - who doesn't take any nonsense."

Veteran cast for new soap
9 May 2001 by Caroline Barrett
The star-studded cast of a new daytime soap, Night And Day, has been revealed by ITV bosses. The production is set around Thornton Road, a fictitious street in Greenwich, East London. The soap will focus on the lives of six families who are a group of friends watching their kids grow up.

Actress Lysette Anthony, of Three Up, Two Down fame, plays hairdresser Roxanne. She lives with ladies' man Alex, played by Joe McGann. Former Birds Of A Feather actress Lesley Joseph also stars. She takes the role of meddling schoolteacher Rachel Gulperin, while Glynis Barber, of Dempsey and Makepeace, plays teacher Fiona.

Acclaimed actress Cathy Tyson, of Mona Lisa fame, plays Sue, while former New Avengers actor Gareth Hunt plays pub landlord Charlie. Sally Dexter, of Tough Love, plays Natalie.

New baby scare for Corrie's Denise
8 May 2001 by Jonathan Donald

Former Corrie star Denise Welch has spoken of the anguish she and actor husband Tim Healy endured after the birth of their new baby. Louis was born in March with a bowel defect and needed major surgery.

Welch, 42, said: "The first sign was when he showed no interest in breast-feeding. "But he didn't pass anything, either, until he vomited green-tinted bile and the doctors said 'We'll have to take him into special care'."

Louis was born with Hirshchsprung's disease which affects one in 5,000 babies and requires surgery. The discovery shocked Welch, who suffered chronic post-natal depression after the birth of first child, Matthew, 12 years ago. "It was very hard. I had been on a high because I wasn't suffering from depression," she told Hello.

The new baby had to undergo two and a half hours in surgery having the condition corrected. The actress remained by Louis's side as he recovered at Liverpool's Alder Hey Hospital following the successful op. "There were a few horrible days and if it wasn't for the nurses it would have been very difficult," she said. "Louis had an intravenous drip that caused him to swell up and he didn't look like my baby."

But the torment was soon to end. Louis was taken off morphine and within a couple of days, doctors said he could go home. "That was the most wonderful day," said Welch. "Now that Louis is home he is making up for lost time and there is a present in every single nappy. Look what he has put us through. By God, is he going to hear about this for the rest of his life."

Odds Couple - Corrie Love Gamble
7 May 2001

IT doesn't sound too romantic - but money is changing hands as Coronation Street's dodgy Steve McDonald weds knicker stitcher Karen Phillips. Viewers will see them gamble on marriage after a series of astonishing bets.

It all starts when workmates of factory girl Karen, who's fed up with the way Steve is treating her, wager pounds 10 that she can't get her tight-fisted boyfriend to take her out for an expensive meal. Then they up the stakes if she can persuade the cab firm boss to take her on holiday. The betting turns crazy when they all offer a day's wages if the holiday becomes a honeymoon. But Karen's on a roll and goes for double or quits that she can get Steve to marry her by the same time next week - and she does.

As ever, there has to be something in it for wide boy Steve and he agrees to go along with the wedding as long as he gets a cut of the winnings. Rovers Return regulars will watch in amazement later this month as he pops the question in the pub. And viewers will see their register office wedding, filmed yesterday in Salford, Manchester, on May 30.

Actress Suranne Jones, 22, who plays Karen, wore a strappy, slashed apricot and pink leopard-skin print dress for her big day and said she was thrilled to become the Street's 53rd bride. "Karen can't believe she's on the verge of getting married for a bet," she said. "She's not the type of girl to back out of a tricky situation and she's in a game of bluff now with Steve. Each of them is just waiting for the other to pull out."

It's second time around for Steve - alias Simon Gregson - who married Vicky Arden in St Lucia in 1995. Simon said yesterday: "It's the second time, too, that Steve has got hitched in unusual circumstances. "But it's quite fitting, the way his character has been over the last few years. It doesn't surprise me. He thinks it's a bit of a laugh." Steve asks Vikram Desai - actor Steve Bisson - to be his best man. But the lads are heavily outnumbered by the factory girls who turn out in force to see whether Karen has taken their money.

Among the guests are Hayley Cropper (Julie Hesmondhalgh), Bobbi Lewis (Naomi Russell), Janice Battersby (Vicky Entwistle) and Linda Baldwin (Jacqueline Pirie). The bride and groom, naturally, are all of a flutter.

Crisis? What crisis?
7 May 2001 by Anita Chaudhuri

When a woman was raped on Coronation Street, you might have expected the TV company to run a Rape Crisis number at the end of the show. But they didn't. Anita Chaudhuri finds out why...

Coronation Street, it has to be said, does not usually provide much useful commentary on feminist responses to sexual violence, not unless you have a very sophisticated reading of the marital squabbles of Jack and Vera Duckworth. Yet its recent storyline about the rape of teenager Toyah Battersby has, unwittingly, starkly highlighted the current crisis in Rape Crisis. After the harrowing episodes, Granada TV failed to broadcast a single rape helpline number, preferring to direct viewers to its website where they could click on links to Victim Support, the Samaritans or a dead-end link to the Rape Crisis Federation, an administrative body which does not provide counselling.

The reason? It appears Rape Crisis, once a beacon of feminist solidarity and Reclaim the Night marches, is suffering from an image problem. "We provided Coronation Street with advice about the storyline and stressed the importance of putting people in contact with us," says Julie Barnard, director of the Rape Crisis Federation. "What they're really saying to Rape Crisis is, you're OK to provide us with juicy storylines, but not to provide support afterwards. It was the same with Grange Hill and a recent BBC rape documentary."

Barnard says TV companies don't want to give out Rape Crisis numbers on air because they're frightened of saying the R word. "It's fine to show it, but not to say it," she points out. "We didn't single out Rape Crisis because we didn't want to concentrate on rape, but on violent crime in general," a Coronation Street spokeswoman says, though they used Toyah's terrified face in dozens of trailers.

However, there is a much bigger reason why the TV companies, as well as many other public information bodies, are no longer confident about giving out Rape Crisis hotline numbers. Many of Britain's 65 centres have been reduced to offering a skeleton service of just two hours per week. There are long waiting lists, up to two years in some regions, without the added burden of TV advertising, and people outside the movement are beginning to hear about it. "Most charities can't cope with caller demand, which is often 500 calls in the first half hour," says Donald Steele at the BBC. "So we give out our audience helpline." Is it staffed by trained rape counsellors? "No, not specifically, but they are used to dealing with people in extreme distress." The most chilling example of the problems in Rape Crisis is in London, where one of the country's flagship centres opened its doors 25 years ago. It should be celebrating its continued success this summer; instead it has been forced to suspend the service.

The strength of Rape Crisis has always been that it offers women a way forward, to find some sense of peace in the weeks and years following their ordeal. Now women in London do not have that option. Most distressing of all, many victims, not realising the service is no longer running, leave their details on the answering machine still listed in the phone book.

This was the case with a 19-year-old woman who was last year raped, in broad daylight, in an alley just off London's Wardour Street. The incident received a lot of publicity because of the shocking truth that this could happen to someone just seconds away from a crowded street. "Afterwards I phoned Rape Crisis and left my number, but they never returned my calls," she says. "No one else ever offered me any counselling. They were the first place I thought to go because I'd heard of them. I felt very badly about that."

The big issue is cash. Before the last election, Tony Blair promised to give Rape Crisis core funding; New Labour's eventual solution was to channel money into safer, less politicised services, notably Victim Support who now receive £1m per year for rape counselling. It has recently given funding to the Rape Crisis Federation, but not for local centres. "Victim Support doesn't have specially trained counsellors, it is still aligned with the police in many minds and it's not a service for women. We have heard of lots who have been sent to a male counsellor," Barnard says.

Rape Crisis, it seems, has been a victim of its own success. The movement was born of radically optimistic politics in the mid-70s, emerging out of consciousness-raising groups and new discussions about women's recovery process. There is no centralised funding programme, so to stay afloat, individual centres, run as charities, have to appeal to local councils, health trusts and private fundraising. Sheila Coates has worked at South Essex Rape Crisis for 18 years. Despite the fact that it has won awards for its pioneering work, the centre will close in September if it doesn't get an injection of cash. It currently employs three counsellors - two funded by the health authority, one bankrolled by a mishmash of sources - plus five other full-time staff. The volume of work is fierce: thousands of calls per year and 800 ongoing face-to-face clients.

Then there are the calls from desperate women elsewhere in Britain, referred to South Essex because its phone lines are open longer. "We can't take them, we'd lose our funding," Coates says. "Everybody refers women to us - police, psychologists, social services - but no one wants to pick up the tab. We cover everything from giving evidence to HIV counselling and dealing with housing. It's a holistic approach that has been shown to work, not just here but in the US and Australia where Rape Crisis is treated seriously and funded properly."

Coates says there is a reluctance to believe a need exists for a Rape Crisis service. "GPs have said to me: 'We don't need this, I hardly ever see women who've been raped.' Councillors have said: 'Don't women tell lies? Surely they exaggerate?' Right now at South Essex we're involved in a murder trial and dealing with a woman so traumatised that she's cut her nipples off and flushed them down the loo. And what am I doing? I'm spending half my time chasing money when every moment I'm here I should be dealing with the real stuff." She points out that there is a key misconception about the work Rape Crisis does. "People think it's just women talking to other women, and why should they give funding to that."

Dr Liz Kelly, of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit at the University of North London, claims it was ever thus. "Rape Crisis has never had the funding or public sympathy that, say, the women's refuge network has. Also there has been a desire for independence and groups have been able to survive on very little." Another problem when it comes to funding is that Rape Crisis is women-only. With increasing awareness of male rape, many people have shied away from what Rape Crisis stands for. "There has been an unwillingness to acknowledge the contribution, skill and expertise of the women's sector, and unease about the fact that Rape Crisis is women-only, rather than seeing that as one of its strengths."

Kelly agrees that Rape Crisis is suffering from an image problem. "It's associated with the kind of feminism that we're all supposed to be 'post' now. If we were 'post' the material conditions that required Rape Crisis, then I would be very happy. People say Rape Crisis is old-fashioned. I wish it were so because that would mean there weren't thousands of women in dire need of help."

