Colonel Cantrill

Colonel Cantrill OBE JPwas a guest at the grand opening of Newton & Ridley's newly-built Brookside Motel in February 1971. He was there in the capacity of being the person who sold the land that the hotel was built on to the brewery for £65,000. Although Annie Walker was the person who would be carrying out the actual opening, also present were Irma Barlow and Alan and Elsie Howard. They had been taken out there for the day by Billy Walker in the Mayoral Rolls Royce which he was repairing at the Canal Garage and the party was mistaken for the Mayor of Weatherfield and family. The Colonel chatted to Alan who told him that he was in the car business and the military man guessed that this meant he was on the board of British Leyland. Alan didn't bother to correct him. Later on, as the imposters beat a hasty retreat when the real Mayor arrived, the Colonel confided in Annie that he felt that the Howards and their "daughter" Irma weren’t top-drawer material.


 * Although the episode in which the character appeared in was videotaped in colour, the location sequences were shot on black and white film as a carry over from the ITV Colour Strike which had ended a couple of weeks before. As the character was only seen on location, all of his scenes were therefore in monochrome.