Click here to download the full 100-page press pack (30mb .doc)

Foreward by show creator Tony Warren

It was the show nobody seemed to want. The BBC had already turned it down twice and I was working at Granada Television writing episodes of Biggles which I hated.

Climbing on top of a green tin filing cabinet in my boss Harry Elton’s office I announced that I wasn’t coming down until he allowed me to write about what I knew – the North of England.

I was told to get down and come back the next day with a programme. I’d already written two scripts based on life in an ordinary street so Coronation Street, or Florizel Street as it was originally called, emerged within 24 hours as a combination of the two.

Granada agreed we could make two pilot episodes but it nearly never happened. Several of the older executives were appalled by the finished pilots. One even said that if the show was transmitted the advertisers would withdraw their advertising. With nothing else to fill the slot they gave a reluctant go-ahead. But a written memo demanded that I cut the role of Ena Sharples.

In desperation we set up television sets around the building and showed the pilots to everyone who worked at Granada. They all loved Ena but nobody liked the title. It was Agnes the tea-lady who said that ‘Florizel’ sounded like a disinfectant. So we changed it to Coronation Street.

50 years on I still watch every episode in advance of transmission and sometimes look over scripts too. Then once a month I go out for a very long lunch with the producer, we go through every house, business and character in Coronation Street then we rake over every storyline. I think of Coronation Street as ‘my child’. My role as consultant means I keep a fiercely protective eye on everything – and help move things forward.

It remains on our screens because it’s like a friend. Very often viewers will have formed an affection for it in their childhood or when they were going through a dramatic period in their life. So when they return to it, it’s like returning to an old friend. It’s there, it’s safe and it’s secure.

For Press related enquiries, please contact aj.read@itv.com (Amanda-Jane Read)

If you are a viewer, all enquiries and comments to the viewerservices@itv.com team.

Please note that the above press contact will only respond to enquiries from the Press.