Coronation Street

Jim's York Pub Guide

I can't say I'm an avid fan, but I came across this page on the Net which was worth a reprint.

"Now the next thing you want to do is get a signwriter in. That thing above the door'll have to be changed" - Elsie Lappin to Florrie Lindley, the first line spoken on the Street.

"In darkest Africa they use a set of drums. Here we've got Hilda Ogden. I suppose that's civilisation." - Renee Roberts.

"Talkin' of Rovers, you ought to see the new barmaid, if you can call her that. The first time I saw her I thought it were a jukebox." - Hilda, about Bet Lynch.

"It's all right for you. I haven't broken my duck yet." - Curly, desperate to do it with the lights out, losing his virginity to Shirley Armitage.

"He gets very absorbed in his food does Alf, not to say covered in it." - Audrey Roberts.

"I'm being served up on a platter with a handle in me mouth."
Len Fairclough, offering himself to Rita Littlewood.

"Folk what've wronged yer, stick their name on a bit o' paper, shove it in a knife drawer. Very Theraputic." - Raquel.

"Hilda, will you stop making that row! It's like a lump of coke stuck under the back gate." - Fred Gee, about Hilda's singing.

"When you've made gravy under gunfire you can do anything." - Percy Sugden.

"I'm not the callow youth of yesteryear. I'm a man of steel, honed on the handle of life." - Reg Holdsworth.

"If my wife put her mind to it, she could find reasons why Mary and Joseph were unfit parents." - Don Brennan, about Ivy.

"You've got to hand it to these foreigners. They come over here with two bob in their pockets and before you can turn around, they've got a chain of hotels and nicked all 'us birds." - Ray Langton.

"I can just see out Vera in a hard-hat. It would go with her hard face, wouldn't it?" - Jack Duckworth.

"One of these days, someone's going to tie a knot in that flamin' windpipe of hers." - Vera on Hilda.

"Drinking's a serious business. You gotta keep at it - like training for a football match." - Stan Ogden.

"Common? So much make-up she looks psychedelic." - Annie Walker about her new barmaid, Bet Lynch.

"Her and those pumps go together like Morecambe and Wise." - Len Fairclough's verdict on Bet.

"Three Milk Stouts - and make sure there's no lipstick on the glasses." - Ena Sharples.

"When I've gone, they'll probably take the Rovers facade brick by brick to a museum." - Annie Walker.

"The purpose of football is to score goals, right? Well it's daft, you see. You've got two teams on the field and they're both kicking in opposite directions. Why don't they both kick the same way? Then they can score as many goals as they like." - Raquel.

"I've never heard of fellas queuing up to take your daughter out - and why? Cause she's like her mother, that's why. Got a face like a pint scrubber." - Hilda ogden to Annie Walker.

"What is this fatal attraction I have? Is no woman safe?" - Curly Watts.

"He think's brown bread's white that's gone mouldy." - Vera summing up Jack's attitude to healthy eating.

"She doesn't care what you say about her, she just likes to be talked about." - Des Barnes about Phyllis.

"Does her name sound as though it ought to be over a pawnshop or is it just that I'm prejudiced?" - Annie Walker about Bet Lynch.

"Not many people have been disappointed in life as much as I have." - Mavis Wilton.

27.
"Women want a bloke they can look up to and all they find are wimps."
Alan Bradley.

"They spend more time falling out than breathing." - Audrey about Des and Steph Barnes.

"She's like Boris Karloff after a busy night at the graveyard." - Jack Duckworth about his mother-in-law, Amy Burton.

"The day I have to look like that to attract the fellers is the day I give up the struggle as a female fatale." - Hilda Ogden's reaction to one of Bet Lynch's low-cut blouses.

"It's one thing I'm grateful to my mother for. Calling me Raquel. It may sound like a brand of disinfectant, but at least nobody shortens it." - Raquel.

"A Holdsworth is worth holding on to." - Reg Holdsworth.

"I hope Prince Charles never sets eyes on it." - Mike Baldwin on the Duckworth's Stone Cladding.

"Folk seem to think shifting muck's easy, but it isn't. It's an art." - Hilda Ogden.

