Ed Bailey

Edison George "Ed" Bailey is the builder husband of Aggie Bailey, father of Michael, Dee-Dee and James and brother of Ronnie.

The Baileys moved to Coronation Street in 2019 after downsizing from their previous home in Alderley Edge due to financial issues caused by Ed's gambling addiction. Ed also bought the builder's yard as premises for his already-established joinery business, EGB Construction, and in 2023 he expanded his horizons by going into business with Ronnie, creating EdiRon Developments.

However, with success came temptation and when Ed gambled away the company funds, Ronnie dissolved their partnership. Michael turned against Ed when he borrowed money against the house to pay gambling debts. When he allowed the yard to be gutted by fire in an insurance scam, Michael reported his activities to Aggie, who then finished with Ed for good. Having sold the yard off to pay his debts, he now works as a handyman at the Chariot Square Hotel. He lives at 3 Coronation Street with Michael, Ronnie, and granddaughter Glory.

Biography[]

1964-2019: Early life[]

Edison was born on 20th September 1964. His father, Ernest "Sarge" Bailey, was in the merchant navy, and he had a younger brother, Ronnie. Ed wasn't close to his father, as he constantly put him down while treating Ronnie as the golden boy.

In 1990, Ed met Aggie and they conceived a child almost right away. Marriage followed, and by the 2010s they were living in affluent Alderley Edge with children Michael, Diana "Dee-Dee" and James. A self-employed builder, Ed ran EGB Construction, while Aggie was a trained nurse. They couldn't have been prouder when James became a professional footballer and Dee-Dee went into law and moved to Los Angeles, despite their sadness at losing her.

Ed had one critical vice - a gambling addiction. In 2019, he accumulated debts which the family had to sell their home to pay off. To save his parents' marriage, Michael took the rap for Ed, letting the rest of the family believe that he'd incurred the debts in a get-rich-quick scheme gone wrong.

2019-2022: A fresh start[]

In June, the Baileys purchased 3 Coronation Street from Norris Cole, with Ed promising Aggie that he would turn the terraced house into a home fit to live in. They got off on the wrong foot with their new neighbours, the Barlows, due to Ed's noisy construction work, with Ed amusing himself by posing as just the builder when Ken Barlow came round to complain. When Michael accidentally battered a hole in the wall, it set off a noise war between the families. After a few days of escalation, Ed and Ken negotiated a truce over drinks at the Rovers Return.

Ed continued to run EGB Construction, buying the builder's yard in Victoria Street from Eileen Grimshaw as premises. In his first year in Coronation Street, he converted the Rovers bed and breakfast, refurbished the Viaduct Bistro and carried out the rebuild of Underworld factory following the roof collapse. Though he mostly operated as a one-man band, at busy times he would take on a labourer, employing Seb Franklin, Gary Windass, Daniel Osbourne and Paul Foreman over the following years.

Ed was no longer gambling, but in August he almost relapsed when James lent him money to ease the Baileys' ongoing fianncial problems. Grateful to Michael for stopping him, Ed confessed to Aggie the real reason they'd lose the house. Aggie briefly left Ed but returned to him after staying with a friend, taking a job at Roy's Rolls to help with the finances.

The following February, Ed's old friend Danny Tomlinson became temporary manager of the bistro. Ed was surprised to learn that Danny had come out of the closet since they last saw each other, but was happy for him. His non-plussed reaction gave James the confidence to tell his dad that he was gay and Danny was his boyfriend. The revelation blindsighted Ed, who expressed concerns about the effect on James's football career and didn't give his son the emotional support he needed. Ed had previously encouraged James's relationship with Bethany Platt, not realising that she was his beard. James was angry with Ed when Danny broke it off, suspecting that he had influenced him.

Episode10065 — 2020: Ed is compelled to accept James for who he is after dealing with Don's racism

A few weeks later, Ed was provoked into making an impassioned speech at the opening night of the refurbished bistro after overhearing racist comments from new manager Don, who had constantly needled him since their first meeting. Although he regretted making their row so public, Ed realised he was wrong not to accept James for who he was and promised to be there for him from now on.

