Sally Metcalfe

Sally Metcalfe (née Seddon, previously Webster) is a Coronation Street resident since 1986, ex-wife of Kevin Webster and mother of Rosie and Sophie.

Sally moved to the Street when she married Kevin, escaping a domineering father. They were a well-matched couple - young, lively and carefree, they never tired of each other's company. Once married, they bought No.13 from Hilda Ogden and Rosie and Sophie were born in 1990 and 1994 respectively.

Kevin liked the conventional setup of him earning and Sally looking after the kids and the house but Sally felt she was being wasted and, at times, taken for granted. The marriage effectively ended in 1997 when Sally found out that Kevin was having an affair with his business partner Natalie Horrocks. They reconciled when he broke it off with Natalie, but it didn't last as the trust between them was gone. However, as Rosie and Sophie got older, Sally and Kevin decided in 2002 to get back together and marry again for their sake.

The Sally of the Websters' second marriage was more ambitious and independent. She became a pushy parent with "gifted" Rosie, and had an affair with Ian Davenport, her boss at upmarket car showroom Davenports, where she was working to pay for Rosie's Oakhill School private education. She and Kevin led separate lives and they were often mistrustful of each other. They grew closer again when Sally battled breast cancer in 2009 - receiving a successful treatment - but the following year Sally discovered that throughout most of 2009 Kevin had been sleeping with Molly Dobbs and her son Jack was Kevin's. Sally evicted Kevin and they got another divorce. She now lives at No.4 with partner Tim Metcalfe and daughter Sophie.

Aside from Kevin, Sally's longest relationships have been with working class types such as Danny Hargreaves (with whom she owned D & S Hardware) and Martin Platt. More commonly, Sally goes for powerful men who use her, such as Greg Kelly, Ian Davenport and Frank Foster. This ties in with Sally's view of herself as an upwardly mobile woman with a head for business, despite the fact that her longest spells of emloyment were behind the counter at the Corner Shop, a childminder, and a machinist at Underworld. She currently works as PA at the factory.

Biography
Sally Webster, then Seddon, first appeared as a teenager in 1986 when she met Kevin Webster after he accidentally drenched her when driving through a puddle; Kevin instantly took a liking to her and he offered her a ride home so she could change and they began dating. Sally's family, the Seddons, were dominated by a violent father, and Sally herself had a chequered past. Kevin was the lodger of Hilda Ogden, who initially disapproved of Sally and when asked if she could move in outright refused. However when Sally's mother visited demanding money from her daughter to give to her father, Hilda got a glimpse of her terrible home life and took pity on her by allowing her to move in on the condition she and Kevin behaved themselves (although they often tried to break this rule). Sally gradually settled down and she and Kevin soon wed. Sally was always full of spirit, tended to the bossy side and always wanted Kevin to better himself. Several times, she tried to get him to buy the garage, urging her lacklustre husband to become his own boss. Kevin was never that keen on running the place which frustrated Sally to no end.

Sally has two daughters by Kevin, Rosie and Sophie. When Sally gave birth to her first child in 1990, she was in a taxi on Rosamund Street, so she named her baby Rosie. In 1994, she named her second child Lauren, but Rosie kept calling her 'Sophie'. Sally and Kevin found themselves preferring 'Sophie' to 'Lauren' so the couple legally changed their daughter's name. Sally worked as a childminder for a time, and also worked in Mike Baldwin's factory as a clerical assistant. After Kevin had an affair with an older woman, Natalie Horrocks When Sally found out she did everything in her power to get revenge on her including flooding her bathing (while writing 'whore' on the bathroom mirror to make certain Natalie knew she was responsible) which led to a cat fight in the street, Sally found being a single mum was very difficult. She took Kevin back temporarily, for the sake of the girls and for security which had always been lacking in her own childhood but that didn't last long when she was drawn to the devilish and violent Greg Kelly. That affair blew up her marriage again. It took Sally a while, and several men, including local mechanic Chris Collins with whom she enjoyed a passionate affair, to find her way inevitably back to Kevin.

Sally divorced Kevin, and was about to marry Danny Hargreaves, whom she had met while running a stall at the open market, but he backed out of the wedding when he learned she had been unfaithful with Kevin. After a brief relationship with Martin Platt, she remarried Kevin for monetary reasons and to give the children stability. There are some indications that she does actually love him once again, although she cheated on him in 2005...