Street smart
6 May 2001

BUSINESSMEN like Coronation Street's Mike Baldwin are the targets of a pounds 15 million scheme to be launched by the Government this week. The Corrie character runs a small clothes firm, and Trade Secretary Stephen Byers wants similar backstreet firms to think bigger. A free advice service will link small businesses and large corporations to improve Britain's competitiveness abroad and help to create jobs.

Street's Karen takes a gamble on Steve
6 May 2001

Coronation Street fans will be left wondering whether the Street's latest marriage is for love or money when Steve McDonald weds his factory worker girlfriend Karen Phillips. In scenes to be broadcast later this month, viewers of the Granada soap will see the couple, played by actors Simon Gregson and Suranne Jones, tie the knot. But it soon emerges an elaborate series of bets has led cab firm boss Steve and his girlfriend up the aisle.

Viewers will see Karen accept a £10 bet to persuade Steve to take her out for an expensive meal and much to her friends' surprise gets him to agree to go on holiday. Determined to win the bet, Janice Battersby, played by actress Vicky Entwistle, ups the stakes, offering Karen a day's wages if she makes the holiday a honeymoon.

The feisty factory girl confides in Steve about the bet and playing along, he proposes to her in the Rovers, to the amazement of regulars. A confident Karen goes one step further, betting her factory friends double or quits she can make Steve marry her in just a week. The bemused bad boy agrees for a cut of the cash.

Suranne said she was thrilled to be the Street's 53rd bride. The 22-year-old said: "Karen can't believe she's on the verge of getting married for a bet. She's not the type of girl to back out of a tricky situation and she's in a game of bluff now with Steve. Each of them is just waiting for the other to pull out."

Guests at the surprise wedding, to be shown on May 30, include best-man Vikram Defai (Chris Bisson), Linda Baldwin (Jacqueline Pirie) and Maxine Peacock (Tracy Shaw).

Coronation Street barmaid was in chart-topping school choir
3 May 2001

Coronation Street's new barmaid once topped the charts with the St Winifred's School Choir. Actress Sally Lindsay was just six years old when she sang on the hit There's No-one Quite Like Grandma. The song went to number one in November 1980. It has since been voted one of the most irritating hits ever written. In all, it was in the charts for 11 weeks.

Sally will play barmaid Shelley Unwin when she joins the soap next week. The 27-year-old is familiar with life behind the bar, as her father runs a pub in Gorton, Manchester, just a few miles from the Coronation Street set, the Daily Express reports.

Margi Clarke joins C5 soap
2 May 2001 by Derek Robbins

Ex-Corrie star Margi Clarke, 46, is swapping soaps to star in C5's Family Affairs. Margi, was Jackie Dobbs, Tyrone's ex- convict mum in Corrie in the late '90s. She joins Family Affairs as Joan Short - the mum of soap baddie Pete Callan (David Easter) who's accused of murdering Josh Matthews. She'll be seen on screen from June and a C5 spokeswoman says: "Margi is no stranger to soaps and we're delighted she's joining the cast."

The role will help Clarke to continue to bounce back after enduring personal traumas and financial hardship over the past two years. Her departure from Corrie coincided with the death of her mum and the break up of her 17-year-long relationship with Scots artist Jamie Reid. At the same time, the acting work dried up.

Margi was ubiquitous on TV in the '90s. The blonde Scouser projected a raunchy image as the host of ITV's Good Sex Guide and she starred in the hit BBC drama Making Out.

A C5 spokeswoman says Margi will have powerful plots in the soap as murder suspect Pete Callan's mum Joan Short. She adds: "She abandoned him when he was a teenage tearaway and he gets the shock of his life when she turns up at his murder trial."

Amanda Barrie to talk about her Star Life on ITV
2 May 2001

The private life of Coronation Street star Amanda Barrie is to be put under the microscope in a new ITV series. The 61-year-old has starred as Alma Sedgewick in the soap since 1989. She will be talking about herself to Carol Vorderman in Star Lives next month. She recently announced she wanted to leave the Street, but her final scenes have yet to be recorded.

The Lancashire-born actress appeared as Cleopatra in the movie Carry On Cleopatra, and was also briefly a hostess on the game show Double Your Money, before taking the role in Corrie. Divorced from actor and stage director Robin Hunter, she has previously kept her private life to herself.

A close friend told Ananova: "She is a brave girl getting out of the Street at this time of her career. She was very secure there. "But she felt she was too secure. She wanted a challenge. She wants to get back to mainstream comedy and drama."

Corrie gets 'average' ratings for revealing Toyah's rapist
1 May 2001

Last night's episode of Coronation Street attracted only average ratings. Around 13.6 million viewers tuned into the ITV soap to watch Toyah Battersby discover who raped her. EastEnders attracted nearly 20 million viewers when it was revealed that Lisa Shaw shot Phil Mitchell last month.

A Coronation Street spokeswoman told Ananova: "We never pushed it as a ratings pull. It was never on the same scale as Who Shot Phil Mitchell? in EastEnders. The storyline was much too sensitive. "We're just thrilled viewers have enjoyed the storyline."

Toyah actress says rape story is not like Who Shot Phil?
1 May 2001
Georgia Taylor says comparing the rape of Toyah Battersby with the Who Shot Phil Mitchell? storyline in EastEnders is almost sick. The actress, who plays the Coronation Street rape victim, says the story was about the effect of the crime not the hunt for the guilty party.

Millions of fans watched her friend Phil Simmonds revealed as the rapist on the ITV soap last night. "I'm not slagging off the who shot Phil thing," Georgia told TV Times. "I think it worked, it got the viewers - everybody wanted to know who did it so they could pat them on the back and say well done. "But if anyone feels like this about Toyah's storyline then there's something very wrong."

Georgia, 21, adds playing the emotionally charged role left her physically drained. "It wasn't so much going home and feeling emotionally drained," she says. "It was just feeling really, really tired. I was of sane mind when I got home."

Street rapist unmasked as Toyah's 'friend'
30 April 2001
Toyah Battersby's rapist has been unveiled as her friend Phil Simmonds. Millions of Coronation Street saw the dramatic climax to the tense storyline which saw Toyah, played by Georgia Taylor, beaten and raped in an alleyway. All she could remember about her attacker was the way he spoke her name.

As the plot unfolded many familiar characters were placed under suspicion after failing to provide strong alibis. Simmonds has been comforting her since the violent assault.

Toyah first befriended him when he lodged with her former boyfriend Spider Nugent. Simmonds, played by Jack Deam, came to Toyah's home for a chat and a cup of tea. Toyah starts to open up to him about her ordeal and the horror of not knowing who raped her. It is only when she goes into the kitchen for some biscuits and he calls out her name that she has a chilling flashback and realises she is at home alone with the man who attacked her.

Toyah tries to pretend she has not worked out it was him but fails and he realises she knows. Things turn nasty as he grabs her by the throat and tells her that he has always liked her.

Viewers will then see Peter Barlow, who was arrested in connection with the rape but then cleared by DNA tests, come to Toyah's rescue after he hears her screams. He breaks the door down and chases Simmonds tackling him and knocking him to the ground where he lies unconscious.

A spokeswoman for Coronation Street said: "Toyah's ordeal is not over. Although her attacker has been caught she begins to worry about the DNA tests and whether he will twist it and say she consented. There are all these thoughts going through her head."

Matthew Marsden lands part in Ridley Scott blockbuster
27 April 2001

Matthew Marsden has landed a part in Ridley Scott's latest film. The 27-year-old quit his role as Coronation Street mechanic Chris to concentrate on a pop career. But he got the part in the £100 million war movie Black Hawk Down after a flying visit to Hollywood to meet casting agents. The film will also star Ewan McGregor, Ioan Gruffudd and Tom Sizemore, the Daily Express reports.

Matthew, who was voted Most Popular Newcomer at the National TV Awards in 1997, has just finished filming his first major movie, Shiner, opposite Michael Caine. He is now in Morocco filming Black Hawk Down - the story of a disastrous US military mission in Somalia.

Matthew said: "It is truly amazing. It's hard to believe that just a few years ago I was simply overwhelmed at the chance to appear in Coronation Street. Now here I am taking part in this fantastic adventure, and working with all these big-name stars and playing a real-life hero. "Going to Hollywood was the biggest gamble that I've ever taken in my life. It cost me a lot of money, but I knew I had to do it."

TV soaps get lashing from engineering industry
27 April 2001

TV soaps are under fire from the engineering industry for portraying mechanics as "dodgy characters" who wear dirty overalls and are intent on fleecing the public. A recent MORI survey showed that engineering was ninth on the list of most sought after jobs among school children. It also claimed that television was now more important than careers advice at school when youngsters are thinking about a future career.

Dr Michael Sanderson, chief executive of ETMA, the National Training Organisation for Engineering Manufacture, says characters like Phil Mitchell in EastEnders and Kevin Webster in Coronation Street provide a negative and outdated view. He said: "The results are hardly surprising when you consider the endless supply of police, doctors and vets across the nation's television screens. "Soaps are even worse, engineering is always about dirty overalls and dodgy characters like Phil Mitchell, a criminal out to fleece the public. The only good engineer I can recall seems to be Scotty in Star Trek, a series made over 25 years ago."

A spokesman for EastEnders denied that the garage in the show provided a negative image of the industry. He said: "The Arches in EastEnders is a small repair operation... People do get their hands dirty in these type of businesses. Phil Mitchell is not really a grease monkey - he is a businessman who employs two workers in Jamie and Gary. "There are an awful lot of communities in the East End, and up and down the country, which have such businesses at their heart. Walford reflects these diverse communities."

A spokesman for Coronation Street, added: "We feel that the characters in the garage are inspirational, especially Tyrone, who has learned to read and is showing his ability to get on, through the garage. "

New barmaid to ruffle feathers in the Rovers
24 April 2001 by TV Plus reporters

The latest busty blonde barmaid to pull pints at Coronation Street's Rovers Return has been unveiled. Shelley Unwin, played by Sally Lindsay, will take her place behind the pumps next month. The brassy newcomer is expected to ruffle feathers as she bids to liven up the Rovers with racy theme nights.

