Phyllis goes in to clean Des' house, and finds Vicky and Steve
together in the kitchen, Vicky is in her dressing gown. Later,
in the Rovers, Phyllis is just about to tell Maude Grimes this
gossip, when Vicky overhears and bribes Phyllis not to tell anyone
by offering her a double whisky (twice!). Well, Vicky has accepted
Steve McDonald's proposal of marriage. (Is it love, or is it money?)
Steve shows her an engagement ring he has bought and Vicky persuades
him to give her the ring, Steve agrees as long as she promises
not to wear it or to tell anyone about the engagement yet. Raquel
organises a 21st birthday party in the Rovers for Andy and Steve,
and as everyone raises their glasses to the twins, Vicky announces
that she and Steve are engaged and shows off the ring. The look
on Bet's face is great, and poor Fiona walks out on her own. Bet
calls Alec, who comes back to the Street blaming Bet for not looking
after Vicky properly. He wonders why Bet hadn't seen the engagement
coming, but Bet puts her foot down with Alec. She tells him that
she is really pleased to see him, because now it makes her realise
that she is much better off on her own! Alec seems happy to be
back and to see Bet, but Bet is very cool towards Alec. They are
both worried about Vicky and Steve, Bet tells Alec that Steve
McDonald is after Vicky's money and that's the only reason why
they are engaged. Steve and Vicky decide they don't want a long
engagement and arrange the wedding at the registry office for
Wednesday this week. They tell Liz, who is shocked. Liz and Jim
then go to the Rovers to tell Bet and Alec about the wedding and
of course they are both really surprised too. However, there is
no sign of Vicky and Steve, they have gone to spend a couple of
nights in a hotel before the wedding. When Steve protests that
he doesn't have a change of clothes, Vicky tells him they will
buy some more.
Jack visits Cliff's house and finds Cliff's wife's brother there,
who is very angry and upset. Seems he never liked Cliff and blames
him for the death of his sister. The house is a rented house and
it turns out that the rent is in arrears. Jack and Vera go to
Cliff's funeral, and Jack comes back with Cliff's camel hair coat
and scarf (the one that Cliff always wore when he stayed with
them).
Deidre comes back from Morocco and stays with the McDonalds. She
talks to Emily about Samir's funeral, how she wasn't allowed to
attend (women can't) but felt very accepted and loved by his family.
Emily starts to cry as she hasn't said good-bye to Samir. Deidre
is now desperate to have her house sold, she tells Mike that if
Ken is interested in buying it then he is to sell it to him. So,
in the Rovers, Mike greets Ken at the bar and tells him that Deidre's
house is his if he wants to buy it. Ken is gobsmacked. Mike Baldwin
takes Deidre to an old Victorian style house he has bought which
has been converted into flats, and offers one of the flats to
Deidre on nominal rent if she will act as a caretaker for the
building. Mike is very understanding of Deidre's situation and
is very nice to her. Deidre doesn't know if she will stay around
Coronation Street and she still doesn't want to see Tracey. She's
now gone to her mothers and told Mike she will think about the
flat.
Brian, Alf and Audrey's ex-chauffeur arranges to see Audrey privately
and takes her out to lunch. He tells her he knows about the missing
money from the Mayor's fund, as he has overheard people talking
from the back of the limousine when he was chauffeuring. Turns
out that Harry Potts (the ex-Mayor) and a lady from the finance
department of the council have been conspiring to defraud the
mayor's fund for some time.
It's the day of Vicky and Steve's wedding and both of them are
in a swish hotel suite. While Vicky is so excited about the wedding
that she is jumping up and down on the bed singing "We're
getting married, we're getting married" (I kid you not),
Steve takes it all in his stride, it's just another day. When
they arrive at the registry office, Liz, Jim and Andy McDonald
are there to meet them. The small wedding party is just about
to walk up the stairs to the registry office when Alec and Bet
come rushing in to stop them!. Alec handles the situation well,
he has a cunning plan :-) He offers to pay for Vicky to have a
full church wedding with all the trimmings, a wedding with all
her friends and family around her. You can see that Vicky is thinking
seriously about this offer while Steve is just keen to get up
to the registry office and have done with it. Alec eventually
talks Vicky around to postponing the registry office wedding in
favour of a big white, church wedding and everyone leaves. Vicky
and Steve go back to their hotel suite, not sure what to do with
themselves. Steve, as you can imagine, is disappointed, but Vicky
wants to quickly arrange her church wedding.. Alec dislikes Steve
McDonald immensely and vows that Vicky won't marry Steve McDonald.
Bet is pleased with Alec's decision, which gives both Vicky and
Steve time to think about their actions, but she's not so happy
that he's deceiving Vicky. Alec offers to take Vicky to Southampton
to give her time to think, she agrees to go with him but still
wants to discuss the wedding, and still intends to get married
to Steve. Alec even offers Steve a job on a cruise liner, emphasizing
the amount of very rich women that travel alone on these cruises....
but Steve realizes it to be a plot to get him away from Vicky
and turns the offer down.
Brian (the ex-chauffeur) tells Alf the full story about how he
overhead Harry Potts and a lady from the accounts department plan
to defraud the mayor's fund. Alf immediately goes with Brian to
see the council chief, where all is revealed and both Harry Potts
and the lady from the accounts department are found out!