Sally - looking for something challenging in the employment stakes - took a job working as a personal assistant to prosperous garage owner Ian Davenport whose daughter Rosie was going to school with. Her fling with rich Ian Davenport was little more than prostitution to gain financial security for her family and help pay for Rosie's private school fees. Ian used her as one in a long succession of women. When he had done with her, she was bitter and resentful, she came crashing back to earth, having risked her family for a callous fling and it stung even more because Kevin knew down deep his wife was unfaithful but was willing to overlook it anyway.

Sally turned her ambitions to her oldest daughter, Rosie. When Rosie expressed a passing interest in being a pop star, Sally pushed her onto the stage where she was miserable. In a particularly humorous event Sally was indignant when Ken Barlow misspelled Rosie's name twice: as "Dozi Wobster" and then "Rozi Wobster" in the Gazette's review of her school show Grease. She then pushed Rosie into a posh private school and railed against Rosie dating Craig Harris, a neighbourhood lad from a family with a somewhat shady and violent past (too much like her own). The final straw was discovering that Rosie and Craig were having sex even though they were approaching it sensibly. Sally's emotions and nerves crumbled and she took Rosie on a wild drive across the M62 en route to a boarding school. Kevin caught up and cradled his broken wife, who confessed about her broken dreams and life in a back street, wanting more for her children than she had.

In 2007, Sally decided to take an A-Level in English and was getting help from John Stape, who she seemed to be growing a crush on. On 5th November, Sally admitted her feelings to John during a lesson and was upset when he told her that her feelings weren't reciprocated, not admitting he had actually begun an affair with Rosie, who walked in on her mum being upset by John's rejection and wanted to know what was going on. Later John told her so Rosie was now fully aware that her mum was interested in her lover. Also John Stape has stopped the lessons with Sally. On 19th November, after John went to the factory to talk to Sally about Rosie and fellow student Lee Harding, Sally got something in her eye. John tried to help remove it but it looked like they were in a compromising position, just as Fiz Brown and Sean Tully entered the factory. Fiz got the wrong end of the stick and thought they were kissing before slapping Sally. It was revealed on Christmas Day 2007 that Rosie and John had been having an affair.

Rosie disappeared in September 2008, leaving Sally and Kevin distraught. They initially thought that she had ran off with Lottery winnings from the Underworld syndicate until Janice Battersby revealed that she had claimed the cash using Rosie's identity. Sally and Kevin received a postcard from Rosie which led them to believe that she was in Holyhead and Sally subsequently went there searching for her to no avail. On 5th November 2008, Sally and Kevin were reunited with Rosie after discovering that she had been kidnapped by John Stape.

After Rosie had returned home safely, Sally's boss Tony Gordon immediately came around with flowers which aroused Sally's suspicions. When she questioned Rosie about this, Rosie told Sally that she had filmed Tony's fianceé Carla Connor and her brother-in-law Liam kissing, and that Tony knew about the footage. Rosie told Sally that she had secretly saved the video to a document on her computer at the factory. Sally went to the factory on the pretense of picking up some of Rosie's things and downloaded the video on to a memory stick. Sally used this information at Carla and Tony's wedding on 3rd December 2008. After Carla insulted the Websters, a drunken Sally told Liam's widow Maria that he had been having an affair with Carla behind her back and showed her the video clip.

Miscellaneous information
Sally is ambitious, sometimes even arrogant, and is considered by various Street residents (Janice Battersby in particular) to be quite snobby. Such behaviour is apparent in her attempts to live above her station. In the past she has pressured her family to do much of what she tells them. She tried to force her daughter Rosie into a prestigious school; Rosie did not want to go. Another event saw her become envious of a friend's large house.

Once, in fear of being constantly regarded by her daughters as the "bad guy", Sally would intentionally act passive and forgiving whenever the girls acted up, making Kevin out to be the mean, unfair parent when he scolded them for their behaviour. Kevin eventually got his revenge when he and the girls trashed their house while Sally was out. When she returned home and saw the mess, she couldn't keep up her act and became angry, feeling as though her role in the family was unimportant. Kevin told her otherwise, declaring that she always keeps the family in order and on their toes, and that she is genuinely appreciated by all.


 * Sally likes listening to John Denver.

Quotes
“Oh my God! Hey! Here! Hang on a minute!” (First line, to Kevin Webster after he splashed her with his van.)

"She only hit you with a football, it's hardly GBH!" (To Janice Battersby, after daughter Sophie Webster accidentally kicked a ball at Janice.)