“Here we go, for another session of ear-bending.” – 30th August, 1, 6 September 1976

Hello again campers! Let’s continue our journey through 1976. I might get to the end of the year by the time I die.

I believe Bet was espousing clipping some youths round th’earole. More on that later. Just look at those earrings.

The biggest drama in these episodes is Gail being cited as co-respondent in the Thornleys’ divorce. This whole sub-plot is an argument for “sex liberation”, as Hilda puts it in a conversation with Stan, as having to prove your spouse has committed adultery with a slutty, slutty homewrecker seems both hopelessly old-fashioned and stupidly sexist. I did a little googling to find out when no-fault divorce became accessible, and it appears to have been after the Divorce Reform Act of 1969, when a two year separation would suffice without having to prove the “matrimonial offence” of adultery. We’re in 1976 here so unless Weatherfield is like Brigadoon and only appears once a century, the screenwriters are fudging the law for better drama. (Although the couple aren’t separated and Mr Thornley is making noises about fighting his wife’s divorce request which would, I assume, be some sort of reason to have Gail involved? I’m increasingly confused and I need to stop myself from reading more journal articles about the history of UK divorce law. I’m nearly 42. I don’t have much time left on this earth.) Aaaaaanyway, poor old Gail gets given the sack from shop owner Mrs Matthews (who, you’ll recall, was also carrying on with Roy Thornley, Sex God).

I mean, how could any of us possibly resist?

Mrs Thornley, at the request of Elsie, turns up to discuss Gail’s… well, not exactly *innocence*, but naivete. As you might expect, she won’t have a bar of it.

Mrs Thornley: the textbook definition of unimpressed.

No really: SHE MAD.

After that little exchange, no wonder Elsie remarks “t’s not tea I want, it’s a double gin and tonic.” Gail flees with a suitcase but is brought back to the stationer’s for a cup of tea and some comforting words with Rita. This scene is filled with gems, including “don’t come over all dramatic and hard-bitten, it doesn’t suit you” and  “take life in little bits, instead of big chunks. It’ll only give you indigestion.” TELL ME MORE WISE THINGS OF PERSPICACITY AND DISCERNMENT, RITA LITTLEWOOD (or as she referred to herself here, “Gypsy Rose Littlewood“)! I AM YOUR DISCIPLE!

Don’t run off to London without having a chat with Rita, Gail.

 

 

Fashion Corner 

Gail’s jeans in these episodes make me so uncomfortable. That level of binding can’t be good for your, um, nethers.

This is how Elsie looks when she first wakes up in the morning, and I aspire to this level of louche glamour. Black polyester peignoir, bouffant hair and a cigarette. Damn right.

Bet, who was soaked by some unimpressive water-pistols of errant youth (more on that below), got semi-undressed to dry off, much to Stan’s delight and Mrs Walker’s horror. She was given one of Mrs Walker’s polyester numbers to wear instead and was not too subtly slut-shamed for her troubles.

Even for Bet, this is a whole lotta boob. Annie Walker looks stricken by the mammaries.

Not only does the poor woman have to wear this bepatterned middle-aged monstrosity of respectability, but Mrs Walker won’t even let her undo the top button! The indignity.

 

The Coronation Street of Things

As you know, I am always on the lookout for a nice prop, and here we see Ken’s blue patterned toaster making a reappearance (with a cute bevelled mirror in the background).

Cheer up, Gail. You may have been called a “trollop” by Mrs Thornley but you’ve still got your job. OH WAIT

A moment for us all to savour: Hilda put her ducks up on the new wall for the first time!

The middle one keeps falling down, but she’ll soon whip it into shape.

And not exactly a prop, but some practicality-based Rovers musing: it occurred to me that not only do the loos appear to exist in the exact same spot as Ken and Albert’s downstairs, but there is a dartboard right beside them! Imagine wending your way through an obstacle course of sharp flying objects thrown by drunk people to have a slash! I know English people in the 70s were probably pretty adept at holding their liquor since they were constantly mildly squiffy, but this is surely a head injury waiting to happen.

Bet, Alf and Ken all look just as worried as I am about Eddie hurling pointy missiles right by the gents’ door.

As an aside, why don’t people play dominoes in the pub anymore? You’re far less likely to end up bleeding.

 

 

 

Salad or Fish?

Albert is dutifully doling out his vegetables from the allotment and has also organised to sell the bulk of them direct to the local Darby and Joan club. Various people are getting lettuce! With which to make DUNDUNDUN – SALAD! You all know how I feel about salad. Ne’er-do-well Eddie rejects his lettuce and radishes out of hand, saying he can’t stand them and that he’s already “bursting with vitamins”. (You see, the lower on the social totem pole you go, the less likely you are to eat lettuce. MY THEORY HOLDS.)

These are the floppy-leafed lettuces my mother grows and so I have a fondness for them.

And merely for posterity, here is an immortal exchange between Bet and Betty about a paramour:

“Betty, what were t’name of that fish man what fancied you?”

“Fish man!?”

“You remember, he fetched you a salmon that time.”

“… Bert Goslin. And he was a master fishmonger.”

He sounds irresistible! Who wouldn’t want to go out with a MASTER FISHMONGER?

 

Stuff Which Is Very Different Now 

1. Elsie, in her quest to talk to Mrs Thornley about the divorce proceedings, rifling through an actual phone book! How quaint!

Not shown: Elsie waiting 30 long seconds for the dial to return between each digit of the phone number. How did we even survive??

2. Renee wacking some larrikin kids who were touching her stock across the knuckles! Imagine going down to the dairy and getting the bash nowadays!

Renee, mid-bash.

3. Plus said larrikin kids had the saddest excuse for water pistols I have ever seen. Where is your pump-action super-soaker, 70s UK?

That green blob inside the glass is a water pistol. This is pitiful. No wonder punk happened.

4. Deirdre waxing eloquent about her future baby’s “little brown arms and legs”. a) The chance would be a fine thing, we haven’t seen the sun in Weatherfield for weeks and b) PUT SOME SPF50 ON THAT CHILD YOU NEGLECTFUL MONSTER.

Eddie Is My Muse

Eddie is a constant source of delight to me. Here he is telling Renee that he shouldn’t be gainfully employed because  “the vacant jobs ought to go to the most deserving…. You’d hardly call me deserving, now would you?”

Tell me anything in a Scouse accent and I’ll accept it, Eddie. Even Paul McCartney saying “Rockestra” was a good idea.

What the what?

Finally, this is hella weird: a slow-mo final shot of the naughty kids running to the sound of synths. I had a confirmed-by-Google feeling this is meant to be a reference to Logan’s Run, which was released in June of 1976. Never let it be said this show can’t be topical!