Lindsay, 27, said: "I've watched Coronation Street all my life so this is a dream come true. "It's a real honour to be following in the steps of the greats like Raquel and Bet. "Shelley is a livewire, she's brash and loud, and won't take any lip from the customers. She's determined to shake up the Rovers."

The new character, a former rugby club staffer, is recruited by old pal Duggie Ferguson to take the place of Toyah Battersby. She decides the pub needs livening up and convinces Duggie to hold a drag night. Viewers will see the burly men of the street don wigs and stilettos for a night to remember. Actress Sally Lindsay, whose previous TV credits include Fat Friends, Phoenix Nights and The Royle Family, is the 33rd barmaid to pull pints at the Rovers.

Over the years the role has become synonymous with brassy, glamorous women who have relished toying with the hearts of local men. The first barmaid was Concepta Riley, played by Doreen Keogh from 1960 to 1975. Bet Lynch (Julie Goodyear) and Raquel Watts (Sarah Lancashire) rank among the most fondly remembered.

Shelley to pull in the punters at Rovers Return
24 April 2001

The latest barmaid to pull pints at Coronation Street's Rovers Return has been unveiled.

Shelley Unwin will carry on in the glamorous blonde tradition of Bet Lynch and Raquel Watts from next month. She is played by actress Sally Lindsay. The former rugby club barmaid is recruited by old pal Duggie Ferguson (John Bowe) to take the place of Toyah, who was sacked and is now recovering from a horrific rape ordeal.

Shelley, the Street's 33rd barmaid, decides the Rovers needs livening up and convinces Duggie to hold a drag night. Viewers will see the burly men of the Street don wigs and stilettos for a night to remember. Shelley begins ruffling the feathers of Geena, played by Jennifer James, and old timer Betty Williams (Betty Driver) almost as soon as she steps behind the bar.

Sally, 27, said: "I've watched Coronation Street all my life so this is a dream come true. It is a real honour to be following in the steps of the greats like Raquel and Bet. "Shelley is a livewire, she's brash and loud and won't take any lip from the customers. "She's determined to shake up the Rovers and give the regulars some nights to remember. I'm not sure how her plans will go down with Geena and Betty though."

Rape victims warned against Internet counselling session
18 April 2001

Taken with permission from www saward.org - the Jill Saward web site

Coronation Street ploy is condemned as 'sick'
An on-line counselling session for rape victims, due to take place on Coronation Street's website next Wednesday (25th April), has been condemned as 'sick' by rape expert Jill Saward. Jill, who was herself raped in the notorious Ealing Vicarage Rape Attack, today warned other victims to shun the session and to turn instead to confidential and sympathetic sources of help.

Jill Saward said: "Victims are not going to find help on the Internet. Anybody who has been raped and is being affected by the Coronation Street's story-line would be best advised to ask his or her GP for a referral to the local community psychiatric nurse." She added: "It was bad enough when ITV used the rape story-line as part of Coronation Street's ratings war with Eastenders. But an on-line counselling session for rape victims is the final insult. Counselling is something that should take place in private - not in the full view of thousands of web surfers. Coronation Street is now offering rapists and perverts the chance to get their kicks in a real-life on-line voyeuristic session."

Jill Saward is also angry that Coronation Street's recent episodes have failed to provide telephone numbers for victims needing help. "It is gross insensitivity on the part of Coronation Street to provide an Internet address but not a telephone help-line number. What about victims who do not have Internet access? And even those who can access the Internet are unlikely to be helped by what they find on-line.

Some of the comments posted by fans are almost threatening. How is a victim looking for help going to respond to 'Don't play out by yourself, you're not ready for real life'? "Other comments, such as 'Duggie just wouldn't do a thing like that' are reminiscent of comments victims may have faced when they accused somebody of rape. "While others confuse rape and sex: ' [Jason] could be a suspect. But didn't he look soooo sexy in them shorts?! Phwoooar! I'd love a bit of him.!'"

Jill Saward added: "Coronation Street has seriously lost the plot over this latest story-line. It is time that senior executives of ITV and Granada sit down and decided how best to cut their losses and extricate themselves from this fiasco before they do even more damage."

Corrie's bustiest bargirl? You Bet
24 April 2001 by John Warburton

THE BUSTIEST barmaid since Bet Lynch is set to send pulses racing in Coronation Street. She steps behind Britain's most famous bar and reveals that she once bedded Rovers boss Duggie "Crusher" Ferguson.

Blonde Shellie Unwin, famous as boozy slapper Michelle in the Royle Family, takes over at the pumps while Toyah Battersby recovers from her attack. And Shellie will be an instant hit with blokes. Les Battersby and Peter Barlow become besotted with her ample curves. Les, played by Bruce Jones, tells Shellie, (Sally Lindsay): "I know of the five wonders of Weatherfield, and after seeing you I'm going to have to add another two to the list."

A Street insider said: "Shellie was a barmaid at the rugby club where Duggie used to play, and it soon becomes clear they had an affair. But Duggie says that's all in the past now and has brought her in just to work behind the bar. "Peter sees this as meaning he could be in with a chance and tries to impress her at every turn."

Shellie is first seen in three weeks being chatted up by Peter (Chris Gascoyne) at the bar of the Rovers, oblivious to the fact she is about to become a workmate. Then when Duggie (John Bowe) walks in she tells him: "Come on Crusher, let's see how much you've missed me."

But Shellie will cause a storm in a hotpot. She upsets fellow barmaid Betty Turpin by spicing up her tasty nosh. The insider added: "Betty is furious because this new girl is interfering."

Denise Clocks Off with Ricky
24 April 2001 by Derek Robins

Ex-Corrie star Denise Black faced one of the most daunting challenges of her career when she filmed nude sex scenes with Ricky Tomlinson. Denise, 42, had to strip off with the 17st Royle Family favourite, 60, when they played lovers in BBC1's hit drama Clocking Off. She says: "I was very nervous but Ricky was such fun - he's gorgeous. We spent several days filming the scenes. There was lots of snogging but Ricky was very sweet and gentle."

Denise says there's a poignant story behind the on-screen sex romps. She plays Trish, who falls in love with lorry driver Ronnie (Ricky) while caring for his wife Jess who has multiple sclerosis. "My first instinct said they were doing wrong and that they should protect Jess. Then I realised the situation is common - MS destroys bodies and relationships. Ronnie's at his limit and Trish wants him. "It's a very nasty triangle but my character Trish isn't a baddie, she does what she believes is right. "Although she cares for a woman with MS she's deeply in love with the husband. She can't bear to see what happens to him. She wants to save him but with minimal damage to the wife."

Denise hopes MS sufferers will watch the BBC1 drama. She says: "Disability is under-represented on TV so it's marvellous that this story confronts us with issues like this in an entertaining way. "I read a book for MS sufferers for research and it said how MS can break up marriages. But the relationship may have been in trouble anyway."

Working as a carer herself helped Denise with her portrayal. She says: "I used to care for a woman with arthritis when I was 16 and I worked in a holiday home for the mentally handicapped. I thought it was very important work. "I also try to help a friend of mine who has osteoporosis who's in a wheelchair. She lives near me and I do little things for her."

Denise Black is best known for the four years she spent as hairdresser Denise Osbourne in Corrie. She quit the soap in 1996 after she had a son with Ken Barlow. She says: "I've no plans to return to Corrie and they haven't asked me. I enjoyed my time there and I'd never say I'd never return. "I still get recognised and I used to get some great letters from fans. One person even asked me if I had a fake leg like Don Brennan."

Denise has also just made a movie with Michael Caine and Bob Hoskins. She plays Bob's wife in Last Orders - which is about a group of friends who go to Southend to tip the ashes of one of their dead pals off the pier. "I had a great time working with Bob even though I never got to go to Southend. I've got a very small cameo role - it also stars Ray Winstone and Sir Tom Courtenay."

Denise has been writing to her heroine Cagney And Lacey's Sharon Gless after they played the same role in UK and US versions of Queer As Folk. The actresses both played Hazel, mum of one of the gay characters. Denise, who lives in South London with her family, says: "She wrote me a lovely letter after I sent her some of the hair bobbles I wore as Hazel. "Sharon wore them in the show and even sent them back to me."

Soaps 'are today's Shakespeare'
23 April 2001
EastEnders and Coronation Street are the 21st century equivalent of Shakespeare, according to a poll published on the Bard's birthday. The survey was commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company to mark the culmination of This England: The Histories, a groundbreaking season of the writer's history plays being staged in London. It found the TV soaps made an important statement about society in the same way that Shakespeare's productions reflected their day.

The eight plays in the series, such as Richard II, Henry V and Richard III, tackled many issues of their time which are still relevant now like political sleaze, devolution and poll tax riots. And those in the study thought that Corrie and the Albert Square soap topped the list of contemporary dramas which had something to say about today's society. One third (33%) opted for EastEnders, while 29% opted for Coronation Street.

Researchers from Mori Omnibus also found that there was a strong appetite for Shakespeare with half having seen one of his plays at the theatre. Of those 32% had seen a production in the past six years. More than twice as many of those polled thought Shakespeare's history plays were relevant to today (40%) than disagreed (16%).

RSC artistic director, Adrian Noble, said: "This England: The Histories has been a landmark for the RSC - and the first time in theatre history that all eight plays have been staged together. "The poll proves what we already know from the box office - that these plays are as relevant and exciting today as they were 400 years ago. "

Carlton & Granada unite ONdigital with ITV
22 April 2001 by Damian Reece

GRANADA and Carlton Communications will this week announce plans to integrate , their loss-making pay-TV joint venture, into a new enlarged ITV group in a bid to slash costs and align the two companies' television interests more closely. The companies will also announce that Stuart Prebble, chief executive of ONdigital, will become chief executive of ITV, a post that has been vacant for 18 months. He will have responsibility for the entire range of ITV branded activities.

