Anne Kirkbride was too good for Coronation Street and would’ve been a huge hit in the US, says former co-star Ken Farrington

ANNE KIRKBRIDE was one of Coronation Street’s best-loved stars.

But her former Corrie co-star Ken Farrington, who knew her better than most having been unable to get away from her in 1974 thought she was too good for the soap.

Not only were “Billy Walker” and the then “Deirdre Hunt” engaged to be married in Weatherfield, but the pair were working together away from the studio, too.

As Ken explains: “I used to do lunchtime theatre in Manchester with Graham Haberfield, who played Jerry Booth, and I directed some plays and acted in others as I was fed up hanging around with not much to do in the scripts.

“I directed Anne in one play and I thought she was too good for the Street, to be honest. I thought she was talented and if she’d gone to the States, she’d have been quite big in films.

“She was superb and I kept saying: ‘Leave, go to America and make a name for yourself.’

“I also enjoyed Billy and Deirdre’s relationship and there’s a story behind that. I was due to come out of the Street, but the soaps all liked to have a spring wedding for some reason, with Anne as the bride.

I didn’t want Billy Walker to be the JR of Coronation Street, says Ken Farrington

“They went to Peter Adamson, who played Len Fairclough, but he said he didn’t want to get married because it affects your fan ratings if you’re married or single.

“Nobody else wanted to do it, so I said I didn’t mind, but they said: ‘Your contract ends in about six months and we don’t want to tie you up to somebody and find you’re leaving.’

“So I said: ‘Talk to my agent and we’ll extend the contract perhaps.’ My agent later said it had been agreed I’d stay on for another year and that they’d do the wedding.

“When it came to negotiate, they said they couldn’t give me any more money, but what they could do was give me paid holidays.

“Doris Speed, who played my on-screen mum Annie Walker, was on them and she said that was the thing to go for.

“The accounts department refused to do it, so I didn’t sign the contract — but they didn’t tell the producer. As we were nearing the date the producer said: ‘We’ve got the church for the wedding’ and I said: ‘I leave in a month!’

“He said: ‘But you promised to stay’ and I said: ‘You promised paid holidays,’ so after a bit of argy-bargy, I agreed to stay for another three weeks while they rewrote the script and did away with the wedding.

“Anne stayed right to the end, but I thought she was talented. There’s a lot of talent on the Street that is untapped and it doesn’t grow, and there’s a lot of lack of talent as well!

“Sarah Lancashire and Anne Reid, they leave and everyone sees they’re amazing actors, but not everybody can do that and that’s one of the reasons why I kept coming out, because I wanted to do other things.

“Being in and out allowed me to keep my hand in the theatre and I directed the Manchester Youth Theatre for seven years.

“I used to do a lot of theatre work with provincial theatres, the RSC, I toured India, I had a much more varied career than I would have done if I’d stayed in it, but I would have been a wealthy man.”

Speaking of wealth, Jack Howarth was one of Ken’s best pals on the Street and it seems he shared a trait with his character, Albert Tatlock.

“There’s quite a bit about Jack in my autobiography, he was very tight-fisted!” laughs Ken.

“He’d go to extraordinary measures to save a few pence. He was one of a type, Wilfred Pickles was the same, that music hall era which Jack was part of.

“They lived from hand to mouth, so when they did make it, they clung onto their money like nobody’s business.

“He was quite loveable, but he was so tight!

“One of the things that gets up my nostrils about showbusiness is that everyone’s ‘so lovely’, when it isn’t like that.

“I found Coronation Street like a family in that there are ones you like and the ones you don’t like.”

Long before Corrie, Ken appeared in the National Youth Theatre’s first production, Henry V, in 1956.

He recalls: “Richard Burton came to our first night at Toynbee Hall with Sir Ralph Richardson, and they came backstage and chatted with us.

“I’ve got a photo with Burton and Richardson and the cast.”

But Ken was more starstruck when he met Sir Stanley Matthews after playing him in the 90s.

“I was very keen on football, I played soccer for a showbiz XI and in the Southern Amateur League and when I was at school,” says Ken.

“My great hero was Sir Stanley Matthews and when I got to play him in his life story, I got to know him quite well.

“He was a lovely guy.”

While no-one has yet played a major role in all three of Britain’s top soaps, Ken’s keen to complete the set after Corrie and Emmerdale.

“I’ve never done EastEnders, but I’d love to do the hat-trick. Mind you, I was in Family Affairs,” he recalls.

“In the book that’s when I get my most angry as Family Affairs was quite a soap and in the first year, it was nominated for awards, which is quite unusual as soaps usually take quite a while to bed in, and we all went up.

“But then Brian Park, a producer who was on the Street for some time and went round claiming he was ‘the axe man’ as he got rid of a number of important characters and wanted to give himself this aura of being a tough guy, came and started messing about with Family Affairs and ruined it.

“I’m quite vitriolic about him.”

Ken Farrington’s autobiography Hush My Mouth is available from www.fantompublishing.co.uk