“We’re not all as green as we are cabbage-looking” – 18?, 23, 25 August 1976

This has been an unconscionably long hiatus, during which all of YouTube user Auntie Corrie’s vintage Coronation Street playlists were deleted thanks to ITV getting unreasonable about copyright violation. (It’s a bit rich of ITV to get all precious about this, since they haven’t released the complete run of episodes for purchase anywhere.) I am therefore remaining deliberately vague about where I’m now, with some difficulty, watching them. There are still some episodes I can’t find, but we’ll struggle forward anyway. I also lost my job as a researcher, found another more time-intensive one as a librarian, and went on two big trips. All of these things affected my blogging progress adversely. Still, onward! Do we even remember what was happening? Something something Bet’s cleavage Ernest the plonker Ken eating salad? Righto then.

The episode from the 18th of August appears to have been lost to the mists of time and copyright violation; I think I got halfway through it before ITV exercised their power as our evil overlords, and I didn’t get screenshots. Still, our invaluable friends at Corriepedia inform us that Ray discovers a load of plumbing stock has been stolen from the building site they’re working on, and Len tells the contractor. Jack Barker (Orange Hat) and Doug West (remember, the dodgy blokes from dahn saaf?) do indeed steal tiles from the site, and Len and Ray are deeply suspicious. Meanwhile the stripper from the Gatsby club, Josie Steel, goes through her routine at home with Plonker Ernest (depressingly for us all, she’s fully clothed at the time. I’m really keen on seeing 70s foundation garments!). Emily walks in halfway through and lays the hammer down, then goes to the Kabin and has a showdown with Rita, who throws her out when Emily basically calls her a stripper!

None of you have watched Fuller House, right? Good.

IT’S SO TRAGIC WE HAVE NO VISUAL RECORD OF THIS.

The Bishops apologise to each other and Plonker Ernest tells Emily that he’ll give the job up. I think I speak for us all when I say damn, damn, damn. This was ripe with possibility. And boobs.

How much Mavis is looking forward to meeting Derek’s mother.

Mavis is taken (rather unwillingly) to meet Derek’s mother. On the motorway! In a car! This visit is cringingly awful, as Derek’s mother is a complete martinet and Mavis is in full terrified witter. Derek and Mavis’ unmarried flit to the Lakes for a holiday is given a full puritan going-over, followed up with some rather pointed remarks about the advanced age of both parties, leaving Mavis in a jellied heap on the drawing-room sofa. (Also, dude, Mavis is apparently 39! I… was not expecting that. At some point Mrs Wilton makes reference to a “Dr Crippen“, who was apparently the first wife-murderer to be caught with the aid of wireless telegraphy. The more you know!)

This is not a look I would want to see from my future mother-in-law.

I love the shot choices in these scenes, in which Derek and Mavis seem lost in huge rooms presided over by his mother.

Mavis is sent out to the greenhouse to look at her would-be mother-in-law’s “vine” (a greenhouse! A greenhouse! This is the middle-classest thing of all! One could even grow ingredients for SALAD in it!), and Derek is told emphatically by Mrs Wilton that Mavis will “not do”. “She’s nice to the point of being a walking ice-cream sundae! But that’s not the point – she’s also YOU in a tweed skirt!… Neither of you could decide what time of day it was in a room full of clocks!” Aw, poor Mavis. Also, ouch, truth bombs. “Any mother of Derek’s would eat prospective daughters-in-law and spit out t’pips,” says Rita wisely during the post mortem in the Rovers.

The visit to Derek’s mother, summarised in three portraits. 1: Mavis. Poor Mavis.

2. Mrs Wilton. This is more terrifying than anything I could imagine.

3. Derek, staring into the abyss.

Speaking of going places in cars, Mrs Walker returns this episode from her suspiciously sudden visit to her daughter’s after her first driving lesson. You will recall that there is some speculation that she crashed the driving school vehicle, but it’s more than Bet and Betty’s lives are worth to ask her directly. Betty obliquely refers to Mrs Walker having a “rest” and is coldly shut down. “The Evening News is a good paper if you’re looking for a job, love,” says Bet after witnessing their exchange. Ooof. Bet mentions pointedly to Mrs Walker that “some lady” had “bashed” another car at her driving school. “I wonder who it was?” says Mrs Walker, all innocence. Bet ponders whether the general public of Weatherfield should be warned that another lesson is in the offing. “They are our brothers and sisters out there, Betty, roaming round the streets, unaware of what is going to lurch round the next corner like a demented kangaroo.”

These two though. (Also, check out the ice bucket!)

There is nothing better in the world than the women of Coronation Street cackling over some absurdity.

The mystery is solved when the driving instructor informs the pub at large with the, uh, encouragement of Mrs Walker, that a dray horse kicked the vehicle – although he does seem rather nervous about his tale. Mrs Walker heads off to “burn rubber” for her next lesson, triumphant once more. “Off into the bright blue yonder, as our fighter pilots used to say.” Bet, the eternal smartarse: “Some of ’em never came back, Mrs Walker.”

It’s all kicking off at the building site as the tile theft is discovered and Len reports it to an unseen supervisor. Daan Saaf with the Orange Hat declares that this is “victimisation by a member of another union!” (This is the kind of thing that sends me down a rabbit-hole of research: wouldn’t they all belong to the same union, as builders? Were there several competing unions? Was it regional?) In any case the southerners strike because orange hat has been accused of theft, an action which he smugly calls “industrial democracy”. (I am amused by the small-c conservatism of Coronation Street here: it’s all very well to have unions, it seems to be saying, but not if they’re used as an excuse for skiving off work. Heh.) The supervisor appears and gives them a bollocking and their strike lasts all of five minutes. Have the courage of your socialist convictions, lads!

The supervisor – who my husband notes looks like John Malkovich in Rounders – meets a convention of silly-hat wearers.

Unfortunately the only conviction likely is a criminal one for Orange Hat, as he sabotages some scaffolding while Len is away. It’s Ray Langton who eventually comes a cropper and is taken away in an ambulance! Flamin’ ‘eck.

Ray watches a bit of building site descending upon his head at speed.

One of Orange Hat’s friends confesses to Len and Terry that the scaffolding was deliberately meddled with, and Things Are Tense. “I’m gonna thump you for being a thief, a layabout and a lazy bastard,” says Len menacingly to Orange Hat. Two of those things seem kind of similar, but the line and the following punch-up are delivered with such gusto I’ll forgive him.

Cliffhanger: Gail appears and has been cited as “co-respondent” in the divorce of the married chap she was seeing earlier! I can’t wait!

That Gail. Such a femme fatale!

RIDICULOUS MUSICAL REFERENCES CORNER

During these episodes there were so many fun facial close-ups at the building site that I amused myself with the theory that Len, Ray, Terry and Orange Hat were recreating the video for Abba’s “Knowing Me, Knowing You“.