In March 2020, Aggie returned to nursing at Weatherfield General. The COVID-19 pandemic was a difficult time for the family as Aggie worked long hours at the hospital, with she and Ed having a socially-distanced 30th wedding anniversary party over the internet in July. The following year, Aggie went to look after her Auntie Marcelle in Birmingham for several months, putting a further strain on their marriage.

A forgiving person, Ed supported Michael's decision to reconcile with his ex-girlfriend Grace Vickers when she fell pregnant with their child, despite her having previously passed off a friend's baby Tianna Powell as theirs in order to hurt him. Ronnie, now a business tycoon and developer, paid a visit to Weatherfield in February 2021 as Grace was preparing to give birth. He took an active role in the preparations, putting Ed out as he was unable to compete with his brother's bank account. After Michael's daughter Glory was born, Ronnie disclosed the real reason for his visit: he and Aggie had a fling over thirty years ago - before she and Ed met - and Michael may be his son. In a video call with Ed, Aggie confirmed that she had been with Ronnie, but insisted that Michael was his. Michael immediately took a paternity test to find out one way or the other, and established that Ed was his biological father. While Ed and Aggie were able to work things out, Ed told Ronnie that they were no longer brothers.

In April, Ed bought an old camper van to go on occasional travels with Aggie and thus fulfil a lonhg-held dream. The following month, when Michael and Grace brought Glory home to live at No.3, he played the doting grandfather, annoying the couple with a constant stream of well-intended help and suggestions before realising his error and gave them space by visiting Aggie in Birmingham. Upon his return, he was angered to learn that Ronnie had done up the camper van as a means of repairing their relationship, ruining his pet project. The brothers were finally reconciled thanks to the efforts of Jenny Connor.

Michael would quickly realise that while he loved Glory, he didn't love Grace. When he broke off the relationship, Grace left No.3 with Glory and blackmailed Ed and Aggie into giving her a rental house they had just invested in on Gable Street at no charge in exchange for they and Michael having access to the child. The Baileys obliged her, with Michael kept unaware of the true terms of the arrangement. Believing that she was paying a massive rent, Michael volunteered to pay half each month, which Grace kept for herself. In November, she conned a new sofa out of Ed and Aggie which she then told to Bernie Winter. However, when Bernie found out that Grace had left Glory on her own to go drinking with her, she ripped into her and told Aggie what she had been doing. When Ed and Aggie confronted Grace, she admitted she never wanted to be a mother and sold Glory to them for £20,000.

Glory was back under the Baileys' roof, but Ed and Aggie let Michael believe that they'd chased Grace away rather than admit that money had changed hands. The following March, as Glory's first birthday approached, Grace showed up in the street demanding another £10k from the Baileys. While Ed scrambled to raise the cash, Aggie declared that enough was enough and told Grace that they wouldn't be paying up. When they informed Michael about the £20k she'd extorted, Grace realised she was beaten and left the street for good.

2022-2024: Relapse and split from Aggie[]

In July 2022, Ed was electrocuted by bad wiring at one of Debbie Webster's hotels and ended up in hospital. Aggie demanded compensation for loss of earnings, and the Baileys accepted an offer of £30,000.

The autumn of 2022 was both a time of joy for Ed as Dee-Dee moved back from LA and joined local firm Barlow Legal Services, and heartbreak with James being dropped from the Weatherfield County FC squad after being diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, leading him to take a job as a coach at a youth centre in Lewisham. He expanded his own horizons that year when he went in with Ronnie building houses on the site of a derelict pub, Tavern Mews. After its completion, the brothers decided to go into business together, trading as EdiRon Developments.

