I am currently watching the “Classic” Corrie series on ITV3 - it is broadcast in the afternoons but I watch it on Catch Up TV in the evenings.
I think it is about 20 years behind the current series but many of the current characters were in Corrie back then -
Those were the days when Les Battersby and his awful partner/wife Cilla were the Street’s biggest bugbear - he left the Street years ago but I think in the current series Les has just died.
Then there is Leanne, punishing her sister and her ex-partner / ex-husband for having an affair - when you re-wind 20 years, in the series I’m watching, Leanne is gaily two-timing her fiancé, Jamie Baldwin, with his own Dad,Danny Baldwin, who is married to a woman he first got together with when she was a teenage babysitter to his son Jamie.
I wonder if the 2024 Leanne ever thinks about those old days and what a hypocrite she is being now!
I have a feeling there is some shocking revelations about Jamie and his young Stepmother, Frankie, on the horizon too - talk about keeping it in the family! - Corrie has always had its fair share of scandalous liaisons and gossip!
My gripe with Corrie nowadays is there is still to many old-timers in it, who should have retired by now, and not enough new youngsters coming in to take their place.
Also, there is no real “central hub” for them all to congregate anymore - the pub has become less believable and less important over the years, so has the corner shop.
What would be more believable would be for that Community Hall which Yasmin started to be revived - up here in the North, I have noticed more and more Community Hubs have had a new lease of life since the energy crisis and cost of living crisis have hit home.
Every time I walk past our Community Hub nowadays, I notice that every table is full.
Folk are there doing jigsaws together, playing chess, having knitting groups and doing all sorts of stuff to keep themselves occupied, whilst the Volunteers there provide them with endless cups of tea.
I think they all go there to keep warm, so they don’t have to put their heating on at home during the day.
Most of the folk in Coronation Street these days seem a lot more affluent than the folks which Tony Warren envisaged in his first Coronation Street episodes!
Yes Boot, Coronation Street has changed a lot over the years but I suppose it’s just a reflection of society, I just find it hard to accept things that I have always been led to believe are wrong.
It was easier to accept a bit of adultery, than love affairs with people of the same sex. At the end of the day they have to try and keep up their viewing figures and justify their existence. I remember the first televised lesbian kiss, on Brookside I think it was, it just seemed a bit daring and promiscuous at the time, but it wasn’t dwelled upon and quite acceptable.
I’ve been watching Heartbeat, as you know, and I’m enjoying the storylines. I’ve also lapsed into ‘Midsomer Murders’ which I find intriguing after all these years, and I was well entertained by old editions of ‘Doc Martin’ both of which I was never interested in at the time.
I was reading a book about Yorkshire earlier in the year and my attention was peeked by a quote from an old Sheffield Rock musician who said…
"The older I get, the more I recognise the world is becoming a place for people who aren’t me. I used to be all over innovation, but nobody is making anything with me in mind"…
Howard H Smith.
I think this sums me up perfectly…
Those were the days Chilli. I’ve been watching ‘Heartbeat’ recently and realised how refreshing and interesting the stories were, and I keep getting nostalgic when they play bit of sixties music.
I just have to go onto youtube to hear the full version. Do you remember this one from Simon Dupree and the big sound…? Haunting!
)…