 

CONTEXTLESS DIALOGUE TOO GOOD NOT TO SHARE CORNER

“There’s only one thing worse than staring at a typewriter all day, and that’s going out wirra fella who collects beer mats.” – Deirdre

I can’t tell you how many screenshots of Deirdre I take. SO MANY.

“I were born sexy.” – Rita (Damn right!)

SPEAKING OF SEXY

Let’s all take a moment to appreciate the sheer glory of Terry’s muttonchops.

WHAT THE WHAT?

Who has ever poured boiling water like this? I do not understand. Nor, by the looks, do Terry and Ray.

Coronation Street of the Recent Past

I summarised Coronation Street’s year (2015 in New Zealand, 2013 in the UK) for The Spinoff, should any of you be interested in my take on Mary’s wallaby hotpot. Also, Deirdre sings Rihanna.

9, 11, 16 August 1976 – “Look, Elsie, what have you got against him, apart from the fact that you hate his guts?”

Mrs Walker’s driving ensemble. I want to marry it.

You’re probably sick of me overthinking Ken Barlow by now, so perhaps I will turn my attention to overthinking Mrs Annie Walker, Rovers Return landlady, behaviour regulator and overall status-grubber. Because Coronation Street is quick to punish those getting above their station, her aspirations and faux-poshness are ripe for ridicule. As I was watching these episodes, however, I began to wonder about how the show constructs the audience for these mocking storylines. Are we meant to be laughing at Mrs Walker because we identify with the unashamedly working-class? In that case, why are Hilda, Stan and Eddie, the lowest on the totem pole, also often associated with hilarity and mockery? We laugh at them too. But ah, you say, we laugh at Hilda because in her own way, she is trying to get above HER station by emulating Mrs Walker (remember, her wallpaper escapades from some episodes back were an attempt to imitate the landlady’s redecorations). It’s “know your place” all the way down. This led me to pondering whether the Street’s audience is constructed as upper-middle class: do we exist in a place where we can laugh at everyone aspiring to what we have? That seems strangely mean-spirited for a show that often treats working people’s lives and desires with dignity and generosity. It’s true that the audience – and, indeed, the non-social climbing characters – see themselves as “real” rather than fake; we understand the pointlessness of pretending, since other people can see right through it. Perhaps the construction of the audience is even more idealistic than I have at first supposed: are we meant to exist *beyond* class? Does Coronation Street imagine a place in which petty social climbing of all kinds no longer exists? Thus, we laugh at it because we have perspective?

It may be a mildly problematic combination of all of these things – we laugh at foolishness, but also at aspiration. In any case, I’m not going to let it spoil my enjoyment of Mrs Walker’s driving lessons, for which she is kitted out in the sort of ensemble suitable for playing bingo with the Village People.

Whitney Houston was singing “The Greatest Love of All” about this hat.

It was bought, of course, in Sylvia’s, where Mrs Walker’s doubts about donning slacks (remember when that was controversial? I do. Barely) were assuaged by Elsie in this fashion: “Come on Mrs Walker, if it’s not too late to start driving lessons, it’s not too late to wear trousers.” The simulation lesson goes well enough but after her first practical road-based outing, Mrs Walker suddenly disappears to “her Joanie’s” for a visit. There is much speculation about what might have happened, particularly from beady-eyed Hilda. “Summat’s happened on that driving lesson. And she’s gone off because she doesn’t dare show her face…. we’ll get to know. Muck always rises to the surface in the end.” An unconfirmed clue in the form of a phone call from Nellie Harvey appears – she reports that she saw a driving school car being towed away after a crash.

Hilda be speculating.

Plonker Ernest is still moping about the place, taking in washing and fending off needling remarks from all and sundry. Mrs Walker attempts to be kind: “Everybody’s doing it these days, swapping roles, it’s –” “No disgrace, no, none at all,” says Ernest, his stricken face giving the lie to every word. Hilda comes right out and tells Ernie he’d “make somebody the perfect wife”.

I wonder how white their whites get hanging in such grim environs?

Ernie isn’t such a “perfect wife” that he’ll do the bloody ironing.

Given this constant aura of gender-role judgement it’s no wonder Ernest jumps at the chance to play the piano two nights a week at the Gatsby club, even if one of the nights is a “stag”, at which a stripper and a blue comedian perform. “There’s nights and NIGHTS, isn’t there, in places like that,” says Hilda judgementally. (Betty has had quite enough of judgey Hilda and tells her “the only reputation you’ve ever had is for yakking, tooting, and generally muck-raking.”) You will recall that Ernest got into rather a lot of trouble for attending one of these stag nights as a customer earlier in the year, but even grim-faced Emily can’t dissuade him. “Tell me, do you need your music for the stripper, or can you play that kind by ear?” she says, witheringly.

Another great drama of these episodes is the discovery that Gail’s fancy-man is, as suspected, married with children. Gail refuses to believe this for quite a while. “I happen to be kinky for monsters, ” she says simperingly to him. (OH MY GOD, GAIL. If only you could see some of the chaps you wind up marrying in the coming decades you’d realise this is your most prescient line of dialogue ever.)

Ewww. EWWWWWWWWW.

Elsie’s face when she’s talking to The Wife.

Deirdre in Fine Pregnant Form Corner

Pregnancy obviously agrees with Deirdre, as she has been a delight in these episodes (and has given this post its title). Ray doesn’t much like her new looks: “Talking about freaks, what have you done to yourself?”

Deirdre is wearing this bead-heavy boho ensemble and Ray’s… area is very… constricted. I am concerned that he may not be able to father any more children.

But Deirdre is unfazed. “Us with mercurial temperaments usually have brains.”

Deirdre is also giving Gail-the-married-man-shagger no quarter after Gail ignores her advice about kicking her curly-haired Lothario to the curb. “I can tell you this, love. From now on you can stew in your own flamin’ juice.”

At one point she also says to suspicious-of-foreigners Ray “we don’t get much trouble with t’KGB round ‘ere” which, as a sentence divorced from any context and delivered in a thick Weatherfieldian accent, delights me no end. Viva pregnant Deirdre!

Holy Crap That Was a Reference To Bertolt Brecht Corner

And speaking of Deirdre, in her capacity as secretary for Len Fairclough’s building company, she mistakenly turns down a big contract because she thought they were too busy. Len, to Ray: “Mother Courage here has said that we couldn’t fit it in!” The ways in which this show surprises me are many and varied.

Mother Courage, upset after being yelled at by Len

The contract is salvaged and the stage is set for a showdown with some rival builders. You can tell they’re baddies because they’re Cockney and they have facial hair. Anyone coming oop north from daaan souf cannot be trusted!

I would say this was the hat of the week, but have you seen Mrs Walker’s driving cap? Go on. Scroll back up and drink it in.

Local References Corner

Sometimes Coronation Street mentions New Zealand and I am, of course, duty-bound to report these moments. Ena, of some acquaintances: “They emigrated to New Zealand. I believe they’ve done very well for themselves. Though they were as thick as two short planks.” JUST WHAT ARE YOU IMPLYING ABOUT MY HOMELAND, MRS SHARPLES?

