KEN BARLOW was a student hellbent on getting as far from Coronation Street as he could when viewers first met him.
Fifty-six years on, he’s still there.
And what a torrid time of doomed affairs, failed marriages, bitter rivalry and terrible parenting it has been.
The list of suspects when he was pushed down the stairs recently included three of his kids and two grandchildren —and that says a lot.
We have to ask, Ken, where did it all go wrong?
Well, right from the start.
From episode one, Ken had liberal views that didn’t extend to embracing his working-class roots.
Middle-class girlfriend Susan Cunningham called at his home and he was mortified at the gulf he perceived between her and his own family.
They soon parted.
It would be almost 50 years before Ken discovered their relationship never really ended. More of that later!
Ken soon settled down with Wife One, Valerie Tatlock.
They became proud parents of twins Peter and Susan, though Ken’s pride was tempered with boredom and an occasional romantic liaison.
Valerie demanded a fresh start and, in 1971, Ken accepted the offer of a teaching post in Jamaica.
Tragedy struck the night before their departure. Val, hurrying to get ready for their leaving do, was electrocuted, killed by a faulty hairdryer.
Ken struggled bringing up the twins, now aged six, alone, and they were shipped up to Scotland to his mother-in-law.
He did want his children back, though. Wife Two, Janet Reid, had other ideas. She did her best to pack them off to boarding school, but the twins had minds of their own.
They chose to stay in Scotland, only really returning years later — as emotionally-stunted young adults.
It was the end of Ken’s marriage, though. He later refused Janet’s appeal for a reconciliation and she committed suicide.
Ken’s subsequent string of relationships included a fling with Rita, a proposal to Elaine Perkins and five weeks living with Wendy Nightingale.
Deirdre Langton took on the mantle of Wife Three in 1981.
She came complete with sweet little daughter Tracy.
Ken had to refresh his parenting skills. Tracy seemed happy enough, even if she did spend too much time in her room “listening to her tapes”.
But cracks in Ken and Deirdre’s marriage soon began to show.
For one thing, she wanted a baby. He did not. Deirdre embarked on That Affair with old flame Mike Baldwin that would have repercussions down the decades.
The whole nation held its breath when she confessed.
Who can forget how Mike dashed to her side only to be thrown out by Ken, who ended up with his hands round Deirdre’s throat?
Remarkably, the couple decided to give their marriage another go.
It wouldn’t be the last time. But Mike had a perfect revenge. He married Ken’s daughter Susan.
She was 20 and Mike over 20 years her senior. A father figure perhaps? Ken forbade the match, but Susan followed her heart, making Mike Ken’s much-loathed son-in-law.
But Ken was right. Susan was too young and regretted acquiescing to Mike’s desire for a child.
When she became pregnant, she said she had an abortion.
The marriage was over. But Ken’s relief that Mike was out of his family proved ill-founded. Susan had lied.
She fled and gave birth to Mike’s son Adam.
Ken and Deirdre’s marriage rattled on with affairs on both sides.
Things got so bad, divorce was inevitable. One New Year’s Eve, only Bet Lynch’s friendly counsel stood between Ken and all the paracetamol he had lined up.
From there, the only way was up and the continuing Barlow-Baldwin feud put the fight back into Ken. They even had punch- ups. Five, to be exact.
Mike beat Ken in the battle for Alma Sedgewick’s affections, but Ken scored points of his own with his liaison with Maggie, mother of Mike’s son Mark.
However, it was hairdresser Denise Osbourne who proved a more indelible “significant other” for Ken.
In 1995, he became a dad all over again when Denise gave birth to his son Daniel.
What a ticking time bomb he’d turn out to be. Ken looked after Daniel on his own when Denise abandoned him, but she returned and whisked him away.
Ken and Mike later actually took time out from battling.
They successfully combined forces in their campaign to “Free the Weatherfield One” when Deirdre was falsely imprisoned for fraud.
Ken and Deirdre were reunited, but it was a greater shock that powerfully refuelled the old family feud.
Susan returned in 2001 with her sudden announcement that she had concealed the birth of Mike’s son Adam from her dad — and just about everyone.
The secret was out. Mike pursued Susan and she was killed in a car crash as she fled. Ken’s grief and anger seared as he endured having his grandson being placed in the legal custody of his nemesis, Mike.
Their animosity would never abate. Years later, Mike suffered complications resulting from Alzheimer’s.
He collapsed on the cobbles, cradled in arch-enemy Ken’s arms, adamant to his dying breath Deirdre still loved him.
Ken had lost Susan, but he still had Tracy. However, being brought up amidst Ken and Deirdre’s mud-slinging, affairs and point-scoring had morphed her into Toxic Tracy.
It can’t quite let her off from selling her own baby daughter Amy to Roy Cropper, though.
Or for her cold-blooded murder of former lover Charlie Stubbs. As Tracy was locked up, Ken could only despair.
Son Peter hasn’t been a great source of joy either.
Ken’s moralising clearly had no chance to rub off in all those years of long-distance parenting.
Peter grew up to be an alcoholic bigamist gambler.
He, too, was convicted of murder — though, unlike Tracy, he was innocent.
Peter neglects his own son Simon, who has turned into an adolescent with anger issues.
In 2010, a new chapter of fatherhood opened for Ken when the fifth — or first — Barlow chicken came home to roost.
An old lost letter revealed Ken’s first love Susan had been pregnant when they broke up.
Ken’s “new” son Lawrence, turned out to be a homophobe who couldn’t accept his own son James’s homosexuality.
Ken rejected him. James, however, he welcomed into his home with open arms.
The lad was so grateful, he secretly remortgaged their house to fund a scam and in a tussle, left Grandad Ken unconscious on the floor!
What a family. What a dad. Deirdre’s sudden death in 2015 and Ken’s later stroke rendered him vulnerable.
It’s little wonder the vultures were gathering.
In the end, as we all know, it was youngest son Daniel who sent the Barlow patriarch down that flight of stairs.
Abandoned at 15 by mum Denise, he’d struggled by, alone in the world. The comfort he found back in Coronation Street was not enough.
Proud Ken, elated his son was going to Oxford University, meddled when he learned the lad’s girlfriend was pregnant.
He pressurised her into an abortion so Daniel wouldn’t give up his place.
Daniel found out and lashed out, armed with a poetry book.
Poor Ken. He has worked as a school teacher, newspaper editor and chip fryer.
By his own reckoning, he was too good for Deirdre and yet not good enough for Susan.
He is stuck in Weatherfield, caught between the poles of his pride in himself and his shame at his origins.
And what a goldmine of gripping drama he has been for more than a half a century.
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