Christine Woods

Christine Woods (née Loxom) was a recruitment agent at the Weatherfield Private Employment Agency.

In April 1990, three weeks after losing his job at the Gazette, Ken Barlow made his first effort to look for other employment by going into the agency on a whim after shopping at the nearby Bettabuys supermarket in Albert Road. Before, he'd been too proud to go into the job centre and held out hope that one of his contacts in the journalistic world would fix him up with something.

From the outset, Ken made it clear that he wouldn't be interested in a job outside the newspaper industry, telling Christine that he wasn't there to be matched up against some outstanding vacancies on her file. Christine assured him that they would only put him forward for something suitable, but encouraged him to be open-minded as they could have something he'd like which he never considered. After some searching, Christine tried to interested Ken in a job bookkeeping for the local theatre, on which there was no age restriction, but Ken wasn't interested. Christine then asked if he'd thought about going back to teaching, revealing that he'd once taught her at Bessie Street School. Despite her vote of confidence, Ken refused to consider it as his last experience of teaching was fifteen years ago. Ken left the agency downcast, his best bet being to apply at the tax office.

Ultimately, with no luck getting a job at a newspaper, Ken did return to teaching two months later.