The ONdigital name will be axed in favour of ITV Digital, which will sit alongside the ITV terrestrial network and a revamped ITV.com, plus a proposed ITV Sport channel. Granada and Carlton will also merge a number of common service areas which are currently replicated across the two organisations such as group purchasing, transmission services and telecoms buying. The announcement expected this week is likely to outline the overall strategy for the ITV brand before more details are given later in the year about exact cost savings and job losses.

ONdigital has suffered setbacks this year which have helped depress the Carlton and Granada share prices, including missing a target of 2m subscribers by the end of 2002. ONdigital will this week announce it has 1.05m subscribers. Depressed advertising revenues on commercial television have also taken their toll on the companies's share prices. It is also thought that ONdigital is re-thinking its strategy of giving away its set top boxes. This is because it expects to sign up more customers more cheaply as more integrated digital television sets are sold. It currently costs ONdigital £200 per set to give them away which is likely to fall to about £30 with integrated digital televisions.

Analysts ultimately expect Granada and Carlton to merge themselves when regulations permit. The changes announced this week will be the first moves in that direction.

She's Mac the Wife
22 April 2001
CORRIE knicker stitcher Karen Phillips will become Mac the wife when she weds bad boy Steve McDonald in a sensational storyline, the Sunday People can reveal today. Factory girl Karen - sexy Suranne Jones - will marry Steve (Simon Gregson) for a BET next month. And the amazing plot will make sure Suranne becomes the soap's hottest babe.

Suranne, 22, said last night: "Being a Coronation Street bride is something I've always dreamed about." The star - who shares a flat in Manchester with Naomi Russell, who plays Bobbi - added: "It's amazing how my life has turned around in a year. "Twelve months ago I was working in a bar. Now I love working with Simon and being Mrs McDonald will be fantastic fun."

But the couple only get married for a bet. Steve proposes in the Rovers, challenging Karen to make it to the altar within days - then both go through with the ceremony. A Corrie insider said of Suranne, who revealed her sensational body in a sexy Barbados photo-shoot: "There are big plans for this girl. Viewers loved the love triangle with Steve and Vikram."

But Suranne's on-screen wedding is a far cry from her real life. She said: "I've recently split up with my boyfriend. We're both career-minded. He's got a fantastic job and I want to be a professional and independent."

Why Corrie's Joan left pie & dry
22 April 2001
CLOCKING Off and Coronation Street star Joan Kempson was once "clocked off" in real life - sacked from a bakery for filling steak and kidney pies with custard. And Joan, 50, who plays machinist Freda Wilson in her new series set in a textile mill, says just walking on to the set brought memories of her pie fiasco flooding back. She says: "I can laugh now but at the time it was awful. I still don't know what went wrong but the custard ended up in the meat pies and meat went into the custard tarts."

Joan, who also plays cleaner Edna Miller in the Street, added: "Needless to say I was fired. It was awful because I really needed the money.''

Clocking Off is shown on BBC1 on Mondays.

Marry me Sarah
22 April 2001
ACTRESS Sarah Lancashire is to marry her boyfriend Peter Salmon after he proposed to her on a romantic holiday in New York. The former Coronation Street star is now proudly wearing an engagement ring with a single square diamond given her by Salmon, a senior BBC executive. But it could be some time before they marry. Friends of the couple, who both have children from previous marriages, say they are too busy this year.

Sarah, 36, dizzy barmaid Raquel in the Street, is filming new ITV drama The Glass with John Thaw. And Peter faces a hectic summer as the BBC's head of sport. A close friend said yesterday: "Peter and Sarah's relationship goes from strength to strength and marriage is the natural next step. "They are totally committed to each other and getting engaged is a public statement of that. In taking a bit of time to make such a big decision, they have tried hard to make it as easy as possible for everyone involved, particularly the children who are of paramount importance."

The Sunday Mirror revealed in January that they had set up home in a £1 million penthouse flat overlooking the Thames in Richmond, Surrey. The couple's affair was revealed last October, the day after Peter watched Sarah collect the Best Actress gong at the National TV Awards. He proposed during a the couple's Easter break spent in the U.S.

Peter, who has three sons by ex-partner Penny Watts, left their home in Oxford and moved into a nearby flat so he could stay close to his children. Sarah, who split from husband Gary in 1996, has sons aged 11 and 13. She has said: "Home is very important to me. "The money side of my career is an enormous luxury and it does buy me lots of special time with my kids."

Since quitting the Street in 1996, Sarah has starred in TV hits including Where The Heart Is, My Fragile Heart and Clocking Off.

TV star's daughter to face gun trial
21 April 2001
HE daughter of Coronation Street actor Johnny Briggs appeared in court yesterday charged with robbery and firearms offences. Karen Briggs, 35, was in the dock alongside her lover Gregory Crabtree, 35, and third defendant Craig McBride, 25.

The trio spoke only to confirm their names at the hearing in which the timetable for their forthcoming trial was discussed before Judge Jeremy Roberts. Dressed in a bright blue top, Briggs sat impassively through the brief hearing, but waved to friends in the public gallery as she was led back to the cells. Briggs, of no fixed abode, whose father plays wideboy businessman Mike Baldwin in the TV soap, is charged with conspiracy to rob and having a firearm with intent.

Together with Crabtree, of, Isleworth, Middlesex, she faces further charges of conspiracy to rob, having a firearm with intent and possession of a firearm without a certificate. The other defendants face a number of other offences. All the charges date back to last June.

The trial is scheduled to start on Monday subject to possible changes to the charge sheet. Judge Roberts will also make a ruling on an application to try the defendants separately.

Hayley a taxi cab
21 April 2001

CORONATION STREET star Julie Hesmondhaugh has a new job as a taxi controller. Julie, who plays transexual Hayley, was supposed to be jetting off to Menorca with partner, actor Ian Kershaw, whose parents run a taxi firm .

But he has been told to report for work by Corrie bosses to play journalist Mick Crompton. Julie said: "We had two spare tickets so we ended up giving them to Ian's parents and I'll be manning the phones."

Every year 600 rape victims are comforted in this room...
21 April 2001

THE scenes following Toyah Battersby's rape are among the most difficult Coronation Street star Georgia Taylor has ever had to film. But the aftermath, where the distraught teenager is brought into a crisis centre for forensic examination, had a special resonance for the young actress. She may only be acting, but the St Mary's Crisis Centre is very real. And after talking to the committed staff who work there, Georgia knows only too well the extent of the human agony its walls have been silent witness to.

Staff at the Manchester suite told Georgia of the kind of stories they deal with every day. It made for a sobering encounter. "It makes you realise just how little you know about the agony the victims go through," she says. "When I did those scenes I was terrified that the staff here would think I'd got it all wrong. They are the ones who see it every day. They are the ones who know what it is really like."

About 600 rape victims - both men and women - come to St Mary's every year for immediate medical attention, long term counselling and legal advice. And the experiences Dr Raine Roberts and her staff tell are simply heartbreaking. Their clients range from an 11-year-old girl to a pensioner who was raped when she was young but had not told anyone about it. "She had been bottling it all up and it had to come out some day," Dr Roberts says.

Away from the cameras, the work of the Centre goes on. Its brutal realities are a sharp lesson in injustice. In a just world, Dr Roberts wouldn't need a freezer in her examination room - the samples taken from rape victims just hours after the attack would be taken straight to the police.

But Dr Roberts works in the real world where the most amazing advances in DNA identification count for little. As she opens the door of her freezer, the scale of her frustration is clear. There are hundreds of phials, all encased in evidence bags, all neatly labelled with the date and attack details. There's another freezer down the corridor at the Manchester Royal Infirmary and a third will soon be needed. They contain evidence that could put thousands of rapists behind bars. But because so many women are reluctant even to tell the police - let alone press charges, most of these samples will never find their way out of the centre.

St Mary's was the first crisis suite of its kind in the country, and one of only two existing centres where rape victims can come for immediate examinations without police involvement. Sixty per cent of clients are referred by the police, but the remainder come themselves. Most will choose not to involve the police. "Of course you would like to just hand them all over to the police and say, 'here, catch the bastards,' but that is not my decision to take," says Dr Roberts. "I am here to conduct the medical examination and let the women know the options. I would like every one of them to take the matter to court, but I have to respect the fact that few victims want to do that. "At the end of the day it is their decision. But it is hard. The worst bit is knowing they could cross-reference all these DNA samples with the national Sex Offenders Register. "Who knows how many rapists they could identify and put away. It is frustrating knowing that the technology is there, but we cannot use it."

Dr Roberts was at first reluctant to assist with the Coronation Street storyline. "We were unsure about whether to get involved because we felt the storyline perpetuated some of the myths about rape. There is this idea that most rapes take place down a dark alleyway when a woman is attacked by a complete stranger. "Perhaps that makes good television but it doesn't usually happen that way. Most of the women we see are victims of what viewers call 'date rape'. "Many know their attackers - they are boyfriends, husbands, partners or friends. So when we saw that Toyah was going to be found lying in an alley we weren't that impressed. But even we have to realise that there has to be some drama to get these events onto our screens. And we know it is important to highlight the issue."

Staff at the Crisis Centre are at pains to explain that there is no typical rape victim. Some clients, as they are called, come in off the street bleeding and hysterical. Others, like the elderly lady, take decades to pluck up the courage. The centre, set up in 1989 amid growing concerns about police handling of rape investigations, is funded by Greater Manchester Police, who pay the staff salaries. But the rooms come courtesy of the local Health Authority. It is an unusual set up - but one which works. The decor is functional rather than welcoming. The walls of the waiting room are a bland grey-green stripe and the coffee table holds only the obligatory box of Kleenex. The examination room could never look anything but clinical. And the sparsely decorated room next door is necessarily barren.

Clients are asked to step in here to remove their clothes and put them in evidence bags. Then every speck on the floor is documented, before the room is washed down and sterilised. "I think many clients are comforted by the fact that we are based in a hospital rather than a police station," explained counsellor Susan Twiggs. "It means they can come in here and not feel under any pressure."

