Strike Factory

Was very sad to hear as I was watching the last of the soaps (Eastenders BBC 3) and getting hyped up about the tennis, only to then that Anne Kirkbride famous for portraying Deidre Barlow had passed away suddenly after short illness, leaving me and the nation in shock and sadness (plus Corrie fans elsewhere in the world from Canada to New Zealand).

She was a big part of the show for over 40 years over 5 decades from 1970s to 2010s, with many lovers but the No.1 was her on and off relationship with Ken Barlow (their first wedding apparently had a higher TV audience than Prince Charles and Dianas wedding in the early 1980s), and her love-hate relationship with daughter Tracy As a child of the 1990s I can recall Deidre’s big storyline around 1997 when she was wrongly sent to prison for fraud after being set up by former lover Jon Lindsay, the nation was such in shock that they started campaigns and petitions to Granada Television to free her, even the then Labour Government and Tony Blair attempted to intervene to free Deidre, eventually bitter enemies and love rivals for Deidre Ken Barlow and Mike Baldwin worked together to free her, and Lindsay was rightly sent behind bars.

 Although not the biggest Coronation Street fan, and admittingly a little frustrated with Deidre recent years, Anne Kirkbride continued to portray the role amazingly, and the above storyline was one of my faves in any soap growing up, and just last summer was honoured to visit the site and house where so many of these great scenes were acted out by Kirkbride , one of  the greatest and iconic soap actors, she will be missed by many especially the Coronation Street crew and cast. RIP