I am recording it for Mary. Five minutes of it is more than I can stomach. This extraordinary programme was on UKTV when we lived in Carfin in 1964 and someone gave us a clapped out old black and white TV because they had upgraded. I remember watching Churchill’s funeral on it, too, and that agonising climb of the soldier-pallbearers up the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral in London with the coffin. But that’s how old Coronation Street is. Ken Barlow is still there five decades on. I am not.
I loathe the way they consistently lie to each other. I loathe the way they talk to each other, abuse each other, the malice always lurking in their relationships, the relentless cruel gossip and the way nothing whatever is confidential. The occasional fist-fight in or outside the Rovers can actually come as a relief -- some resolution at last, maybe, maybe not. I am astonished at the sums these people spend on booze, daily, nightly. A pint of beer in Scotland was expensive enough in our time there -- heaven knows what it costs now. But on Coronation Street they put it away even at lunchtime before going back to work in the Underworld knicker factory. Children are routinely denied the truth, sent upstairs, and no one ever seems to discover that the kids, not being stupid (that comes later) are unfooled.
One of the positive aspects of Coronation Street is that it does from time to time feature social issues in its plots and subplots -- homosexuality, transgender, various forms of criminality, abuse of minors, deafness, terminal illness, grief and suicide... And indeed, just about every character on Coronation Street has some interesting marital and extra-marital history, or a police or prison record. Published albums of Coronation Street give fascinating summaries of the marital and sexual vagaries of various characters over the years.
Does this accurately reflect life in the surrounds of Manchester? One or two of the characters are actually interesting. Roy and Hayley, I think. But Ken Barlow, Rita, and Emily Bishop have become simply predictable. Deidre is excruciating. Audrey also. Sometimes they introduce a character too evil and devious to be credible, even in Weatherfield. Scottish Tony is the latest.
Perhaps I have shot myself in the foot... I seem to know rather a lot about Coronation Street for someone who doesn't watch it. Well, it's part of life around here, or death. You can see nothing of it for a year, and then pick up the plot again in five minutes. For Mary, all those years, it constituted rest and relaxation when she got home from Middlemore, and could sit there with a nice meal on her lap.
Some years ago, at St Luke's Church in Remuera, I ran a seminar called "Coronation Street Aversion Therapy". It was very well attended. All we did was talk about Coronation Street. That was fun.
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