My 50 year love affair is ending now
It may have started as a childhood infatuation but it developed into a love that has lasted almost 50 years.
Now, I fear, the affection is fading and we are approaching a parting of the ways that shows every sign of becoming permanent.
I can clearly remember the first time we met. It was a Friday evening just before Christmas, 1960, when your mournful chords soared above the nation's airwaves, as the camera panned across a vista of smoky northern chimney-pots.
Coronation Street, you had come into my life and have remained a part of it ever since.
The relationship has survived all the ribald joshing from trendy friends, who regarded you as tawdry and common, yet watched you in secret.
Together we have seen off the selfish attentions of various producers, who used you and abused you as they sought to make a name for themselves at your expense.
They tried to dress you up in fashionable clothes and subjected you to all the latest social fads, but those who knew you well realised that at heart you remained a glorious creation.
You were never the simple, working-class creature some perceived. You were far more subtle and richly-textured; you possessed a depth and humour that evolved naturally from the characters you nurtured and developed.
You never went for the flashy and predictable in a bid to win over new devotees, preferring instead a mature approach to plot and characterisation.
However, I'm sorry to say that you have changed for the worst in recent months.
Since spending too much time in the company of a script supremo called Lucy Gannon, you have become trashy and unattractive.
You are now obsessed with sex, innuendo and sleazy storylines. You will do anything for cheap laughs and have forgotten (or ignored) the fact that your humour was at its best when it poured naturally from seasoned performers, like fine wine from old casks.
You labour tired storylines like Michelle and Ryan, yet allow a character like Vera Duckworth to pass from our lives in one flimsy episode.
Thank you dear Corrie, and goodbye. It was wonderful while it lasted.
Had the tragic events unfolding in Bridgend sprung forth from the mind of Stephen King, they would have been dismissed as one of his more fanciful plots.
Seventeen young people have committed suicide in a little over 12 months, some were related – yet the police insist there is no evidence to show the deaths are linked.
Inevitably one grieving family has blamed the media for showing excessive interest, and there was a depressing irony in the fact that they chose a densely-populated news conference to make their point.
Sadly, it will make no difference. Something inexplicable yet compellingly grim is taking place in this area of south Wales and it is of such constituent parts that news stories are made.
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Weather for St Leonards-on-Sea
Wednesday 30 May 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 12 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 12 C to 19 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: West