If we meet again tonight, she'll find some way to ruin it. She'll get stuck in the bath, or her wheelchair will break down on the hard shoulder of the M62." - Reg Holdsworth about Maureen's Mum, Maud Grimes.

"Just because I'm in a wheelchair they think they can push me around."
Maud about Reg and Maureen.

"You? Where did they find your head? It's not on your shoulders." - Alec Gilroy, on being told by Jack Duckworth that he's been head-hunted by a rival pub.

"I enjoyed a proper war, but this is a bit of a washout isn't it?" - Minnie Caldwell, when the Street is evacuated because of an unexploded bomb found in Albert Tatlock's garden.

"If you want to scratch each other's eyes out, you do it away from here and outside of working hours because while you're behind this bar there are no barmaids and there are no models. There are only bloody ladies. All Right?"
Bet Gilroy breaking up a slanging match between Tanya and Raquel.

"Brian Tilsley is as sensitive as a marble headstone." - Audrey Roberts.

"Let's get this straight, Duckworth, while we've got a few witnesses. I haven't got him, I never had him and i wouldn't want him if he was flaming well gold plated." - Bet, when Vera accuses her of having an affair with Jack.

"You'd swear black was white on a Bible if it would harm me." - Mike Baldwin to Ken Barlow.

"I Don't even qualify for tips, do I? I'll tell you what it is, shall I? Them what do important jobs, your bedroom boys like me, we're ignored. Forgotten. Oh no, it's your pump handles what get all the notice." - Hilda Ogden, commenting on the battle for tips between Bet and Betty.

"Burglars? Your house? Anything worth pinching they'd have to bring with 'em." - Alec Gilroy, comforting the Duckworths.

"It'll be all right when I get sat down, but when I walk my belly rattles." - Albert Tatlock, nursing a hangover.

"Look at her. Really lets the Street down she does." - Hilda Ogden's appraisal shortly after Vera Duckworth's arrival on the Street.

"Are you speaking to me Hilda, or were it just your corsets rubbing together?" - Bet Lynch.

"I'm there to see an old pal under, not enjoy myself. Mind you, if it were Duckworth..." - Alec Gilroy, off to a funeral.

"Elsie Tanner's heart is where a fella's wallet is - and the bigger the wallet, the more heart she's got." - Hilda Ogden.

"Mind me shoes, this gold comes off terrible." - Rita's advice when Len first asked her to dance.

"Me behind a bar. I'm in me element. I'm like Santa Claus in his grotto." - Bet Lynch, applying for the manager's job at the Rovers.

52. "Us buy a telly? I got more chance of getting a proposal off Michael Heseltine." - Hilda Ogden.

53. "He'd skin a flea and then sell it in a vest, would Alf Roberts." - Hilda Ogden

"If she lived in India she'd be sacred." - Jack Duckworth about Vera's mother, Amy.

"I have been the hub of the community. You might even say that I have had my own little Kingdom." - Annie Walker.

"You know, I think it's the life you lead, meself. Well, it's bound to take it's toll in't it? Fags... Booze... Fellers..... ruin a Carthorse would that." - Hilda Ogden on Bet's fading beauty.

"It only takes cars to bring out the barmy in blokes." - Vera when Jack goes out shopping for a car.

"This place is like the village of the damned. No-one seems remotely normal." - Shopkeeper, Brendan Scott.

"You're a machine for driving people round the bend." - Don Brennan to Ivy.

"Have you heard of Capability Brown? Well, you're looking at Hospitality Holdsworth." - Reg, planning a barbeque.

"I only once had to walk in't Ritz Ballroom and I'd be fighting 'em off. Now I could swan in in me nuddy and they'd not give a pause from swilling lager." - Bet.

"There's always something up when Duckworth's about - and it's never profits."
Landlord Alec Gilroy, on barman Jack.

"I suppose so, I suppose so... that's the trouble with you, you're too damn suppository. Now get out there and insert yourself." - Hilda Ogden to Stan.

"That woman should be in perpetual black, like one of them old Greek women - picture of lamin' misery." - Audrey Roberts, about Ivy Brennan.

"She seems to have made a career of making mistakes." - Ivy about Audrey.