In 2023, looking for their next big project, Ed eyed up a plot of land upon which six houses could be built. When he put in a bid for it, Ronnie confessed that he'd invested the firm's money in Newton & Ridley shares after Debbie got wind that LS Waterford was planning to buy the brewery. When the buyout occurred, the Baileys made a killing, but a guilty Ronnie put Ed in charge of the company's business account as a way to win his trust back. In September, with the bid accepted, work began at the Bankford Development. There were early clashes between Ed and site manager Neil, an inveterate gambler who tried to tempt the builder to make bets. With harmony restored between the two men, work continued until the digger unearthed a dead body in the ground, bringing the site to a complete halt as the police investigated. Due to the delay, an investor pulled out and Ed placed a bet on a horse to secure the needed funds. He won but decided not to repeat the exercise, telling his family that the money came from a loan.

Ed's cash flow problems continued. In October, when his card was rejected at the cafe, a stranger stepped in to pay for his coffee. That same day, Dee-Dee introduced Ed to the same man, her new solicitor boyfriend Joel Deering. With another investor pulling out of the development, Joel found a new one in addition to keeping Ed's monetary problems a secret from Dee-Dee, though Ed resented his help. When the bank sent a letter to the (now late) Norris Cole at No.3 offering easy credit, Ed took out a card in his name, incurring more debts. He also placed a bet and won £6,000 in cash, stashing it in Michael's bag which landed his son in trouble with the police when he was caught with it amid an investigation into stolen money at Underworld. Ed gave the police proof that he had won the money, clearing Michael but leading Ronnie to find out that he was gambling again. The business relationship between the brothers became even more strained when Ed threatened to report his brother for insider trading in order to stop him from telling Aggie about the gambling.

Episode11121 — 2023: Sarge comes to stay while Ed hides his gambling addiction from the Baileys

As Christmas approached, Aggie went to Birmingham to look after Auntie Marcelle once more. Ed's addiction worsened in her absence, with him putting in trips to a Manchester casino. At work, he employed an old plumber friend, Tony Byrne, to help him install a stairlift at 19a Rosamund Street for Paul Foreman, Ed's former apprentice who had been forced to leave the yard due to his motor neurone disease. Due to a delay in Paul's disability grant, Ed was unable to pay Tony for the work, and a payday loan put on a horse failed. His problems were exacerbated when Sarge came to stay from Dominica, seeking a £2,000 loan from Ed and Ronnie to set up a food truck back home. Ed came up with reasons to delay handing over the money, hoping to wriggle out of it, but when Paul settled his debt with Ed, Sarge assumed it was his loan and took the cash.

With Tony coming down heavy on him, Ed tried to flee to Birmingham to be with Aggie, but Tony punched him and demanded that he pawn all of the Baileys' Christmas presents in order to pay him off. Ed did as he demanded, making out to his family that the presents were stolen and that he was assaulted during the burglary. They rallied round him but Sean Tully and Izzy Armstrong, feeling sorry for Glory, inadvertently bought the wendy house which had been a present from Ed and Aggie from the pawn shop, the police were able to view the shop's CCTV footage, exposing Ed's lies. In a desperate effort to put things right, Ed gambled EdiRon's money on a horse but lost. That was the final straw for Ronnie, who cut Ed out of their partnership, and Michael, who refused to have Ed in the house any more. The only consolation for Ed was that they had all agreed to keep news of the disaster from Aggie.

Dee-Dee - the only family member to stand by Ed - took her dad in at the corner shop flat while vowing to help him beat his addiction. However, he was too proud to rely on her for a roof over his head and moved out after a few days to sleep in the empty yard, claiming that a friend was putting him up. Ed's debts meant that he was forced to sell the yard and flat, handing over almost all of the yard's contents to the bailiffs.

In January 2024, while he was going to fetch fish and chips, a heater set fire to the white spirits and Michael spotted the premises ablaze. He found himself trapped within and was rescued by his father. Michael readily agreed that Ed could move back into No.3, but the police suspected the fire was an insurance job. When they questioned him, and Ed couldn't convince Michael of his innocence, his son rang Aggie in Birmingham and told her everything that had happened, causing her to wash her hands of Ed. Michael ate humble pie when the police cleared Ed and allowed him to put in an insurance claim, however Ed privately confessed to Dee-Dee that while he didn't start the fire, he left it to burn as he saw it as a way out of all his problems.

