Soap Histories: Coronation Street

Find out the latest soap storylines in our comprehensive soap reviews section.

Brief history

Whose idea? Tony Warren, a 23-year-old Granada staff writer, drew inspiration from his grandmother’s hometown of Salford to create The Street. Its original working title was Florizel Street but this was dropped after a tea lady named Agnes remarked that 'Florizel' sounded like t'detergent.

Where's it set? 'Oop’ north in the fictional Manchester suburb of Weatherfield on Coronation Street - a cobbled backstreet with the Rovers Return Inn at one end and the corner shop at the other.

The very start: At 7pm on Friday 9th December 1960, Coronation Street kicked off with both an entrance and an exit as Florrie Lindley took over the corner shop from the retiring Elsie Lappin.

Controversies: Corrie's certainly dabbled in its fair share of shocking storylines – from Valerie Barlow's alleged sexual assault in the late 1970s to the more recent 13 year old Sarah Platt's pregnancy – not forgetting the murder of Brian Tilsley, the antics of Street psychos Alan Bradley and Richard Hillman and the wrongful arrest of Deidre Rachid. Strangely, despite the introduction of transsexual Hayley in 1998, Corrie did not feature any kind of homosexual activity until 2003.

25th January 2007