Sparkling Dialogue I Can’t Bear To Leave Out Corner

“Three things that should never have been invented: eight o’clock in the morning, twenty-year-old blondes, and plums.” – Rita in a philosophical mood

“According to him, everybody’s either bent or on the fiddle.” – Rita, of Eddie (and possibly my new epitaph)

“That’s extortion, that is, with a capital X.” – Eddie, of Rita’s cafe prices

28 July, 2, 4 August 1976 – “You’ve got to be a bit mad these days. Helps to keep you sane.”

Bet isn’t in these episodes, so no screenshot of her. Here, Ken would like you to have a tomato instead.

I’m not really even sure what else I can say about salad, at this point. It’s like I’m in some sort of weird semiotic time-travelling dance-off with the past scriptwriters of Coronation Street. Each post in which I overthink characters eating salad seems to be greeted with another episode in which the salad ante is upped. Perhaps, like the alternate universe of the “Berenstein” Bears, this blog also exists in another dimension, where it concentrates on deconstructing the motivations of The Munch Bunch.

Me and you and a salad too.

This is all a rather roundabout and possibly incomprehensible way of saying that bloody Ken Barlow is eating salad again. And, moreover, talking about salad. While, if you can believe it, BRANDISHING his salad ingredients on a fork at hapless Uncle Albert. “For a man to reach your considerable age, Uncle Albert, without ever having eaten a tomato, seems to me to be remarkable… it is a most satisfactory comestible, from both aesthetic and alimentary points of view.”

No, seriously, you guys. HAVE A TOMATO. KEN DECREES IT.

Honestly, Ken, couldn’t you go back to philandering and neglecting your children? “What are you going on about?” asks Uncle Albert, testily, quite clearly wondering how he’s managed to be landed with such a smug wanker for a nephew.

Albert makes a desperate escape from Ken and his tomato soliloquy.

Albert is too busy worrying about the unfair distribution of his bingo winnings with playing partner Bertha to be messing about with salad ingredients. He even shows up at Bertha’s grim brutalist block of flats after a few rums to shout outside her window.

Albert wants his ten pounds and he shall not be denied! Have pity, Albert. Look at her building.

She finally appears at Albert’s with his share of the winnings, saying her husband told her to keep them. A kiss on the cheek is misinterpreted and her husband appears to challenge Albert to a fistfight!

Ena: available to break up fistfights between old coots for a small fee.

The other thing I was not expecting was a storyline about Mavis Reilly’s boobs. To be strictly accurate, we are considering the appropriateness of Mavis’ newly bought sun top in a work environment. Mavis is, of course, deeply worried that her staid little halter will… well, I’m not sure exactly. Cause a riot? Make Derek keel over and implode around his nether regions? In any case Rita encourages Mavis to show off the… goods while serving punters in the stationers (it’s also a cafe at this stage, since Roy’s Rolls is some decades away).

Mavis Reilly, cafe waitress and bombshell.

Rita puts Ken up to waxing eloquent on the subject of Mavis’ sex appeal: “Are you going to wear that on your holidays? You’ll be a sensation!”

Mavis, delighted by Ken’s attention to her boobs. Be careful, he’ll tell you all about tomatoes if you’re not careful.

The contrast with good-time-girl Gail and last episode’s visible nipples could not be more obvious. Gormless Fred undoes all of Rita’s good work, overdoing the compliments by droolingly telling Mavis “You’re coming out, aren’t you, in more ways than one!… If you went round a building site like that, you’d have them dropping off the scaffolding like hailstones!” Mavis disappears witteringly into the back room in shame.

Mavis, rather less pleased by Fred’s attention to her boobs.

Shame is not in Gail’s vocabulary, as she welcomes the sleazy owner of Sylvia’s, Roy Thornley (who, as you may recall, is also in a relationship with Sylvia herself) into the boutique for lunch and a sneaky bottle of wine while Elsie is out.

Roy supplies Gail with a fine vintage. Nose-hold-worthy, even.

Who could resist this man?

There is much giggling and innuendo until Elsie returns to give Gail one of her patented tellings-off, but her words fall on deaf ears. Even after giving Roy some dire warnings, the relationship continues, Gail giggling and dashing off in all directions as the mood takes her. I have a bad feeling about this.

Elsie is really giving it heaps on the tellings-off.

There is much pointing.

No, seriously, A LOT of pointing.

Point! Point! (When did we stop pinning clothes on shop walls as a display choice? Can we go back there?)

Plonker Ernest gets an enormous tax bill and spends a fair bit of time woe-is-me-ing his way around the Rovers Return. Ne’er-do-well Eddie Yates, unable to understand the idea that anyone might have a work ethic or require a regular wage, can’t work out why Ernest is upset in the first place. “There he is, living a life of gracious ease and quiet contemplation.”

Ernest turns off the radio as it is mockingly playing Helen Shapiro’s “Walking Back to Happiness” at him. They’ve always known how to use incidental music to great effect on this show.

Eventually poor Emily feels compelled to go secretly to a jeweller’s and sell her engagement ring for a hundred pounds, then gets a job at the hospital as an orderly.

The stricken face of a woman about to sell her engagement ring.

Which is quite nice, as it goes.

When she suggests Ernest get a similar job as a hospital porter he balks at the idea. Then she comes home from working all day and *still* has to peel the potatoes.

Poor Emily hasn’t even got her coat off yet.

PULL YOUR FINGER OUT, Plonker Ernest. Times are tough. Why does Emily have to do all the running around here?

And speaking of running, Mrs Walker is about to start a different sort of exercise: trying to catch up with her fellow landlady friend Nellie Harvey from the Conservative Society, who appears on the scene brandishing a set of car keys and a snazzy white Mini Cooper. Annie Walker’s face as she realises her status has fallen below appropriate obsessive social-climbing levels is a sight to behold.

Nellie and her hat appear to lord it over Mrs Walker.

Sweet ride, Nellie!

She sees Nellie rollin’, she hatin’.

Offered a lift while waiting for the bus: the ultimate indignity!

No seriously: SHE HATIN’.

She rings around all of her friends in an attempt to get some dirt, finally discovering that Nellie took 86 lessons in order to pass her test. (Although I grew up in the era of the rotary-dial telephone, I had forgotten just how long it took to laboriously enter six or more numbers.)

Mrs Walker discovers the 86 lessons. This should be in the dictionary to define schadenfreude.

Nellie comes over for a cup of tea and the battle of backhanded compliments begins. “DO have another piece of Battenberg Nellie: I know YOU’VE never succumbed to this modern fad of weight-watching.” “It was so VERY VERY brave of you to tackle modern traffic conditions at your time of life.” RuPaul’s Drag Race should be watching this for lessons in High Bitch.

