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January
After a false alarm, Deirdre's baby arrives.
Suzie Birchall is taken on to help Gail Potter at Mike Baldwin's
shop. Ernest rows with Emily and goes to a dance at the Centre
alone. He meets enthusiastic spinster Thelma James, and takes
her home. Bet gives a girl who is chasing Mike Baldwin a black
eye on the dance floor.
Eddie Yeats and Monkey Gibbon are hoaxed by Bet ahout cheap watches
they are hawking. She tells them the police are making enquiries,
and they hastily stuff them down a grid before she can stop them.
They race back to find council workmen emptying the drain into
a tanker
February
Hilda wisely insists that Stan changes their house number from
unlucky 13 to 12A. The Council makes him change it back under
an Act of 1847. Mike Baldwin clinches a rag trade deal by persuading
Bet and a reluctant Betty Turpin to entertain a business contact.
Emily confronts Ernest with a Valentine he receives from spinster
Thelma James. Janet Barlow pleads with Ken to take her back. He
refuses, but allows her to stay the night. Next day he finds her
dead from an overdose.
March
Mike Baldwin orders Bet out of Nº5 - his wife is arriving
unexpectedly. Bet finds that they are not married, and refuses
to move. Mike sells the house to the Langtons, and Bet moves to
the Corner Shop flat. She ruins Renee's stock by accidentally
turning off the freezer, and works behind the counter to pay off
the loss.
Suzie Birchall and Gail Potter try to sweep Elsie's chimney with
a brick on a rope, and fill the Ogden's with soot. Rita is leaving
for a singing engagement in Teneriffe, when Len proposes. She
turns him down, but changes her mind at the airport, and the plane
leaves without her.
April
Len and Rita are married at St Margaret's, Weatherfield, to a
background of Elgar and Wagner. For the reception at the Greenvale
Hotel the mood music changes to Victor Sylvester. Deirdre wants
a christening for Tracy, but thc vicar refuses because they are
not church-goers.
Fred Gee and Alf Roberts take Mavis and Renee out fishing. Renee
loses her footing and falls in the river, and Fred tumbles after
her, trying to retrieve his rod. Alf and Mavis attempt a rescue
but are pulled in after them.
May
Mike Baldwin offers a trendy denim suit for a new name for Sylvia's
Separates. Albert Tatlock suggests 'the Western Front', and wins.
The vicar relents and Tracy is christened at St Margaret's. Mavis
moves into the Kabin flat, and Len and Rita have their first big
row - he had planned to let it for a high rental.
Ken Barlow has difficulty organizing a float for the Jubilee celebrations.
Annie offers to borrow one from the brewery - on condition that
she plays Elizabeth I. Elsie has a visitor: Elaine Dennett calls
from Newcastle to say she is in love with Alan, who wants a divorce.
June
Jubilee Day: HGV driver Stan Ogden leaves the float lights on
all night and drains the battery, leaving the cast of Britain
Through the Ages stranded. It includes Annie as Elizabeth
I, Ena as Victoria, Eddie as a cave man, Ken as Sir Edmund Hilary
and Albert as Sherpa Tensing.
Ena, baby-sitting Tracy while Ray and Deirdre spend a weekend
in London, falls and hits her head. Thc distraught Langtons return
to find her in hospital, and Tracy with the Bishops at Nº3.
Shop steward Ivy Tilsley threatens a strike when Mike Baldwin
introduces a three-day week.
July
Ena's caring neighbours organize an hourly rota to look after
her, but she stubbornly throws them all out. Bet and Renee are
chatted up by two crooks who arrange to meet them at a non-existent
house in Ashton. In their absence the pair steal £400 worth
of stock from the Corner Shop.
Trouble at the Rovers: Brewery painters, sent to give the pub
a face-lift, are sacked for doing a 'foreigner' at the Bishops.
Draymen walk out in protest, and there is no beer. Stan and Eddie
brew their own in the bath, and a worried Hilda pulls the plug
out - before discovering that it is not illegal.
August
Betty Turpin storms out of the Rovers after being wrongly suspected
of stealing £45. Mavis, nursing her Aunty Edie who is recovering
from a heart attack, reluctantly agrees to a night out with boyfriend
Derek Wilton, and returns to find Edie dead.
Ken is winched by helicopter from a gulley while hiking on Kinder
Scout. Annie agrees to buy a carpet, monogrammed AW, from Eddie
Yeats at £5 a yard. Stan sells the Ogden's tandem for £7,
then discovers it is worth £100 as an antique. Eddie buys
it back but leaves it in a derelict house which is demolished,
burying it completely.
September
Ken limps home with torn ligaments. Annie invites her Lady Licensed
Victuallers friends to a sherry party to show off her new carpet.
To her mortification it has come from the local bingo hall. AW
stands for Alhambra, Weatherfield.
Warehouse van driver Steve Fisher takes Gail and Suzie on a delivery
to Southport. The van sinks on the sands and Mike Baldwin threatens
him with the sack. Len and Rita row over her singing career. She
agrees to one more date at the Gatsby.
October
Hilda wins a 'Second Honeymoon Competition' run by Loving Cup
Shandies. Her slogan: 'Be a mistress as well as a wife, and your
husband will be a boyfriend.' Deirdre is molested under the Viaduct,
but refuses to report the attack to the police.
The factory girls, under Ivy Tilsley, threaten to strike when
Mike Baldwin promotes his new girlfriend. A drunken Alf Roberts
proposes to Renee Bradshaw in the Gatsby, and she accepts. Alf,
sobering rapidly, talks his way out of it.
November
Annie, celebrating forty years at the Rovers, meets a con-man
who purports to be one of the Beaumonts of Clitheroe, and sends
him packing. Stan and Hilda enjoy their 'Second Honeymoon' prize
- a night in a four-star hotel with £25 to spend.
A stressful Deirdre walks out on Ray and the baby, and contemplates
suicide on a motorway parapet. A lorry driver stops to ask directions,
and brings her back to reality. She returns wearily home. Derek
Wilton offers to take out a joint mortgage with Mavis.
December
Christmas: Mike Baldwin throws a party at the factory and Hilda,
thinking it is fancy dress, goes as Charlie Chaplin. Alf and Albert
are invited to Annie Walker's for Boxing Day lunch, where they
dine cautiously on Old English Jellied Rabbit. Rita invites Elsie
for a 'slimming meal', while Eddie Yeats tries to sell a dubious
consignment of late turkeys.
Fred Gee, thinking Len is two-timing Rita, knocks him out at Deirdre's
New Year party, breaking her prized coffee table. Derek Wilton
pulls out of the joint mortgage and says he is being transferred
to Birkenhead. Mavis suspects his mother is behind it.