The Ghosts of Corrie Christmas Past

Before the days of huge ratings wars, when ITV had other shows to rely on for income other than Coronation Street, there wasn't all the fuss there is nowadays over Christmas storylines. Indeed, unless Christmas Day happened to fall on one of Corrie's scheduled broadcast days it wasn't even shown on Christmas Day at all, you'd just have to make do with Billy Smart's circus from Blackpool Tower.

In those gentler times Christmas stories would generally centre around family gatherings, Hilda serving Stan his dinner in The Rovers, a show at the community centre and finishing off with a singsong round the piano in the pub. It was only when Eastenders (spit) trounced Coronation Street in the Christmas Day ratings with its Den/Angie divorce story that ITV producers realised that they could use Coronation Street in its ratings war rather than the staples of Morcambe & Wise and sitcom specials.

In 1987 Coronation Street fought back with what must be one of the best and most memorable of Christmas episodes, which had the nation in tears: the departure of Hilda Ogden. After such a roaring success ITV has since broadcast episodes on Christmas Day (except 1993), regardless of the day of the week.

In 1991 two episodes were shown, one at the usual time of 7.30 and one starting at 2.50, just before the Queen's Speech, which had Alf Roberts settling down in front of the telly with the rest of the nation at 3 o' clock and then continuing at 3.10. Over the years we've had our fill of weddings and births at Christmas. What is it about Weatherfield in late March that causes this glut of Christmas birthdays? Rosie Webster, David Platt, the Mallett twins and Ben Watts all have their birthdays around Christmas.

Apart from Hilda's tearful departure, my favourite Christmas episode has to be David Platt's complete destruction of the Potter/Tilsley/Hillman household in 2006. After reading in Ivy Tilsley's diary (found by Sophie Webster) that Gail nearly had David aborted, he caused complete havoc over Christmas dinner by reading out passages, to Gail's huge embarrassment. If that wasn't bad enough, Audrey had invited her latest squeeze Bill Webster to the family celebration, only for his wife Maureen to turn up in the middle of the proceedings.

Do you have any special Coronation Street Christmas memories? What was your favourite Christmas episode? Kev failing to split up with Sally after she tells him of her cancer diagnosis? John Stape's affair with Rosie Webster being exposed? Curly giving Raquel a star as a Christmas present?


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