"When it comes to fast footwork, he's got Gene Kelly beat." - Jack Duckworth on Alec Gilroy.

"There you go again Hilda. Lowering the rateable value wherever you go." - Elsie Tanner.

"Well, I'm glad you're not blaming your mother." - Maud, in response to Reg's boast that he's a self made man.

"Albert Tatlock is a luxury I really cannot afford - and besides, I don't really like him." - Minnie Caldwell, deciding not to accept Albert's proposal of marriage.

"I've seen gongs in boarding houses less brass-faced than that one." - Vera, about Bet.

"If cleanliness is next to Godliness, I'll make an angel out of you before we're done." - Hilda Ogden, trying to persuade Stan to bath every day.

"Elsie Tanner thinks that everything in short trousers is after her - from boy scouts upwards." - Annie Walker.

"One whiff of the Barbara Cartlands and I'm anybody's." - Denise Osbourne.

"They say the midwife that delivered him is still looking for the scissors." - Bet, about Jack's light-fingered nature.

"Not 'what' - 'who'. Didn't they learn you no grammar at school?" - Hilda Ogden.

"The Duckworth's are primative life forms. If you're talking evolution, they're one step above fungus." - Des Barnes.

"Madman or genius, Betty? I just don't know - and I work with him every day." - Curly Watts, about Reg Holdsworth.

"The nearest I've got to a deposit is when I'm cleaning the pigeons out." - Jack considering buying a new car.

"Come to think of it, I don't think I even said I love me own mother." - Alec Gilroy.

"That Vera Duckworth's about as subtle as a pick-axe handle." - Mike Baldwin.

81.
"Now, now Alec. If you're going to be catty I shall have to see about getting you doctored."
- Bet Gilroy

"It's really most pleasant isn't it? It's not at all like alcohol." - Miss Nugent, trying champagne for the first time.

"Her sort don't like work. They like to find a man who'll do it all for her." - Audrey Roberts about Alma.

"Reg Holdworth'd admire an orang-utan if it wore a short skirt and lipstick." - Rita Sullivan.

"For all we know, Elsie Tanner could be lying in a pool of blood, strangled with one of her 15 deniers." - Hilda Ogden.

"Give him a chance? I wouldn't give him the steam off my tea." - Maud Grimes, about Reg Holdsworth.

"Hey, who is this tart - is she local?" - Stan Ogden, herading Rita Littlewood's arrival in the Street.

"Love me or loathe me, you've got to admit I've got style." - Mike Baldwin.

"They're like stray cats them Duckworths. Invite them in for a saucer of milk and they're asleep in your best chair in front of the fire before you can blink." - Hilda Ogden.

"She's got very masculine tendencies my wife, you know. She'd tell you herself - she'd have loved to play rugby league." - Reg Holdsworth.

"We all need dreams. The trouble is I dreamt mine years ago, luvvie."
- Betty Turpin.

"I'm beginning to think life's too short for cricket." - Raquel.

"You've got to remember that men have been put on this earth for our pleasure and entertainment." - Denise Osbourne.

"It's not enough that you marry 'em, provide for 'em. You're supposed to be able to read their minds so you can keep 'em happy for the rest of their lives." - Mike Baldwin.

"She plays that bar like a finely tuned instrument." - Bet Gilroy, about Tanya.

"You know Des, every time you open your mouth your mental age drops." - Steph Barnes.

"Bet Lynch's place is behind a bar wearing a pair of daft earrings and very little else." - Hilda Ogden.

"I can't help it. I'm drawn to you. It's like magnetism. I'm like a little nail drawn to a lump of iron." - Jack Duckworth, trying to seduce Bet Lynch.

"Marriage is like crossing the Niagara Falls blindfold on a tight-rope." - Reg Holdsworth.

"If you're not being talked about in the pub, you're not worth serving." - Betty Turpin.

"You want to take that chair to Spain with you. Have it entered on your passport as a special peculiarity."
Ena Sharples, to Martha Longhurst about her favourite chair in the snug at the Rovers.

"30 years ago there used to be a Black Maria outside Rovers Return every Sat'd'y night. An' coppers used to walk two at a time down Coronation Street. Annie Walker wouldn't o' lasted five minutes"

Ena Sharples