Nellie appears and opens both saloon doors like a western gunslinger. Showdown at the driving school corral!

The offending Battenberg cake.

At some point in the proceedings Annie drops the hammer of 86 lessons down, saying that one generally needs one lesson per one year of life. OH NO SHE DIDN’T! Nellie’s posh accent drops as she storms out of the Rovers back room, challenging Annie to learn how to drive in fewer than 86 lessons if she’s so marvellous. I can’t wait to see what transpires when Mrs Walker gets behind the wheel.

EXTRAS CORNER

This guy! What a specimen! Hair, pants, shoes, everything.

Oh look! This wonderfully coiffed lady…

… gets re-used at Sylvia’s later on.

FASHION THOUGHTS CORNER

Damn, Deirdre. Just… DAMN.

Thumbs up on Elsie’s collar and sleeves; thumbs up on Gail’s tee.

The men of the Street are really not doing themselves any favours with these strategic unbuttonings.

“The less you expect, the less you’re disappointed.” 19, 21, 26 July 1976

[Oh dear, at the rate I’m blogging these I’ll never get out of 1976! Tell my family not to get the flu next time, would you? Still, onward!]

How overtly a soap opera reflects the times in which it was made can be both deliberate or unwitting. From a distance of nearly forty years, in a country halfway around the globe, certain things are particularly striking, although they may not have seemed oh-so-1970s to the show’s creators at the time. (So brown! So orange! So polyester!) But in other ways, Coronation Street makes deliberate attempts to grapple with current affairs – sometimes more successfully than others. As we saw in the previous post, the record-breaking heat wave and drought in the summer of 1976 went rather to the heads of anyone filming on Albert Tatlock’s allotment. And now, as Plonker Ernest and Emily get to grips with the closure of his photography business and his subsequent interactions with the government-run job centre (what was I saying about brown and orange?), the “real world”  in the form of the UK’s 1970s recession encroaches a little upon the Street’s tiny, almost hermetically sealed community.

Ernest enters the job centre with the look of a condemned man.

The job centre is very… orange.

It also does a nice line in too-long, redundant poster slogans. “Do you want advice about the best type of job for you?” Well, I am IN THE JOB CENTRE, so maybe?

This woman apparently organises people to go into jobs using a filing cabinet, a pen and paper, and a telephone. WHAT IS THIS ANALOGUE SORCERY?

If I cast my mind back through the episodes I’ve watched so far, little remarks about how tough times are for working people have been sprinkled throughout the dialogue (Alf nearly quit his job at the post office but decided against it; Ena and Albert both watch their pennies and find their pensions hard to live on), but this is the first storyline in which a well-established, adult, employed character comes up against the possibility of hardship to an uncomfortable extent. Ernest misses out on a job as a photographer; he fails to qualify as an “executive” for another job placement programme. Emily realises that the unemployment benefit isn’t enough for them to live on and goes out to search for work outside the home herself, which Ernest, as befits a plonker, finds terribly emasculating.

Ernest and Emily dealing with their equipment. I would make a smutty joke here but I have too much respect for Emily.

That darkroom is now The Darkest Room, amirite?

Hilda is actually rather pleased by these developments, saying that this is what she’d heard on the wireless as “the irreversible flow of wealth to the working class” (note that salad-eating Ernest and Emily are, to Hilda, middle-class, even if they live in the same sort of house she does). “They’ve had it their way long enough,” she says smugly. “It’s time for the rest of us to have a bit of what’s going.” I must say that the “flow of wealth” isn’t really evident in the finances of the rest of the Street’s residents. Hilda later philosophises of Ernie: “He can’t cope with failure, you see, while my Stan’s got certificates for it.” Greater ambitions for those further up the ladder can mean greater disappointment later. Why aspire to anything, if that’s how it all turns out?

So much for the “high” storyline; the “low” storylines involve the unsuitability of married friends/lovers, a subject ripe for amusement and entendres. Albert Tatlock wins a mighty sum on the bingo (speaking of brown, whew, that bingo hall) and, as befits a swinging bachelor, gets glommed onto by a fellow elderly lady hoping to become part of a housie-playing team.

The bingo hall: this is the brownest, 70s-est place of allllll the brown 70s places.

Guess who won that hundred pounds? Albert Tatlock, that’s who.

Albert is hugely worried that she’s also interested in becoming a “Baby Let’s Play House” team, if you know what I mean, nudge-nudge-wink-wink-say-no-more. His worries are compounded by the news that she is married and word on the street is that her husband is a bit of a hardarse.

Albert’s would-be bingo partner. And her HAT.

He spends a lot of time hiding from his new pal, until the hubby turns up and gives the bingo partnership his blessing. I also get my first glimpse of Vera Duckworth, who is both married to an offscreen husband AND Fred the barman’s possible boom-chicka-wow-wow paramour.

Vera! And associated Pal in Headscarf!

The only thing standing in the way of Fred’s sexytime is his landlady, one Mrs Annie Walker, who shall henceforth be known as The Distilled Essence of Cockblock. She originally thought Fred’s lady-friend was going to be a possible replacement for his dead wife, so she is horrified by Vera’s marriedness and “common”-ness and makes sure to insert herself into their backroom socialising as a terribly inconvenient chaperone.

Fred, your spiffy outfit will count for naught.

No one does fake-polite like Mrs Walker.

Or, indeed, judgey bitchface.

And in more The Heat is On scenes, Gail and her visible nipples start seeing the owner of the fashion boutique (who is technically her employer) for boozy lunches, under the baleful eye of Elsie, who Does Not Approve. (Mavis purchases a sexy top under the guidance of Gail and I can’t wait to see her wittering shyly around in it on some future date.)

Gail and the boss-man. And two other friends.

Elsie does not approve.

DISTURBING DIALOGUE THAT WOULDN’T FLY TODAY CORNER

Rita, to Len: “You ARE a fella, aren’t you? Or is it where you’re having your hair cut lately?”

Len, to Rita: “Give us a packet of chewy. And less lip, otherwise I’ll thicken it for you.” URKH.

I am mesmerised by Rita’s face and Len’s unbuttoned shirt.

AND SPEAKING OF UNBUTTONED SHIRTS

The UK’s heatwave seems to have made the men of the Street come over all peculiar-like. First Len, then Fred:

And, terrifyingly, Ken wielding a carpet-sweeper in this amazing ensemble:

BUTTON YOUR SHIRT, SALAD GUY

I mean, honestly. How are we meant to concentrate on the storyline?

I can’t tell you how happy I was to see him put on a tie. Although not as happy as he seems to be, judging by his expression.

MARROW UPDATE

Albert spends some time trying to find out who carved his name into his allotment marrow, first giving Eddie a bit of a going-over. Eddie: “I might look like a villain, but I wouldn’t harm a vegetable to save my life.”

The offended marrow.