Ken asks Denise if she wants to move into No. 1 with him and Danny.
At first she doesn't know what to say and Ken gets upset with
her, but then she agrees. Denise goes to No. 1 to have a look
around the house but Trisha refuses to let her in. Trisha realises
that Mike Baldwin is serious now in his attempt to end her tenancy
agreement in the house, and she enlists the help of Percy (by
pretending she is a poor defenseless woman afraid for her own
safety) and Percy installs window locks and door locks in the
house. When Ken, Denise and Baldwin meet outside of No. 1 to look
around the place, they find they can't gain access to the house.
Vera is in the house with Trisha and they both shout at Baldwin
from the bedroom window, which of course attracts quite a crowd
in the street. Baldwin threatens Trisha with all sorts of stuff,
tells her that he has every right to gain entry to the house as
her tenancy agreement has ended and she has received the required
amount of notice to vacate the house. But, Trisha won't move out.
Jamie then pours water out of the bedroom window all over Baldwin's
head!! (Will Mike ever live this down?)
Deidre is back in the Street and living with the McDonalds. She
eventually goes to see Tracey who is spending some time with Ken,
Denise and the baby. Denise and Ken leave mother and daughter
alone for a while, and Deidre tells Tracey that she still loves
her.
Well, Jack gets a letter from Cliff's solicitors asking both Jack
and Vera to go to visit the solicitor. Jack assumes this can only
mean that Cliff has outstanding debts which must be paid by Jack
and Vera. However, this is not the case. It turns out that there
is 30,000 pounds insurance money and as Jack is in Cliff's will,
Jack and Vera receive this money! So, after a celebratory drink
in the Rovers they go about planning a holiday abroad. They go
to Cliff's house to try to take anything of value which can be
sold, but in the end they take a few things and sell the rest
to a chap who deals in house clearances. The things that Jack
and Vera have taken, they plan to sell on a market stall to pay
for their holiday to Fuengirola.
Josie gets mugged by a druggie whom she refuses to let see a doctor
when he comes into the health centre where she works. This shakes
her up pretty badly so Don looks after her well at his house,
and she's staying there for a few days (could be permanent I think...)
Deidre accepts Mike's offer of a flat and job of caretaker in
his new block of flats. Mike eventually persuades Trisha to move
out of No. 1 by offering her one of his flats in the same block
as Deidre. So, Ken and Denise are ready to move in together into
No. 1 now. Fiona is doing her best to keep her pride after Steve
dumped her for Vicky but she's still hurting. Des tries to chat
her up in the Rovers but she isn't interested.
Alma only finds out about Mike's new block of flats when Deidre
tells Alma she has accepted the job of caretaker. Alma is furious
with Mike for keeping all of this from her, so she wants to state
her independence more and accepts another catering job from the
bloke, Jeff, who offered her the original work in his pub.
Derek and Mavis receive another postcard from the gnome, this
time from Ireland. Derek is thinking Des Barnes is responsible
until he remembers Steve McDonald had been to Ireland, so now
Steve is prime suspect.
Not a very exciting week on the street, but Jack and Vera's money
could lead to a whole new story line. Watch out for a great comic
scene when Jack and Vera are in the solicitor's office, and Jack
sits down on the only chair in the office, leaving Vera to fall
on the floor, by the look on her face this wasn't meant to happen!
And the info from the CS mailing list is that it was a practical
joke, which the actors who play Jack and Vera often play on each
other while filming.
Alec and Vicky come back from Southampton but to Alec's annoyance,
and despite his best attempts to persuade her otherwise, Vicky
is still set on marrying Steve McDonald and has booked the church
for some time in August. Alec overhears Des in the pub telling
Fiona about Steve's debts to Frank Mottram, so Alec goes to see
Frank Mottram to see if he can be of any help to Frank in recovering
any money owed to him by Steve (in other words he wants Steve
out of the picture altogether!). However, Alec tells Frank Mottram
that Vicky has money and that he wants Steve out of her life in
case he uses her money too, and Frank's eyes light up - it looks
like he'll use Vicky to get more money from Steve.
Jack and Vera have gone on holiday to Fuengirola. They take bits
and pieces from Cliff's house to sell on a market stall and raise
a few pounds. An antiques dealer stops by their stall and finds
the top from a valuable vase, they don't have the vase, it went
to the chap from the house clearance firm. Jack visits the chap
to ask for the vase, letting slip that it is worth quite a bit.
The chap tells Jack he'd sold it but of course he hadn't and Jack
and Vera have lost out on that one!
Rita, Sally and the kids have gone away on holiday together, leaving
Kevin at home. The first night that Sally is away, Kevin invites
Curly around to watch a video and have a few beers, it ends up
being a sort of boys party with Jim McDonald, Curly, Kevin and
Martin playing with a car racing set!
Deidre is being pestered by a bloke who lives in the apartment
complex, he does seem a bit creepy but nothing definite has happened
for her to complain about. Jamie is being a little nuisance playing
football and skateboarding in the entrance to the flats. Ken and
Denise move into No. 1 at last and Emily gives Ken a framed photograph
of Uncle Albert to hang on the wall.
