Harold "Harry" Clayton was a milkman who bought 11 Coronation Street in 1985. He, his wife Connie and their teenage daughters Andrea and Sue lived there for seven months before doing a moonlight flit and disappearing from the area after Andrea got pregnant by Terry Duckworth.
Biography[]
In January 1985, Harry Clayton persuaded wife Connie that 11 Coronation Street was the perfect house for them and their daughters Andrea and Sue. Harry bought the house from Bill Webster when Bill moved to Southampton.
Harry put his family first and had put his hopes on Andrea to go to University and do him proud. When she failed her mock exams and decided to leave school, Harry was having none of it and asked Ken Barlow to talk her round - but it was the fear of turning out like Vera Duckworth that made Andrea decide to stay at school and get an education!
Soon after the Claytons were settled into No.11, a row erupted between the family and the Duckworths. As an anniversary present for Vera, Jack asked Connie - a dressmaker - to make a dress out of some silver lurex he'd got for free. It was cheap material and looked hideous but Connie did the best she could with it, but Vera wasn't happy with the dress and offered only £20 of the £38.50 Connie charged for altering it. Connie refused to accept it and the families went to war; Harry stopped leaving milk for the Duckworths and told Connie not to pay Jack for cleaning their windows.
While this was happening, Andrea was secretly dating Terry Duckworth although Harry and Connie found out when they caught them snogging on the sofa. Terry tried to settle the war by paying the money for Vera, but while Connie accepted it there was no love lost between the two families.
A short time later, Harry found out that Andrea was pregnant by Terry and hit the roof, declaring that he was going to kill Terry. Andrea hadn't yet decided whether she was going to have the baby but Harry and Connie told Jack and Vera in the Rovers and Harry went for Jack when Jack insinuated that Andrea was a slut and that Terry might not be the father. Andrea decided to keep the baby but didn't want Terry involved. Harry and Connie supported her attempts to keep Terry away but it wasn't easy as the Duckworths lived next door. Connie and Harry agreed for the family to move in with Connie's mother until they found somewhere else and they left the Street overnight.
The Claytons settled in Heaton Norris and Andrea had a baby boy, Paul Clayton, in February 1986. In 1991, Harry encountered Jack and told him in no uncertain terms that the Duckworths weren't welcome in Paul's life. To spare Vera's feelings Jack told her the Claytons had given Paul up for adoption.
Personality[]
 |
Hobbies and interests[]
Harry played the trombone.
Background information[]
The Clayton family was created by Producer Mervyn Watson in January 1985. Watson felt the programme was missing an everyday nuclear family and created Claytons as a stable, happy couple with two teenage children. It was intended that they would be given smaller, relatable storylines and would work as a contrast to the more dysfunctional families in the Street.
The Claytons were written out after less than a year, as they failed to make an impact on writers and viewers. Watson felt they didn't fit in the Street. Watson: "The Claytons seemed to get stuck. It's always quite a complicated, organic thing, planting a whole family. It's down to us to make the right choices. Once we've made the right choice there is an intangible thing which you can't predict which only becomes evident on the screen." (The Coronation Street Story, 1995)
Johnny Leeze also played Mr. Slater in July 1982 and Laurie Johnstone in January 2005, making him one of only seven actors who have played a regular character in the programme and gone on to make a subsequent appearance in a separate role (ironically, two of the other six are Susan Brown and Jane Hazlegrove, who played Harry Clayton's wife Connie and daughter Sue).
First and last lines[]
"'Ello lad, Mr and Mrs Clayton. I think you've seen me once before when I came to look the first time." (First line on the doorstep of No.11).
---
"She's not herself, Terry. What can ya expect?" (Final line)
Appendices[]
|