Plot[]
Part One: Noting the unkempt state of No.11, Hilda tries to gossip with Val about what Elsie is doing locked away inside for several days, but gets nowhere. Annie and Len discuss whether the new flats to be built in the street won't be of a high standard. Len gets annoyed when Hilda tries the same gossip tactic with Annie, and he realises that it's Elsie's birthday. David tells Ken he's going to play a game of football - his first since the accident. Ken points out that Dr. Aston told him he should never play again, but David's unconcerned. Val tells Irma she's received a letter from Dennis saying he's returning. They wonder if his affair with Jenny Sutton is over. Emily joins Miklos for a lunch on his latest demolition site. He tells her that he feels his job is pointless and he doesn't want to put roots down. Having had enough, Len bangs angrily on Elsie's door until she lets him in.
Part Two: Elsie is in a dishevelled state and the house is in a worse tip than ever. Refusing to leave, he forces her to look at herself in the mirror and to talk to him. After trying to lose her temper with him, she admits to him that she's left Steve and made a mess of things. Everyone was right - she didn't fit in in America from the moment she arrived and she made no attempt to change. He makes her admit that Steve wasn't the perfect husband when she tries to defend him and makes her say out loud that he's a swine. He adapted to life back home almost immediately after years away, but she never could. Steve turned to be cold and made of ice, and once in Boston she realised they had nothing in common and nothing to talk about. He spent more and more time at the base until he was stopping out all night. Len is shocked to hear that a week before she returned, Steve volunteered to be posted to Panama and didn't want Elsie to go with him. He had told her that he was sorry he'd married her. She sold her engagement ring and things and flew back - a grotty old has-been. She breaks down crying, not knowing what's going to happen to her.
Cast[]
Regular cast[]
- Valerie Barlow - Anne Reid
- Hilda Ogden - Jean Alexander
- Annie Walker - Doris Speed
- Len Fairclough - Peter Adamson
- Jack Walker - Arthur Leslie
- David Barlow - Alan Rothwell
- Miss Nugent - Eileen Derbyshire
- Irma Barlow - Sandra Gough
- Kenneth Barlow - William Roache
- Elsie Tanner - Patricia Phoenix
Guest cast[]
Places[]
- Coronation Street
- Rovers Return Inn - Public/snug and hallway
- 9 Coronation Street - Back room/kitchen and hallway
- 11 Coronation Street - Back room
- Corner Shop
- Demolition site
Notes[]
- The second half of this episode running to 14'12" is given over totally to a two-hander between Elsie Tanner and Len Fairclough.
- The scene on Miklos Zadic's demolition site was OB recorded.
- This was the first episode of the programme to be broadcast by the Independent Television Service for Wales and the West who carried the programme until Episode 774 (15th May 1968) after which HTV took over broadcasts in the region.
- TV Times: No synopsis appeared in the magazine between Episode 702 (6th September 1967) and Episode 755 (11th March 1968)
- Viewing Figures: First UK broadcast - 8,250,000 homes (1st place).
- This episode was included on the following commercial releases:
- Coronation Street 1968 released by Granada and Windsong Video on 5th November 1990.
- The Network DVD collection Coronation Street: The Best of 1960-1969, released on 31st July 2006.
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