Albert eventually, by process of elimination, works out that Ray was the culprit and bursts into the Rovers shouting “It’s you what vandalised my marrow!” I wish there was some way to use this sentence more often in my everyday life.

5, 7, 12, 14 July 1976 – “And what did your last slave die of?” “The same as what you will, lovey.”

Many apologies for the longer-than-usual gap between this post and the last. My life interrupted my Coronation Street viewing, which I’m sure you all agree is completely unacceptable. Especially when there is Plonker Ernest wielding a scythe like the grim reaper to contend with! Poor old Plonker Ernest. He’s been to the accountant and his photography business is going belly-up in the recession. As befits his plonkery, he does a bit of whining at Emily and a bit of shouting at Albert Tatlock before wending his way to the allotment to scythe down some overgrown grass. He and Albert discuss the difficulties of the economy and being older and out of work. (The director went a bit mad on “rural idyll” shots of bees and flowers in the allotment scenes, which seemed rather out of character for the Street. Perhaps the heat was going to his head.)

Plonker Ernest grimly wields a scythe.

Summer days, make me feel fine, Albert Tatlock’s allotment’s on my mi-i-ind.

Honestly, this is just a small sampling of the flower shots. It was unnerving.

But it’s not all doom and gloom, as Deirdre and Ray have their combined anniversary/birthday party without falling out irrevocably over the cost. An as-yet-unseen Blanche comes to the rescue over the phone, saying they can use her house (which seems to be downstairs from their flat?) for free to throw the shindig. I must say this seems rather out of character for the Blanche we come to know and love in later years, but perhaps she was having a brief moment of generosity. “Foreign muck” watch: Ray gets rather sniffy about Deidre’s plan to make some lasagne for the party, since he has never heard of it (!!!). The recipe was supplied by the street’s resident gourmet chef, Mavis, but the fact that the pasta contains spinach and is therefore green was a bridge too far for Ray. He’s happy to stick with the pies supplied by Renee’s shop – and so is Ena, who has the brass neck to come by the shop and take some of the food before it’s even been delivered, using the rationale that she was invited to the party but isn’t going, so she deserves some of the spoils.

Ena helps herself to the party food before it’s actually at, you know, the party.

And with a spread like this, who could blame her? Yikes.

The party itself is a bit of delight: Rita in a tee shirt! Everyone smoking up a storm and laughing uproariously! And it culminates in the announcement that the suspiciously non-smoking and non-drinking Deirdre is pregnant! (The dates are right for this pregnancy to turn out to be the future bane of the Street, Tracy. Urkh. Well, we won’t think about that, everyone. Let’s just have a moment of happiness with Deirdre before her entire life turns to custard.)

Merriment!

Smokin’! Drinkin’!

Flirtin’! (Successfully.) (Also, whoa, lampshade.)

Flirtin’! (Profoundly unsuccessfully.) (Also, whoa, cleavage.)

Rita tee-shirtin’!

And an oddly staged pregnancy announcement: in the dark, behind Bet’s hairpiece. This probably symbolises… something bad about Tracy.

Hilda and Stan have a corker of a storyline in these episodes, with the doofus Eddie Yeats as their willing accomplice. Hilda hears that Mrs Walker is having her flat above the Rovers redecorated with some snazzy wallpaper and decides to do the same with their living/dining room. A comedy of errors ensues: Eddie gets some mildly dodgy wallpaper from a mate and the non-faulty rolls are only enough to do three walls. He tries to talk Hilda into another pattern for one wall, but she is having none of it. Finally he supplies her with the most legendary of Hilda’s malapropisms – wallpaper that looks like a “muriel” of a mountainous country scene. Hilda is proud and delighted and Bet and Annie Walker are invited over for tea to view it. I think it’s fair to say that they, along with those of us at home, are… amazed. “I’ve seen nowt to touch it since Cinerama,” says Bet, in a daze. “Do you know dear,” Mrs Walker announces primly, “I feel just a little giddy.” Hilda notes that “either you’re one for the great outdoors, or you’re not.” The entire scene is gold from go to whoa.

Hilda is pleased with her new wallpaper.

Until it runs out, and Eddie tries to fob her off with some kiddy race-car stuff as a “feature wall”.

But never fear! The muriel is here!

Mrs Walker’s priceless expression when she first sees the muriel.

Bet and Mrs Walker take tea in front of the finished muriel with a proud Hilda.

There are many meaningful looks.

Ena has a fun storyline too, in which a couple of grifters roll into town and attempt to scam money for shower installation out of the local elderly, saying baths are far too dangerous. They pretend they’re from the council, but Ena calls in the big guns: Len Fairclough, who is not only a builder but a councilman. Ena, Len and Eddie sabotage the grifter just as he thinks he’s about to make away with forty pounds and a citizen’s arrest is made. There’s nothing like an “elderly woman gets revenge on manipulative criminal” storyline to make you feel satisfied.

Ena, suspicious of grifters.

Eddie gets the con man in a headlock while Len helps.

Eddie, not long out of the big house himself, is touchingly pleased to have made a citizen’s arrest.

The many wonderful expressions of Ena Sharples: a triptych.

BITS AND BOBS CORNER

Salad watch: Emily and Ernest enjoy a salad while discussing their financial woes. I don’t want to belabour the point but it should be noted that they are also aspirational (photography!) and rather “posher” than some of their fellow characters. Weirdly, Emily appears to put ENTIRE hard-boiled eggs in her salad, which is rather profligate! What happened to slicing them up so they go further?

Seriously, whole hard-boiled eggs? What are you Bishops, made of money?

Pop culture corner: Deirdre and Ray are fans of The Kinks (this may explain Ray’s haircut. And name); Bet was humming Jimmy Webb’s “Didn’t We” while cleaning up the pub. (I find this pleasingly obscure. What, no “MacArthur Park” or “Wichita Lineman”?)

Spot the Kinks album above Deirdre’s head! That is, if you can tear yourself away from her amazing pinny. And the gloriously clashing curtain print.

Chillin’ like a villain: Deirdre’s doctor.

I mean, seriously. This dude apparently works ten and a half hours a week!

Ena Sharples’ front door fascinates me.

What is with the pointy semi-arch at the top there? Was this popular in the 70s? Can you still buy doors shaped like that?

And finally, Ray carves some graffiti into one of Albert Tatlock’s marrows.

If you’re not careful, marrow, Deirdre will stuff you one day. It’s her signature dish, you know.

21, 23, 28, 30 June 1976 – “Oooh, is there no end to it?”

Secrets and lies aren’t just for Mike Leigh films. If a soap opera doesn’t contain a regular heaping helping of fibs, hidden shames, and misunderstandings, it isn’t a success. The thing is, there doesn’t have to be something life-shattering like a love child or a serial killer to express drama: Coronation Street has a history of finding significance in the quotidian. In its characters’ small-scale interactions there are often big-picture themes. (In this way it really owes more to the kitchen sink drama movement than it does to soap opera or melodrama. At its best it’s like a funnier, serialised, more woman-focussed Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.)

