13 Coronation Street

13 Coronation Street is the address of the rightmost house on the terraced side of Coronation Street, next door to the Corner Shop. In the past it has been lived in by the Ogden and Webster families, and is currently owned by Ashley and Claire Peacock, who are downsizing to raise capital. It has a reputation in the Street of bringing back luck to its residents.

History
Number 13 was built with the rest of the odd side of Coronation Street in 1902.

The Hardmans
The house was the longtime home of the Hardman family, George and May Hardman and their daughter Christine. In 1955, after spending two years living in the middle-class Oakhill area earning a comfortable income from George's grocery shop, May was widowed, and the house and shop were sold to pay off creditors. Christine, now 16 and able to work, handled the transition better than May, who was ashamed about having to return to Number 13 after experiencing a better life, and couldn't get over her losses. Eventually she had a breakdown in the street, and had a spell in a mental hospital.

In 1960, May died from a brain tumour in the hallway of the house as she tried to summon help by banging on the wall to the Corner Shop next door. The landlord Edward Wormold let Christine go on living in the house but increased the rent. Christine worked at Elliston's Raincoat Factory and struggled to make ends meet. A romance with plumber Joe Makinson started when he paid a bill for Christine when she couldn't pay it.

In 1961, a slate fell off Number 13's roof and hit Minnie Caldwell on the head. The kindly neighbour was encouraged to sue Christine by friend Ena Sharples, but Minnie decided not to. Growing weary of her boring life, Christine considered throwing herself off the roof of the factory, but was talked out of it by Ken Barlow, and afterwards decided to seize life, and left her job and her house to live in London with new boyfriend Colin Appleby.

The Booths
The house remained empty until Wormold sold it to Jerry Booth for £525 in 1963. Jerry's girlfriend Myra Dickinson was pushing him into marriage and it was her who wanted the house. Though they were initially happy, Jerry became concerned over Myra's compulsive spending on hire purchase, and that she hadn't been paying the mortgage. Overwhelmed by bills, the now-expecting Booths had their electricity cut off. Myra's father George Dickinson offered to pay the Booths' debts if they moved in with him, and with Jerry's job at the builder's yard lost because of employer Len Fairclough's legal trouble, Jerry gave in and the Booths left Number 13 and their troubles behind, selling the house back to Wormold.

The Ogdens
The Ogden family moved into Number 13 in July 1964 when Stan Ogden tracked down his errant daughter Irma, who had run away from home after one of Stan's frequent drunken rages. Stan swore he was turning over a new leaf and bought Number 13 from Wormold for £550 as a sign that he was sincere and was looking out for his family. With him came his wife Hilda and children Irma and Trevor. Their other two children, Tony and Sylvia Ogden, had been taken into council care because of Stan's violence.

The Ogdens had an old-fashioned marriage - Hilda took on a job as a cleaner at the Rovers Return and made looking after Stan her life, always putting him and his needs first, rarely complaining about it and always defending him when Irma called him a layabout.

Trevor didn't live with the family for long. He stole money from Len and ran away to London, leaving a note asking his parents to disown him. He wasn't heard from again for years.

Stan was never steadily employed, drifting from job to job. Through the 1960s he was briefly a milkman, a coalman, an ice-cream salesman, a chauffeur, a street photographer, a professional wrestler and an artist, unskilled professions Stan enjoyed as long as he had time to pop into the Rovers for a pint of beer after a shift. Irma worked as a barmaid in the Rovers and behind the counter at the Corner Shop. In 1965, she married footballer David Barlow and the pair bought the Corner Shop from Lionel Petty, leaving just Stan and Hilda in Number 13. As such, they struggled with money, though not quite to the extent that the Booths did. Stan left Hilda to pay the bills, leaving her with the burden and the worry that the family would fall into poverty. In 1968, David and Irma emigrated to Australia, meaning Hilda couldn't get freebies from the shop anymore. Fortunately, Stan bought a window cleaning round, giving him his first permanent job since moving into Number 13.

Sometime in the late 1960s, the electrics at Number 13 were rewired. There would not be another rewiring until 2008.

In 1970, David Barlow and his son Darren were killed in a car crash in Australia. Irma, who was also in the crash, was in shock, but alive. Stan was loaned £600 by bookie Dave Smith to fly Irma back to the UK, and the widowed Irma moved back in with the Ogdens. In sympathy, the neighbours had given the Ogdens money to pay Dave back, but Stan used the money to invest in the Corner Shop to give Irma a job, and paid Dave back by selling him the house. Irma hated the shop, but worked there anyway to raise the money to buy the house back from Dave. It wasn't until Dave started dating Irma that Stan realised he had made a mistake - Dave was twice Irma's age, and Stan wanted to warn him away, but as he had the power to evict them Stan grudgingly gave his approval. When the Ogdens won £500 on premium bonds, Stan dashed Hilda's hopes of spending the money and used it to pay Dave back. The house was back in his name again.

Irma left Weatherfield again in 1972 to start a new life in Wales. Stan was growing older and had back problems, leaving him unable to work for a few periods in the 1970s. It was an unlucky decade for the Ogdens, so unlucky in fact that Hilda told Stan to change the house number to 12a, blaming their bad luck on the number 13. However, when they went outside to see the new numbers they were locked out, proving that the luck was down to them and not the house, so it was changed back to 13.

Owners

 * Edward Wormold - ?-1963
 * Jerry Booth - 1962-1963
 * Stan Ogden - 1964-1970
 * Dave Smith - 1970-1971
 * Stan Ogden - 1971-1984
 * Hilda Ogden - 1984-1987
 * Kevin Webster - 1987-2008
 * Ashley Peacock - 2008-

Residents

 * May Hardman - 1955-1960
 * Christine Hardman - 1955-1962
 * Jerry Booth - 1963-1964
 * Myra Booth - 1963-1964
 * Stan Ogden - 1964-1984
 * Hilda Ogden - 1964-1987
 * Irma Ogden - 1964-1966, 1970
 * Trevor Ogden - 1964
 * Jim Mount - 1966
 * Eddie Yeats - 1976, 1980-1983
 * Henry Wakefield - 1985
 * Kevin Webster - 1985-1987, 1987-1997, 1997-1999, 2002-2008
 * Sally Webster - 1986-1987, 1987-1998, 1999-2008
 * Rosie Webster - 1990-2008
 * Sophie Webster - 1994-2008
 * Danny Hargreaves - 2000-2001