Young police trainees are also frequent guests at the centre, where staff talk to them about how to handle the difficult cases sensitively. But the biggest problems for staff here are the old stereotypes and preconceptions. And it often comes from the victim. "We still have them sobbing their eyes out and saying they asked for it," says Susan. "They apologise to us for wearing a skirt that was too short or for drinking too much. "It takes a lot of time before we can convince them we are not here to judge. Sadly that is what they expect. Even the young ones." But attitudes are changing - and not just among the public.

Milly Doregos is in the forefront of new developments. A nurse with 30 years' experience, she has just come back from the US where she won a scholarship to train as a forensic nurse. When she completes her studies, she will be the only forensic nurse in this country and will be able to carry out examinations herself.

Milly is the first to acknowledge that the intricate procedure - which can take up to three hours - is an almost unbearable ordeal at a time when victims are at their most vulnerable. "In some cases it's just an hour after they have been raped. I know in the past victims have said they've felt violated by the intrusion. "Now we try to do this with as much consideration as we can. We remove their clothing piece by piece and cover them carefully so they are never completely naked. "We want our clients to know that nothing will ever be as bad as what has just happened to them. We want to make it easier for them from here."

Georgia admits she was profoundly moved by Toyah's experience. "I couldn't believe how powerful this story was," she says. The tough story line was the ultimate test for Georgia and her performance has rightly brought praise from television critics. "It was very scary because I did put a lot of pressure on myself."

She is grateful to her family for the support they offered during weeks of difficult and traumatic filming. "I would go home and be close to tears. I was getting upset at the smallest thing. "I had to remind myself that I was only playing a part here."I can go home at night to a safe little world. There are a lot of women who may never feel safe again."

Corrie bosses deny cancer storyline is inaccurate
19 April 2001
Coronation Street chiefs insist a cancer storyline involving Alma Halliwell is medically accurate. They say medical experts had given advice about the plot and had approved the finished scripts.

Amanda Barrie is unhappy about how her character is being killed off in the show. The actress had a hysterectomy after her own cancer scare. She has told friends of her fears about such a serious storyline being used to boost ratings, according to The Sun.

In the show, she will develop terminal cancer after missing a smear test and is told bluntly about the seriousness of her condition. The actress feels the way the storyline is dealt with is medically inaccurate and puts across the wrong message to women who might be worried about cancer, it was reported.

But a Coronation Street spokeswoman said: "The storyline has been researched thoroughly with specialists in that particular field and we are confident it is completely accurate. "We have to do that when covering a medical storyline. Writers don't just write these things and hope for the best. The scripts are read by medical experts in whatever field the story involves to ensure inaccuracies are filtered out."

Miss Barrie announced in November that she was quitting the show after appearing as a regular member of the cast for more than 11 years. For years she worked in the Street's cafe, but went on to work at the nearby supermarket.

I will kill you, Toyah
19 April 2001 by Emily Rose

TOYAH BATTERSBY'S rape ordeal is to continue on Coronation Street - as her attacker sets out to keep her quiet at all costs. Viewers will see terrified bargirl Toyah hit by a string of DEATH THREATS from the fiend. In one spinechilling phone call he tells her: "I'm going to kill you!"

A Street insider revealed last night: "Poor Toyah's ordeal is far from over. "The rapist will stop at nothing to make sure he doesn't get caught." But he has made a major mistake by targeting Toyah for more terror - because she will work out who he is.

The show insider added: "After the threatening phone calls start Toyah knows for sure that the rapist is someone who knows her. "She is left terrified in her own house - fearing the man could attack her there. "But because of the phone calls she eventually realises who her tormentor is."

The nightmare, however, will not end after the man's arrest. Despite damning DNA test results the prime suspect will still deny the rape. He will tell police Toyah was more than willing to have sex. Our source added: "This storyline is going to run and run. "It's going to be an absolute nightmare for Toyah. The rapist is not going to admit what he did and it looks like Toyah will have to testify against him in court."

Meanwhile, Toyah's rape ordeal is the soap storyline that shocked Britain. Corrie scriptwriters have been criticised for using it in a cynical bid to boost the soap's viewer-ratings. But the show's producers claim Toyah's bravery in going to the police, and the support she then gets, could give hope to real-life rape victims.

Karen Moore, of Manchester Rape Crisis, said her support centre had already been flooded with calls. She said: "These are victims who feared talking to the police or their parents but saw Toyah's rape and found courage. Coronation Street should be proud."

Fans' fury as Corrie scrapped for footie
19 April 2001
FANS of Coronation Street are up in arms after the soap was scrapped for the first time ever - to make way for football. Last night's episode disappeared because of Manchester United's Champions League quarter-final with Bayern Munich in Germany.

Corrie is often moved to a later slot because of big games. But this time network chiefs feared United's tie might go to extra time and penalties, pushing the soap back to a 10.30pm start that would be too late for many viewers. Their decision was taken last week when they scheduled prankster Steve Penk's TV Nightmares show instead.

ITV chiefs suddenly realised the crucial match posed a dilemma if United were to pull level from their 1-0 home defeat against the Germans. And because of scheduling deadlines they had to make a decision on when to screen the Wednesday show. It's a reverse of what happened last week when the BBC got the UEFA Cup semi-final between Barcelona and Liverpool delayed so EastEnders fans could find out who shot Phil Mitchell. Corrie had never been moved from its normal night in its 40-year history.

There will be an hour-long special tomorrow to make up for it but fans are outraged at having to wait for more news on who raped barmaid Toyah Battersby, played by actress Georgia Taylor. They can't understand why ITV hyped the story so much then denied them the latest instalment.

Nanny Mandi Roberts, 28, said: "It's absolutely disgusting. I can't believe there is football on all night. "There were two special extended episodes of Corrie on Easter Sunday and Monday because of the dramatic attack on Toyah. "How can the powers that be apply such effort in attracting viewers, then force us to wait a couple of extra days to see what happens?"

Ron Huzar, 42, said: "I'm a United fanatic and love to watch them whenever I get tickets and whenever they are on the box. "But my wife has gone ballistic over this. She accepts that the Street has been put back on other occasions. "But she was furious they cancelled it completely this time".

Julie Edwards, 38, said: "There are enough football widows out there who put up with soccer on TV as well as their hubbies going to the games. "But it is staggering that Coronation Street was taken off in favour of the possibility of the United match going on a bit longer."

And secretary Jackie Curwen, a mother-of-two, said: "I would have stayed up until midnight if Corrie was on after the football. "Don't the programme makers realise we have been swept along with it all just like they wanted? "So to have the midweek episode cancelled doesn't make any sense at all to me."

Corrie's footie switch set to cause uproar
18 April 2001 by Derek Robins

Street bosses are bracing themselves for a flood of complaints following the ITV decision to drop the soap in favour of Champions' League football. Tonight's Corrie has been postponed until Friday as ITV believes that the Bayern Munich v Manchester United quarter final could run until 10.45pm because of extra time and penalties. A spokeswoman said: "It's the first time an episode has been taken out of the ITV schedule in 40 years. There'll be a lot of complaints."

But Corrie bosses say it's the right thing to do. A Street spokeswoman said: "The decision has been taken for sound reasons as if it goes to extra time and penalties Corrie wouldn't be on until 10.45pm. "We'd get even more complaints if we billed Corrie at 9.45pm and it was screened later. People who'd set their videos wouldn't be happy."

Corrie fans always grumble when the ITV soap is moved from its normal 7.30pm slot to 9.45pm because of the Champions' League. Street lovers have had a lot to moan about this season because of the success of English teams Arsenal, Leeds and Manchester Utd.

A spokeswoman said: "We get complaints every time the football is on but there'll be a lot more as Corrie has been moved to Friday when we're showing two episodes together."

The decision to move Corrie comes early on in the Toyah Battersby rape plotline - one of its most gripping stories. ITV hasn't received any complaints from viewers over the brutal attack on Toyah (Georgia Taylor) which came to light on Sunday. Around 14.4m viewers watched the episode - a 59% share. Monday's 45-minute special attracted 14m viewers.

New videos: Coronation Street - The Early Years
18 April 2001
Having recently celebrated its 40th anniversary and a staggering 5,000 episodes since its first transmission, Granada Video/VCI brings the very first 12 episodes of the longest running soap in history to video with the release of Coronation Street - The Early Days.

In the autumn of 1960, a young script-writer named Tony Warren sat at a typewriter and within twenty-four hours had produced the first episode of a new drama entitled Florizel Street. It featured the everyday lives of a series of ordinary folk - the superior landlady, the cantankerous old dear, the retired soldier, the angry young man and the good time girl down the street. On 9 December 1960, after a name change, the first episode was broadcast and Coronation Street became an instant hit. In fact, it was so popular that the series has never been off air since and has become a national treasure.

Here, for the first time ever on this special commemorative edition video, are the opening 12 episodes that first captivated the British television viewing public and got them hooked. Coronation Street - The Early Days features over 5 hours of classic television, and introduces characters such as Ken Barlow (William Roach), Elsie Tanner (Pat Phoenix), Ena Sharples (Violet Carson), Mr Swindley (Arthur Lowe) and Annie Walker (Doris Speed). Biographies of all these characters - and more - are featured on the back of the video sleeve.

Fondly reminisce the birth of the most famous street on television with this essential piece of television history on video.

Release date: 7 May 2001 / Cat No: GV0325 / Certificate: PG / Length: 302 mins approx / Price: £19.99

Why Toyah was raped
17 April 2001 by Howard Jacobson

And so the bubble-bath war suds up. Barely a week after learning who shot Phil, we are back biting our nails with uncertainty. This time, who raped Toyah?

Lovers of what's distinct about Coronation Street were expressing concern, even before the attack on Toyah, that EastEnders was setting the agenda, leading the Street into wicked ways which are not true to its nature.

In fact, though I have no axe to grind myself, and wish them both to hell most of the time, I think Coronation Street survives the bullying and, if anything, teaches EastEnders a trick or two about how to make our hearts stop.

The Street's evocation of brutal male edginess in the hours before Toyah's rape, as though dark forces were abroad, knocking even the mildest man off his usual moral balance, was immensely powerful. It had something of the foreboding of Dickens in it. The catalogue of motives for Phil's shooting in EastEnders, on the other hand, was mere milk and water whodunit - Agatha Christie, at best.

