Agnes (Granada tea lady)

Agnes (surname unknown) was a potentially unimportant figure in the history of Coronation Street whose name has become synonymous with an off-the-cuff comment made in the Autumn of 1960 as she carried out her refreshment duties with her tea trolley at Granada Television's Manchester offices and overheard the name of a proposed new drama series - Florizel Street - and commented that it sounded like a disinfectant. Granada already had reservations about the title and according to Tony Warren this remark convinced them to sanction a change. However, it was left to Executive Producer Harry Elton, programme producer Stuart Latham and story editor H.V. Kershaw to come up with an alternative title, Warren having no interest in debating the point further.

It should be noted an alternative reason for the title change was given in Kershaw's 1981 autobiography he wrote that Granada joint-founder Cecil Bernstein asked for the change while the programme's second producer Derek Granger said that William Roache had difficulty remembering how to pronounce the name in the way that Warren intended when he wrote his scripts and this prompted a re-thinking. However it is equally probable that all three occurences took place and together brought about the change of title.


 * In the 2010 dramatisation, "The Road to Coronation Street", Agnes was played by Enid Dunn, in real life the mother of Antony Cotton.