Coronation Street
'How I came to live in The Street'.
John Finch
I joined Coronation Street in late 1959.
This was before the first episode had been
transmitted. I had sent Granada a play, despite having fallen out with them a couple
of years earlier over another play (The characters of which ultimately appeared in
SAM). This second play I called "The Schoolroom". They said they liked it and
wanted me to write for them. They didn't apparently like it enough to produce it,
however. They gave me a couple of scripts of a horror called Knight Errant, to
which, though desperate, I said no thank you very much. Then they gave me early
Tony Warren scripts of Coronation Street to read. Real, fabulous characters,
people I'd known all my life. Yes please, I said, so they commissioned a trial
episode.
The above is the first paragraph of a
two thousand word intimate article on the early
days of Coronation Street.
1. Sam
