Coronation Street Blog: Coronation Street writer Adele Rose dies age 87

Sad news reaches us today that Coronation Street writer Adele Rose has died, age 87.

Her husband Peter today paid tribute to her in The Newcastle Evening Chronicle and explained how she became the only female writer on the show in its early days: “She rang the producer (of Coronation Street) and said, ‘All the strong characters in this programme are women, but you’ve got no women writers. Well, I’m a woman and I’m a writer.’”

Adele wrote episode 40 of the soap in 1961, and continued to write for it until she was nearly 70, winning a BAFTA for her work in 1993.

A prolific TV writer, her other credits include Heartbeat, Angels, Z Cars, The Dustbinmen and Robin’s Nest. She also wrote for Crossroads under a different name.

Born in Salford, she originally worked at Granada Television as a secretary, and was encouraged to submit a sample script for Coronation Street by Jack Rosenthal.

In 1989 Adele was approached to write a children’s series set in Newcastle, and Byker Grove was born.

Peter said: “She wrote the first three series by herself, but she was very busy with Coronation Street and they appointed a team of writers, but she still had a creative credit until it ended.”

Paying tribute to his wife, Peter said: “She had a huge sense of humour which was often quite naughty and quite wicked. She loved writing the battleaxes in Coronation Street."

Corriepedia also report that Adele was one of the bridesmaids at Patricia Phoenix's wedding to Alan Browning in 1972.

Glenda Young

Author of gritty, family saga novels with Headline