In this group of episodes we have a few secrets lurking: why is Ken’s uncle Albert moping about the canal, biting the heads off errant fishing schoolboys? (Incidentally, I dread to think what kinds of fish lurk beneath the surface of the murky waters of the Weatherfield canal.)

Uncle Albert giving advice to a young fisherman.

Which of her neighbours shopped Renee to the Town Hall for illegally trading on a Sunday? Renee has so many people she’s offended it’s hard to narrow it down to just one suspect. And why can’t Mavis just jump Derek’s bones already? As Bet says: “if he were too stoned to drive back home, why didn’t you get him in a ‘alf-Nelson and drag him in t’back bedroom?”

Bet doesn’t understand Mavis. Rita, meanwhile, ponders how her leopard-skin ensemble is going to be upstaged later in this post.

Some questions are destined never to be answered, especially when it comes to Mavis and Derek, but it turns out that poor old Albert has run out of money for his electricity bill and the Town Hall has threatened to give his allotment to someone else because he’s too old to keep on top of it and has let it go to seed. (If there’s a broader lesson to be gained from these episodes, it’s that you can’t fight city hall.)

Albert sitting sadly at home without leccy.

This (of course) puts the kybosh on the returning Ken’s Grand Dramatic Plan to resign and leave the street for good, and he moves in with Albert to help him with the bills and gets the neighbours to rally round and help with the allotment (for, as Hilda insists, some share of the grown vegetables).

Ken and depressed Uncle Albert and some fine, fine wallpaper.

Ken finds Albert looking at his lettuce on the allotment. Note nonchalant jacket-on-one-shoulder pose for Ken.

Renee flails around ineffectually, accusing everyone and their dog of revenge-reporting her – and it’s certainly true that she’s been a bit of a trial to a number of people – but we finally find out via a letter to Gail that the culprit was sulky Trish. Renee looks a bit sombre about having alienated so many people around the place and is comforted by Emily despite Renee having previously accused Emily of dobbing her in. I find the underlying themes in these Town Hall storylines quite interesting – it’s clear that the show, essentially small-c conservative, wants to stress that centralised government bodies don’t really care about individual circumstances and that it’s your local community who’ll eventually come to your rescue. It’s almost like a debate between political parties in soap opera form.

Eddie Yeats makes a doofy return (from the big house?) in these episodes, along with his friend Monkey.

Eddie and his horrible hat hang out with Monkey in the Rovers.

They have nowhere to stay and Ray Langton as good as tells them to break into Elsie’s house because Ken is away, knowing full well that Elsie (and Gail, finally kicked out of the corner shop flat) are living in it.

A home invasion, Coronation Street style.

This gives rise to lots of what we might call hijinks: Eddie and Monkey are kicked out of Elsie’s bed but break back in and sleep on the sofa; Elsie nearly calls the police on them but is soft-hearted enough to give them a reprieve, although she’s offended enough to track down Ray and, after some particularly sexist dickheadery, beat him about the head and shoulders with a big ashtray stuffed into her handbag!

Ray doesn’t know what’s coming.

DOWN goes Frasier!

Elsie returns the ashtray to Mrs Walker with thanks.

Mrs Walker then gives Elsie a telling-off while wearing the most glorious outfit I’ve ever seen.

There is not one single thing in this world better than Mrs Walker wearing this outfit as Elsie sucks on a fag. NOT A THING.

Look at it! Look at the hat trim! LOOK AT THE COVERED BUTTON! Dear god.

All in all the entire thing was most satisfying, and also contained a cute little writerly in-joke about which I have waxed lyrical on social media: the actor who plays Eddie Yeats also plays Paul McCartney’s voice in the Yellow Submarine movie, and during this storyline the writers made him call Elsie “Lady Madonna”. I want to travel back in time forty years and high-five those writers. “I see what you did there!”

The dodgy Ray is also keeping a secret: he’s paying 50 pounds of hard-earned savings to throw wife Deirdre a first anniversary/21st combination party at the Rovers. (I’m such a product of my demographic cohort that I can’t imagine having already been married a year at the time of your 21st birthday! Terrifying.)

Deirdre tells Ray off. Presumably for painting the walls that colour.

At the climax of the 30 June episode Deirdre discovers this and is deeply unimpressed, but I have a feeling we’re going to end up having a party anyway as Mrs Walker has already got half the money as a deposit. Stay tuned.

FOODSTUFFS CORNER: CONTAINS EFFING SALAD

This is actually getting beyond a joke now. Albert presents Ken with a wee lettuce from his allotment and they have it for lunch. “That was very tasty and very healthy. There’s nothing quite like a salad, is there?” No Ken, you’re absolutely right.

This is my favourite ever screenshot of Ken because a) it looks like he’s smoking a joint b) he is actually saluting the memory of the salad he just ate.

This facial hair is called, I believe, “the imperial”.

This milkman with magnificent facial hair has the line of the month in his discussion with Hilda about her missing milk money: “But if I ‘ad a pound for everybody who said they’d ‘ad their milk money pinched, I’d be chasing Shirley Bassey round the ‘anging gardens of Babylon and she’d let me catch ‘er.”

TABLE TENNIS CORNER

Deirdre and Gail play ping pong again in the community centre. That poster is driving me nuts because I’m sure I know who it is but I can’t work it out from here. Eric Clapton?

FABRICS CORNER

Let’s just take a moment to enjoy all the textiles in this shot, shall we? No wonder Elsie looks so happy.

7, 9, 14, 16 June 1976 – “Do you know, Bet, someday you’re going to make a fella very happy.” “What, when he’s me husband?” “No, when he’s your widower.”

If you had told me before I started this blog that salad would become a recurring motif in my posts, I would have been nonplussed. Yet here we are again, watching Ken mope sadly about the place because Wendy has buggered off. In an attempt to comfort his glum nephew, Uncle Albert Tatlock suggests that he might grow some capsicums on his allotment. Albert himself doesn’t much care for them, but he’s “seen Ken cut them up and put them in a salad”.

The face of a man who wants to help. With capsicum.

However, even the prospect of more salad ingredients, exotic as they are, can’t put the smile back on Ken’s dial. He gives Elsie back her house, tells Uncle Albert to come and collect his things, and wanders off down the road with a suitcase to parts unknown. (This would be a lot more suspenseful if we weren’t all already aware that Ken is still moping about the street forty years later.)

Another suitcase-packer is Trish, who has already been laid off and turfed out of the shop flat and is working out her notice. She gets told off at the pub in front of everyone when Renee discovers her quaffing ale instead of delivering groceries; depressed by the prospect of no flat and no job, she tells Renee to shove it in true Johnny Paycheck style and nods a sombre farewell to Ken on her way past him back to her mum’s, six miles away. We know that in Coronation Street terms six miles might as well be six thousand.