But let's not get carried away. The soaps have gone from lowbrow lowbrow to highbrow lowbrow in recent times, enticing writers and critics to make the wildest claims. Applauding the news, earlier this year, that EastEnders was to go out four times a week, Jeannette Kupfermann found herself lost for all comparisons except one, asserting that "Dot and King Lear have much in common", that comedy and tragedy are juxtaposed in the soap exactly as they are in Shakespeare, and that Shakespeare would most likely have been "an EastEnders scriptwriter" today, had he only been around to ask for the job. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow? Not bad, Will, but wouldn't it be more straightforward just to tell the messenger he's "art of ordah?"

Myself, I take this immoderacy of judgment to be part reaction to the constant charge of dumbing down, and part proof of it. Whatever else we are allowed in a democracy swayed by television, we are not allowed cultural high-mindedness. Scorn not the popular. Don't forget that Dickens's novels, too, appeared originally in serial form. Roy Hattersley reminds us, lest we forget, that the soaps are always with us.

At the level of mere curiosity - who shot Phil etc - I accept the comparison. We enjoy being kept in suspense. Go beyond that and the differences - in writing, in thought, in feeling - outweigh the similarities. And in one particular way, I consider the difference to be crucial. Then the serials saw society as a battleground, now they sentimentalise it. Then we yearned for self-improvement, now we are content to stay where we are.

It's our proud boast that unlike the American wealth and glamour fantasies such as Dynasty and Dallas, our soaps are rooted in the actualities of working-class life. True. Recognition, not make-believe, is what Coronation Street and EastEnders trade in. This is us, and this will do us. The defiant note is telling. These are aggressively self-satisfied and closed worlds. Of necessity closed, for television must go on reinventing its audience, imagining a class that never quite was or is, and then keeping it happy with reflections of itself.

Those 19th century serials, of which we are told soap operas are the rightful heirs, were not socially complacent in this way. No world encountered in any serial by Dickens has reason to be complacent. They are flawed, narrow, depressing, confined. And the progression of every hero is a progression out and away. David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Pip. Most of the world's great novels tell the same story. The longing for escape, whatever the price and regrets - not just geographical escape, but also emotional and intellectual. Of course, a soap opera, showing four times a week for eternity, can't have everyone running off. Inevitably, the soap is prisoner to its own form. People must stay and be confined, and when they go it is because they have died or retired or been axed. The only escape is off the show altogether, into telly oblivion.

But it's my argument that the programmes themselves collude in the complacency of the worlds they depict. In EastEnders, codes of class and family loyalty prevail which makes "grasses" out of anyone who actively dissents.

Even as we know we shouldn't, we submit, dramatically, to the rules of what is, increasingly, a small-time gangland culture. In Coronation Street, where the depiction of working-class life is more varied and dynamic, the smugness is less violent but just as extreme. Whoever tries to speak or think differently is necessarily a comic character. A nice, hapless fellow in a bow tie takes Rita to the opera. The haplessness is all but a condition of the opera going. Ken Barlow's descent from pompous teacher to collector of super-market trolleys is a moral fable - the fall of a man with a tip about himself. And now there's Toyah, a difficult character looking for an education, a politicised young woman with uncomfortable views about housing, the environment, men ...

The last thing I want to say about Toyah's rape - so far handled with tact and feeling - is that it is consciously vengeful on the part of the programme makers. We all took our own pot-shot at Phil, but there's no such invitation to be complicit in what happens to Toyah. Nonetheless, it is always the case - think of Mr Rochester, in Jane Eyre, think of Eugene Wrayburn in Our Mutual Friend - that a violent deed done on a sympathetic but prickly character in fiction carries some retributive significance. That which is done, somehow has to be done.

I ask the question, that's all. Is there some social imperative, at the very deepest level, for the beating of Toyah? Has it become a cultural requirement of our working-class soap operas, to deny breath to whoever hankers for other values, another language, another world?

Flash CARonation Street
15 April 2001
After a hard day on set, the famous faces of Weatherfield leave their hard-up characters behind with the cobbles and jump behind the wheels of cars often worth tens of thousands of pounds. Of course, the posh Mercs and Porsches that drive out of Manchester's Granada TV studios at the end of a day are miles away from the down-to- earth world which Street fans see on air. And the characters would just love to be taken for a spin by their alter egos.

But - apart, perhaps, from businessmen Mike Baldwin and Fred Elliott - they would never be able to afford the cars which the real-life stars are able to drive. Whether they realise it or not, each car says something about the actor and actress driving it. And the Sunday People asked motor psychologist CONRAD KING to give us a fun rundown on what it's like in the Corrie fast lane...

£26,000 - Butcher Fred Elliott could only dream of owning John Savident's £ 26,000 Morgan. Conrad says: "Like Fred, flamboyant John obviously knows what he likes."

£45,000 - A £45,000 Mercedes CLK would be impossible for Gail Platt but not actress Helen Worth. Conrad says: "There's an element of aristocracy here with Helen being in the soap so long."

£15,000 - Peace-loving Vicky Entwistle drives a pale green £15,000 VW Beetle which loudmouth Janice Battersby would never choose. "Vicky wants everyone to think she's quirky and interesting."

£ 9,500 - The £9,500 top-of-the-range Mini Cooper is one of the few cars that suits both character and star - Hayley Cropper and Julie Hesmondhalgh. But Conrad says: "Julie is trying to play herself down."

£19,000 - Simon Gregson - bad boy Steve McDonald - lets ex-star Lee Boardman take the wheel of his £19,000 Caterham Super 7. "Simon is competitve. His character would love to drive this."

£21,000 - Police officer Emma Watts would love to swap her patrol car for actress Angela Lonsdale's £21,000 MGF convertible. "Her pale blue car shows Angela is desperate for fans to like her."

£40,000 - Driving Kevin Kennedy's £40,000 Porsche would mean store boss Curly Watts' Christmases had all come at once. "It seems Kevin is a big fish in a little pond. But he is similar to Curly."

£30,000 - Mike Baldwin would love to be seen behind the wheel of Johnny Briggs' £30,000 E-class Mercedes. "Fiction and reality are joined here. Veteran Johnny is obviously enjoying his rewards."

£21,000 - No matter how many perms she did, Maxine could never afford Tracy Shaw's £21,000 MGF convertible. "The silver car proves that Tracy is satisfied with her position in society."

Raped and beaten... now get your souvenir T-Shirt
15 April 2001 by Carole Malone

CORONATION Street bosses must be kicking themselves that after having decided to have Toyah Battersby beaten, raped and left for dead in a back-alley, they didn't think to issue a free cut-out-and-keep Board Game in the TV Times with Cluedo-type pictures of all the possible suspects.

This could of course have been given away with a special-offer T shirt emblazoned with "Who Raped Toyah?" across the front and "It's a Mystery" on the back. Because that kind of cheap stunt would have been absolutely in keeping for a programme that has become so cynical, so desperate that it exploits and trivialises a crime as horrific as rape by trying to sell it as a "Whodunnit" ratings winner.

The idea that this story line in any way compares to the Who Shot Phil Mitchell saga (or even Who Shot JR) is as stupid as it is offensive. With both of those plot lines there was a sense of self-parody. Nobody died. The people who got shot were nasty men who didn't just recover but bounced back bigger and badder than ever to get their revenge (albeit comedic).

With both story lines there was a feeling we were taking part in a pantomime that was silly, but nonetheless irresistible. Toyah Battersby getting raped is a whole different ballgame because she will NEVER recover. Women raped and battered by men live with the emotional scars for the rest of their lives.

They have to cope with fear and shame on a daily basis. Many even live with the guilt that had they fought a bit harder, died even, they wouldn't now be living in a nightmare. While Phil Mitchell came out of hospital hell-bent on his revenge (Come on, watching Lisa scream "Shoot me, shoot me - you'll be doing me a favour" was hilarious) we will see Toyah's young life wrecked. Which isn't funny. Because while we can laugh at big bad bogey men getting their just desserts there's nothing remotely funny about a woman getting raped.

If we ever needed proof that Coronation Street has lost its way the decision to win back viewers with the rape of a young student is it. When ITV chiefs bollocked Street bosses a few weeks ago and told them to get some decent story lines they surely couldn't have meant one that demeans women.

Friday's 45-minute episode saw a bunch of drunken blokes playing poker in the Rovers slagging Toyah off with phrases like "She'll get what's coming to her" and "She's a cow with a big mouth - just like the rest of 'em." And with a story line as crude and mysoginistic as that we are supposed to be transfixed for the next few weeks working out which one of them gave her "what she had coming". If this story line was even a remotely serious look at rape and its consequences then it would have some justification, some relevance. But it isn't. It's a cack-handed attempt by second-class scriptwriters to claw back viewers from EastEnders, which is hanging them out to dry.

There are plenty of TV dramas which reflect the horror of our violent society but Coronation Street isn't supposed to be one of them. This once great soap has gone from being a clever, funny, wonderfully scripted show into a depressing parody of EastEnders - without the talent!

Why Corrie TV rape is so wrong
15 April 2001 exclusive by Ealing victim Jill Saward

RAPE victim Jill Saward hit out last night at the shocking Toyah Battersby plot in Coronation Street. Millions of soap fans saw Toyah, played by Georgia Taylor, left for dead on Friday after being brutally raped in an alley. And the trauma continues tonight.

But Jill, 36 - whose ordeal at knifepoint in her Ealing Vicarage home stunned the nation - is disgusted the Street is using such a plot in a ratings war with EastEnders. She told the Sunday People: "I was the same age as Toyah when I was raped - 21 - and this sickens me to my stomach. I have long been a Street fan and follow the ups and downs of life in Weatherfield. "But now I'm unsure whether I can ever watch the show again after they have used rape in such a gratuitous manner."It has simply been used as a counter attack to EastEnders' success with the Who Shot Phil? story. "But rape is not an issue that should be used to try and boost ratings." Jill, now married and a mother of two, is also unhappy at the stereotype of the rape victim as a member of the "bad" Battersbys like fellow victim, sister Leanne.