Ed was still in business, but without premises. In January, he agreed to work with Damon Hay on renovating a new bar. Damon inflated Ed's insurance claim, adding in items which Dee-Dee recognised as having been repossessed. She tore a strip off Damon for putting her father in danger of committing fraud.

In April, Aggie ended her marriage to Ed, and he returned from seeing her in Birmingham to another final demand letter which Michael and Dee-Dee forced him to deal with, making him use his insurance payout to settle some of his debts. Blacklisted by local builders, he was given work as a handyman at the Chariot Square by Debbie.

2024 to present: Recent life[]

Ed worked to regain his childrens' respect. In June 2024, he encouraged Dee-Dee to accept Joel's proposal of marriage, putting his own feelings aside. When Dee-Dee discovered Joel's predilection for vulnerable young women and broke off the engagement, she reported him causing him to be suspended from work. Joel retaliated by tipping off the police about Ed and Ronnie's insider trading, though it didn't lead to an arrest.

With Joel continually harassing Dee-Dee - by turns declaring his love and vowing to get even - Ed and Ronnie intervened by trying to provoke Joel into assaulting Ed, but he wisened up to their scheme. Later, they set out to crowbar their way into Joel's flat but couldn't find him. When Joel's trussed-up body was found in a river and the police found he was killed by a crowbar or similar, Dee-Dee confessed to Ed that she had picked up their weapon and whacked Joel with it after finding him trying to flee. Ed pointed out to his daughter that someone else put Joel in the river, so he must have been still alive when she left him. He helped lead the police to Joel's true killer when he told Carla Connor that the deceased had a suitcase on the night he died, causing her to remember seeing Lauren Bolton and Max Turner with such a case on the night of Joel's disappearance.

Dee-Dee's romance with Joel left her pregnant. Ed was thrilled that something good had come from her ordeal, and was disappointed when she opted to have the child adopted rather than live with the reminder of a man she despised. Hoping to change her mind, Ed summoned James from London. James had just obtained a new job in the United States, and persuaded his sister that he and Danny should adopt the child, who he named Laila. When Danny was seriously injured in an accident in the States just after the birth, James went to his side, leaving Laila temporarily in his family's care. Ed took on as much of the babysitting duties as he could, but was out of his depth without Aggie.

Personality[]

"If you've owt to say, spit it out before it flamin' well chokes yer"

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Relationships[]

Aggie Bailey[]

Ed and Aggie's reduced circumstances occasionally caused embarrassment. In 2023, the couple went for a Japanese tasting meal at the Chariot Square Hotel where they bumped into their old snobbish neighbours from Alderley Edge, Patrick and Yvette Leighton. Not wanting them to see No.3, Tim and Sally Metcalfe offered the Baileys No.4 to show off as their temporary rental property, but the ruse backfired when the Leightons criticised the house in front of Sally. Yvette pushed Aggie to attend a charity auction she was organising for her snobby friends at the bistro to help the “deprived” people who lived in Weatherfield. Both Sally and Dee-Dee disliked the way Yvette behaved at the auction, especially when she tried to force Aggie to buy an expensive summerhouse. Not knowing that Dee-Dee worked at Barlow Legal Services, Yvette called there to see Adam Barlow about her and Patrick’s dire financial situation, and Dee-Dee made her mother’s erstwhile friend admit that like her parents, the Leightons had fallen on hard times.

Role in the community[]

In 2021, when his former labourer Seb Franklin died in a horrific attack, Ed donated a space next to the builder's yard for a memorial garden.

In 2019, he was roped in to play Santa Claus at the Weatherfield Winter Wonderland when Michael helped organise the affair for a share of the profits.

Hobbies and interests[]

Ed joined Gerry Northrop Thai Chi lessons at the Victoria Street Community Centre in 2023.

Background information[]