Renee tells Trish what’s what.

Things get increasingly heated.

Trish pulls a Johnny Paycheck.

Another day, another sad walk with a suitcase past the Man City graffiti.

An altogether more delightful development is Rita pimping wittering Mavis out to terminally polite salesman Derek over some veal escalopes with tarragon. Well, technically it’s more that Rita leaves them alone in her flat for the evening, pretending she’s got a singing gig, when she’s actually just trying to get either one of them to make the first physical move.

Rita and Bet discuss how to get Mavis and Derek to spend the night together.

It’s a difficult job.

Mavis has about as much sexy-talk game as you might expect: “I saw Grace Kelly in ‘High Society’ five times. There should have been a sixth but my friend got an impacted wisdom tooth.”

Mavis looks longingly at Derek over the veal.

Mavis got game, impacted wisdom tooth edition.

The episode ends with a rather passionate kiss from Derek but he excuses himself and gets a taxi home, leaving Mavis all het up with nowhere to go.

The exchange directly before this was:
“I bet they’re much alike, your mother and mine.”
“I dare say.”
RUN FOR THE HILLS, MAVIS.

(Guess what Mavis serves to Derek for “afters”? No, not herself, you dirty-minded buggers. Fresh fruit SALAD.) I actually can’t believe that I was so invested in the sexual tension between Mavis and Derek, of all people. It was really rather disappointing to have the evening remain unconsummated!

Other frustrated people include Elsie, Rita and Bet, who head out for a night on the razz looking rather magnificent but wind up back at Elsie’s place with a few boring married men who have to be unceremoniously turfed out after a cup of tea.

Two lookers. Rita’s frock is glorious.

The ladies wax eloquent about their love-life disappointments, culminating in Elsie reading a letter aloud from her estranged husband in which he asks if their relationship is really over.

Elsie reads the letter from her husband to some sympathetic ears.

In other news, Renee talks her brother Terry around and gets him to move into the shop flat being vacated by Gail and Trish, rent free as long as he does a few jobs around the place. (Score.) Renee also has Mrs Walker’s knickers in a polite, refined twist over her plans to start an off-licence in the corner shop premises. Battle-axe standoff at six o’clock!

If Mrs Walker’s expression had a name, it would be Homey Don’t Play That.

Stuff I Don’t Know Where Else To Put Corner

The crew became oddly obsessed with god-cam during these episodes. Here, we see some sort of deity overlooking the council meeting:

and Deirdre and Gail’s ping pong game:

(Where did this ping pong table come from, incidentally?)

I don’t often want things from the Coronation Street set, but I really have my heart set on Ken’s blue toaster.

Elsie pours Mrs Walker a morning gin while giving her house a good bottoming. God I love these people.

Bet and Rita putting the world to rights: god I love these people, part two.

You ladies are the best. Seriously.

And finally, scope it out! Our first glimpse of Jack Duckworth, here as an extra with a magnificent head of Osmondian hair. Only three years to wait until he becomes a series regular!

26, 31 May, 2 June – “Being husband and wife, we’re psychotic.”*

*Malapropist Hilda, trying to tell the assembled faithful at the Rovers that she always knows what Stan is thinking

The trials and tribulations of Ken Barlow continue apace during this trio of episodes which centre around the Bank Holiday street party he organises as Community Development Officer. Most of the street’s residents are mildly cynical about the party but help out with resigned good cheer.

Is Coronation Street above using bunting-hanging Gail’s bum as an outro shot?

The answer is no. No, it is not.

The party is – as one might expect – equal parts grimly unfestive and unwittingly amusing. Never has so much bunting been used to so little effect. The two “stars” of the proceedings – an old pal of Stan’s who bills himself as an “escapologist”, and the local Labour MP – are both ridiculous for different reasons. The escapologist, who manages to extricate himself from locked chains and a sack, but winds up pie-eyed and unable to escape from the ladies loos in the Rovers, was a fairly extraordinary sight, but no less so than the MP, whose speech to the assembled and disillusioned throng centred – I kid you not – around a likeness he once received from his unemployed grandfather of former Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald fashioned from a piece of coal, with the exhortation to “remember!” (What does this mean? Remember the labour movement? Remember not to betray the working classes? I can’t work it out, but I’m struck once again by the strangeness and wonderfulness of these sorts of sentiments, no matter how mockable or confusing, being expressed on a soap opera.)

Local MP addresses the street, to a smattering of applause and rather more boos.

The escapologist also inspires Stan to wrap himself in chains and a sack, assuming he can win five quid by escaping from them himself. Cue the inevitable: Stan lying sadly in the doorway of the Rovers, wrapped in chains, while Hilda alternates telling everyone off with scoffing trifle.

Stan in chains.

I am saying nothing about whether his chains are metaphorical as well as literal.

By the time these three episodes of partying (Punch and Judy! A teeny tiny carousel! A lone morris dancer!) and angst are over, Ken has been abandoned by Wendy, who returns to her husband after an extremely unromantic discussion over some mystery meat at a local restaurant. I’m assuming this means Elsie will be reclaiming her house from Ken, as she, Gail and Trish are all being kicked out of the lodgings at the corner shop after Renee purchases it. Gail and Trish were deeply unhappy about this, as you might imagine.

A morris dancer in all his glory.

Wendy and her husband reconcile over mystery meat.

One of many tragic shots of Ken amongst the merriment.

Wendy packs her grip and goes, abandoning City for, presumably, United.

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain this loud tie, and lose his middle-class lover?

Still, he does at least have a ridiculous amount of bunting.

My overthinking of the previous episode’s salad ingestion is rather vindicated as the various storylines contain more references to to the appropriateness (or inappropriateness) of food. Wendy makes some terribly middle-class-looking hors d’oeuvres for the street party and hands them around to a polite Ena and Bet. Delicious awkwardness ensues.

Wendy’s finger food. Is that another vegetable I spy?

It’s the tea and trifle that really win hearts and minds.

What’s a street party without… tea?

The previous day, Fred the Gormless Barman decided to sell sandwiches from the bar of the Rovers but they were a miserable failure as everyone was off home to have their Sunday roast. Sandwiches might go down well enough in “Surrey”, the Rovers’ clientele sniffed, but “not round ‘ere”.

Can you imagine how appetising these unwrapped sandwiches were after a few hours in a smokers’ pub?

Bet and Betty give the sandwiches an unimpressed once-over.

Incomprehensible Political Speech Corner

The local MP endears himself to precisely no one, not even Ken, by rabbiting on about what a terrible place Coronation Street is and answering straight questions with obfuscating answers. He reached Peak Politicianspeak with “our priority must be prioritising, especially in priority areas like this one”.

Bet’s towering edifice of hair gives the politician’s speech the side-eye.