She said: "Toyah has cleaned up her act but she still fits the general stereotype. After all, it could have been Sally Webster." Jill added: "It is a great shame. The Street has always been the comfort soap. This is not right."

A Granada spokeswoman defended the plot. She said: "We have researched the storyline and dealt with it sensitively."

Corrie star asks for fridge as wedding gift
13 April 2001
Coronation Street star Tracy Shaw has reportedly put a £1,300 fridge on her wedding present list. The actress, who plays Maxine Peacock, is due to marry TV producer Robert Ashworth in June. The list also includes champagne glasses at £55 a pair, Wedgwood dinner plates at £17 each and a condiment set that costs £139.50. The silver Smeg fridge/freezer is the most expensive item on the list.

According to the Daily Mirror, the couple have asked guests not to bring cameras because they have sold the pictures to a magazine.

A friend of the couple told the paper: "Tracy and Robert don't want anything jeopardising the deal. "There will be intense security on the big day and everybody will be on alert to keep any prying eyes away."

Short & suite for Jacqui's big day
13 April 2001
SOAP star Jacqueline Pirie wasted no time in starting her honeymoon - by getting married in a bedroom. The Record revealed this week how Jacqui secretly wed on Loch Lomondside. And yesterday, an insider at plush Cameron House Hotel told how she tied the knot with fireman Simon Chadwick in the privacy of their £450-a-night suite to stop prying eyes from seeing.

The source said: "It took place behind the doors of suite six so no one could see what went on. They got their wish and disappeared early the next day." The only people present at the ceremony were the couple, the Rev Ian Miller of Bonhill parish Church in Dunbartonshire, Jacqui's daughter Alexandra, and two hotel witnesses. Not even her parents knew about the wedding. She phoned them and her grandparents in Raploch, Stirling, afterwards to tell them her news.

Pregnant Jacqui, who plays gold-digging Linda Baldwin in Coronation Street, publicly cancelled plans to wed at Cameron House last month after details leaked out. But she secretly resurrected them to get the privacy she wanted.

Mr Miller said: "They came over as nice, normal, caring people. They were very natural together. It seemed terribly important to them that they were away from the world." A pal added: "With baby on the way Jacqui did not want to delay her wedding plans any longer. "Jacqui and Simon are off on honeymoon and are planning a proper family party in Cheshire or Birmingham when they return."

Real-life blood proves too much for TV nurse
12 April 2001

Television nurse Jane Danson needed medical attention herself when she fainted after giving blood. She played Leanne Battersby in Coronation Street, before returning to TV screens as nurse Samantha Docherty in A&E. But a real-life trip to Manchester Blood Donor Centre with two co-stars to promote giving blood proved too much for her.

The 22-year-old actress began to feel queasy and fainted into the arms of real-life nurses. A spokeswoman for Granada Television, who make the series, said: "Jane hasn't been put off giving blood. Fainting is one of the things that can happen. "Jane had never given blood before. She felt it was worthwhile and will do it again despite fainting. "It is one of those things that can happen. She had a cup of tea and a biscuit and was fine after that."

Corrie star marries in secret
12 April 2001
Jacqueline Pirie has married her firefighter boyfriend in a secret ceremony by the banks of Loch Lomond. The Coronation Street star, who plays Mike Baldwin's wife Linda, tied the knot with Simon Chadwick at the Cameron House Hotel. They had earlier said the wedding was cancelled due to the publicity it had been attracting.

Jacqueline, 25, and Simon, 31, were married in front of her three-year-old daughter Alexandra, with two hotel staff as witnesses, the Daily Record reports. Her parents only found out about the wedding when she telephoned them afterwards. The couple are expecting a child in November.

They were married by Reverend Ian Miller, minister at Bonhill Parish Church. He said: "There wasn't an official photographer but they had their own cameras and some of the staff took photos for them. I think that was an indication of what they wanted - just to be on their own to do this. "I am sure Jacqueline is a lass who can cope well with publicity, but on this day she decided it was not on. She wanted it to be about herself and her husband."

Maxine's wedding camera ban
12 April 2001
CORONATION Street star Tracy Shaw has slapped a camera ban on wedding guests when she ties the knot with lover Robert Ashworth. Friends and family have been told they will be searched by security guards before they are allowed in to the reception.

Tracy, who plays Street hairdresser Maxine Peacock, and Robert have sold the rights to their summer wedding to a down market celebrity magazine. And the pair do not want any snaps of their big day appearing elsewhere before the magazine lands on the news stands.

Tracy, 27, and Robert, 29, will wed on June 2 at the 17th century Knowsley Hall in Merseyside.

Sally sobs over the kids
12 April 2001 by John Mahoney

CORRIE star Sally Whittaker wept both on set and off as she filmed heartbreaking scenes for the show - and she wasn't the only one. She plays Sally Webster, who will this week marry her shop partner Danny Hargreaves. But their new life together will turn sour in a tearjerking storyline involving Sally's on-screen daughters, Rosie and Sophie.

Real-life emotions ran high when the scenes were filmed. One insider revealed: "There was not a dry eye in the house - and that's no exaggeration."

In the plot, Sally's little girls have to say goodbye to someone very close. Full details of the heart-rending scenes, which Street bosses are desperate to keep under wraps will not be revealed. But it is no secret that Sally found the scenes distressing. In real life, the actress has two children of her own at home in Hale, Cheshire.

Actor Richard Standing, who plays husband-to-be Danny, was also involved in the scenes and he, too, was said to be "weepy". The insider added: "Some of the crew who have kids themselves began to lose it a bit. "When the cameras stopped recording, a good few hankies came out."

There's also a harrowing experience in store for Toyah Battersby. Fans will tomorrow night see the Street wild child, played by Georgia Taylor, attacked and raped as she walks home. Eleven of Weatherfield's men fall under suspicion.

The most brutal Corrie ever
10 April 2001

THIS is the battered and bloodied face of the Street's Toyah Battersby minutes after she is raped and left for dead by a sex fiend. The shocking attack will cause a storm when it is screened during ITV's early evening peak viewing time on Good Friday.

Former cast members have already criticised Corrie bosses for using the brutal rape to help it win the ratings war. But producers hope the "Who raped Toyah?" storyline will prove as popular as the "Who shot Phil Mitchell?" saga on BBC's EastEnders.

Student Toyah, played by actress Georgia Taylor, is attacked and raped after a night out with garage mechanic Sam Kingston. Viewers will not see the alley attack, but they will see a badly beaten Toyah being found by teenager Jason Grimshaw on Easter Sunday. Jason takes traumatised Toyah home, where she tells her mum Janice and then has to relive her ordeal by giving details of the attack to police.

Barmaid Toyah has no idea who raped her and many of the men in Weatherfield will come under suspicion, some being forced to give DNA samples. Prime suspect is Ken Barlow's creepy son Peter, who is later exposed as a wife-beater. It is the first time in the soap's 40-year history that rape has been tackled by scriptwriters.

Former stars Jean Alexander, who played Hilda Ogden, and Peter Baldwin, who appeared as Derek Wilton, have both attacked the programme for highlighting the sex attack.

Georgia, 21, said: "The main focus of the storyline is the psychological effect that the attack has on Toyah. "There are many women out there who have been raped or sexually assaulted and we owe it to them to make sure that the storyline is handled sensitively and accurately. "It's obviously a very sensitive subject, and as an actress I can only hope I have done the storyline justice."

Producers spent four months researching victims' experiences at a rape treatment centre, where some of the scenes were filmed. A Street spokesman said: "Rape is obviously a very emotive subject to tackle in a soap opera and we have gone to great lengths to ensure that the storyline is handled sensitively. "We have gone to great lengths to ensure that the storyline is handled sensitively. "It will not become a whodunnit - more a process of elimination as each man is asked to give DNA samples."

Coronation Street bosses have been under pressure since the phenomenal success of the EastEnders' plot involving the shooting of Albert Square hardman Phil Mitchell. More than 20million viewers watched Mitchell confront his ex- girlfriend Lisa Shaw over the crime. It led to a bigger power surge than when the legendary JR's assailant was unveiled in the American soap Dallas. A normal episode of EastEnders would trigger an increase of about 700 megawatts, but after the episode demand rose by 2300 megawatts.

Terrifying ordeal for Toyah
10 April 2001 by Caroline Barrett

This is the dramatic first picture of Coronation Street's Toyah Battersby after she is brutally battered and raped by a mystery attacker. The student and Rovers Return barmaid is found by teenager Jason Grimshaw as he sets out on an early morning jog. Viewers will not see the terrifying attack, but will witness the scene on Easter Sunday.

Toyah is assaulted after a night out with garage mechanic Sam Kingston, but she has no idea who raped her because she was semi-conscious at the time. Her nightmare continues as male residents come under suspicion and are forced to give DNA samples to the police.

Actress Georgia Taylor, 21, said: "The main focus of the storyline is the psychological effect the attack has on Toyah. "There are many women out there who have been raped or sexually assaulted and we owe it to them to make sure the storyline is handled sensitively and accurately.

A Coronation Street spokesman said: "Rape is obviously a very emotive subject to tackle in a soap opera and we have gone to great lengths to ensure the storyline is handled sensitively. "Although the finger of suspicion will fall on many of the Street's male residents, it will not become a whodunnit - more a process of elimination as each man is asked to give DNA samples."

Corrie's Toyah attacked in rape mystery
9 April 2001
Coronation Street's Toyah Battersby is left for dead after being battered and raped by a mystery attacker. Student Toyah is assaulted after a night out with garage mechanic Sam Kingston in a dramatic episode to be screened on Friday.

Viewers will not see the attack but will witness the scene on Easter Sunday, when Toyah is found by teenager Jason Grimshaw as he sets out on an early morning jog. Jason takes traumatised Toyah to her family home, where she tells her mother Janice and then has to relive the ordeal by giving police details of the attack. But Toyah, played by Georgia Taylor, has no idea who raped her because she was semi-conscious at the time. Her nightmare continues over the coming weeks as male residents come under suspicion.

Many of the Street's men are unable to prove where they were at the time of the assault and have to give DNA samples to police. Actress Georgia, 21, said: "The main focus of the storyline is the psychological effect the attack has on Toyah. "There are many women out there who have been raped or sexually assaulted and we owe it to them to make sure the storyline is handled sensitively and accurately."

A spokesman for the programme said: "Rape is obviously a very emotive subject to tackle in a soap opera and we have gone to great lengths to ensure the storyline is handled sensitively. "Although the finger of suspicion will fall on many of the Street's male residents it will not become a whodunnit - more a process of elimination as each man is asked to give DNA samples."

Alma to die
7 April 2001

CORONATION Street favourite Alma Halliwell will make a heartbreaking exit from the soap after being told she has terminal cancer. Actress Amanda Barrie, 65, asked to leave the series last November after 20 years and scriptwriters have promised a sensational storyline to mark her demise.

A source said last night: "We have certainly kept our word, and we believe Alma's sad death has every ingredient to make it one of the all-time Coronation Street greats."

Alma will discover she has advanced cervical cancer which has spread to other organs. She receives the bombshell news just as she decides to leave Weatherfield to start a new life with security guard Frank O'Connor - Eamon Boland. They have become close after the Freshco supermarket siege last October.

There will be an emotional moment as Alma tells her best friend Audrey Roberts - Sue Nicholls - about her condition. Our insider said: "The scenes will call on some tremendous performances from Amanda and she is thrilled at what we have planned for Alma. "We can guarantee there will be buckets of tears both on screen and back home for the viewers."

Frank and Alma will be seen taking a romantic walk in the countryside next month before she cooks him a special Sunday lunch. At one stage they give each a lingering kiss and decide they are fed up with inner city life. The rape of barmaid Toyah Battersby - Georgia Taylor - has particularly sickened them.

The source said: "Alma agrees to go and live with Frank. They decide to make a new start together somewhere in the country and begin excitedly telling their plans to people back home. "Alma has had her fair share of ups and downs with men in the past and she sees Frank a dependable chap to see out her days with. "There's even a surprise farewell party planned at the Rovers. But just as it looks as if they are off into the wide blue yonder the devastating news hits Alma."

After confiding in Audrey, the friends together try to come to terms with the gravity of the situation. Audrey advises her not to leave Weatherfield but to die amongst her friends. Our source said: "Alma is wrestling with her innermost thoughts about what to do for the best. She is agonising about starting a new life away from Weatherfield with Frank. "But it is Audrey who tells her that she should stay amongst her friends who will be able to nurse her when the time comes. "After a lot of hard thinking Alma realises that she will be better off staying with the people who have known and loved her. "So she makes the emotional decision to remain with her friends until she dies. "We have had some tear-jerking episodes in the past, and Alma's farewell will have to rank as one of the most sorrowful in Corrie's history."

Amanda, who joined Corrie in 1981 for a two week appearance as Alma Sedgewick, became a regular in 1989. Scriptwriters involved her character in many memorable plotlines. Cafe owner Alma married Mike Baldwin - Johnny Briggs - in 1992 but he dumped her for factory girl Linda Sykes. She had a fling with Ken Barlow - William Roache - in 1994 and also survived a bid by cabbie Don Brennan - Geoff Hinsliff - to kill her.

Announcing last year that she wanted to leave, Amanda said: "I thought it was time I bowed out in the hope that there's one more show in me. I've had a happy time and feel blessed and proud to have been in the show."

Ken's son accused of Corrie rape
4 April 2001
Ken Barlow's son Peter will be arrested for the rape of Corrie barmaid Toyah Battersby later this month. Corrie fans are set to be shocked when Toyah (Georgia Taylor) reveals she's been raped and knocked out by an unknown attacker in a 45-minute special on Easter Sunday (April 15).

A Corrie spokeswoman said: "Peter refuses to take a DNA test and storms out while being questioned by a woman detective. He tries to leave but is arrested on suspicion of rape." Peter (Chris Gascoyne) finds himself the prime suspect for the rape.

The spokeswoman said: "The cops quiz him about how he beat up his ex- wife and Norris witnesses his arrest and spreads the news. "He later agrees to a DNA test and is freed pending the result. But when he and Ken go for a drink at the Rovers, Geena refuses to serve him. Everyone thinks he's guilty. When he's accused of the crime, he storms out."

Eleven Corrie men are to be suspected of raping Toyah. In an echo of the "Who shot Phil Mitchell?" EastEnders plot the 11 men are asked to take DNA tests in a bid to discover who the rapist is.

The controversial storyline has been criticised by ex-stars including Jean Alexander and Peter Baldwin. But a Corrie spokeswoman said the rape is not shown and the plot is more about how Toyah copes with the trauma and how she's counselled.

Bev finds a key player
4 April 2001
FORMER Coronation Street star Bev Callard is making music - with the piano player from her local Spanish bar.

Andy Anderson will play backing tracks for her latest fitness video. And a friend said it could spell romance. "She obviously gets on well with Andy and he seems keen on her."

Granada wins custody of ITV.com
3 April 2001 by Amy Vickers

ITV can finally launch a website with its name after concluding a 12 month battle to wrest the domain name ITV.com from a rival. It is understood it paid £100,000 to buy the name from an executive who had registered the name in 1994. The deal, sealed at the weekend, means ITV can press ahead with its global dot.com strategy.

The network\s inability to use the domain name had became something of an embarrassment for ITV executives, who could talk about ITV.com but didn't have any rights over the name. Granada Media bought the domain name from Nick Rosen, director of the Online Research Agency. He had planned to develop the site into an interactive TV website before he was approached by Granada Media last year.

Justin Judd, online controller for Granada Broadband, refused to confirm how much ITV had paid, but said it had been a "reasonable price". Asked why there was now nothing on ITV.com, he said: "We're considering the next step now and are thrashing out the global strategic direction with ITV partners." Mr Judd hinted that ITV.com would have different content and a different strategy from the existing ITV website, ITV.co.uk, which launched its first Who Wants to be a Millionaire? online game today.

Granada Media and Carlton Communications, the two largest ITV companies, have, until now, pursued their own disparate internet strategies. They decided last year that in order to compete on the global stage and take on the likes of bbc.co.uk, they would have to bury the hatchet and work together in ITV's common interest. Now they own ITV.com, Carlton and Granada will be able to develop a single, focused ITV website to give them more clout.

Granada and Carlton's internet strategies have so far received muted reactions. Carlton developed a number of strong web brands - Jamba, Popcorn and SimplyFood - but has since moved SimplyFood into Taste.co.uk, its joint venture with Sainbury's, and focused more on Carlton.com. Granada went cold on G-wizz almost immediately following its launch, and finally shut it down last week.

TV "ignores" ethnic minorities
2 April 2001

Ethnic minorities are not seen on British TV as much as they are in the "real world", with Asian and Chinese people particularly under-represented, a report says. Some of the most popular programmes hardly feature people from a non-white background, according to the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE).

Minorities made up just over 5% of people on television - excluding foreign programmes and foreign visitors - compared with the 6.7% of the country's population that is non-white. And Asian and Chinese faces were "pitifully sparse" - despite making up 4.3% of the population. But black actors, presenters and interviewees do not fare so badly, with a higher proportion on the television than in the country as a whole.

The study found that in one week, the only black or Asian faces in BBC2's top 10 shows, with a combined audience of 33 million, were in the US cartoon The Simpsons. The only contributions ethnic minorities made in lifestyle shows were occasional appearances on cookery programmes.

The Communications Research Group compiled the report for the CRE and studied the top 10 programmes on all five main channels between 20 November and 17 December 2000. They found that overall, non-whites made up 8.4% of people on screens. But when foreign shows and pictures of foreign visitors and politicians were taken into account, that figure fell to 5.2%. Black people made up 3.7% of that, whereas they make up just over 2% of the population as a whole. Asian people made up just 1% of participants in TV shows, and "other ethnic minorities", including Chinese, accounted for just 0.2%.

Ethnic minority participants were also far less likely to enjoy major roles. Broadcasters have also been accused of being colour blind - meaning that although a character could be black or Asian, they could just as easily have been white because their ethnic background had no impact on the story. And soap operas like EastEnders and Coronation Street - some of the country's most popular shows - received criticism for being "patchy" despite being set in cities with high numbers of black and Asians. Only the Liverpool-set series Brookside was said to be consistent.

Gurbux Singh, chairman of the CRE, said broadcasters are falling short of representing the full range of people in Britain. "While there are encouraging signs that the number of ethnic minority faces on television is rising, there is clearly some way to go," he said. "And for some programme makers, a very long way to go before they can call their output truly representative of the British TV audience."

The BBC said it had been making efforts to increase minority presence with shows like Heart of Harlesden and Goodness Gracious Me, and a drive to get more non-white 'experts' on news and discussion shows. "We have come a long way, no-one disputes that. But we are the first to say that we have got a long way to go, alongside all other broadcasters," a spokesman said. "We have come a long way from the stereotypes that you might have seen 10 years ago. Anything that helps to raise the attention of both the industry and the public to this whole area has got to be good."

Corrie star escaped arranged marriage
2 April 2001 by Jonathan Donald

Actress Shobna Gulati had personal experience to draw on for her Asian runaway bride storyline in Corrie. Gulati, 28, could herself have been put forward for an arranged marriage, had she not built a career. "My parents never put pressure on me because I had a career going," said the actress, who plays Sunita Parekh. "I studied a lot to avoid it, to avoid the issue." But Gulati's brother did adhere to the tradition. Gulati, told This Morning: "He was introduced to someone, they agreed to get married and are over the moon."

Corrie producers have been anxious to get the storyline right, to avoid upsetting the Asian community. "It's been very carefully researched and you see different points of view," said Gulati.

Shobna joined the soap after finding fame in hit BBC sitcom Dinnerladies. She played slow-witted Anita in the Victoria Wood-penned series - a role that continues to haunt her. "People keep talking very slowly to me, especially when I need to find somewhere to park or when I'm in shops," said Gulati.

In real life the star has an Arabic and Middle-Eastern politics degree.

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