Well I wonder how many of you remember where you were on December 9th, 1960, at around 7 pm. Of course most of you reading this weren't actually born and you would have to be well into your sixties to remember something that would change the history of television.
I was just over eight years of age - pretty much the same age as my grandson is now. I was living at 157 Reepham Road, Hellesdon, just outside Norwich in my parents' greengrocery shop which I'm sure I have mentioned on numerous occasions.
I can still remember that my parents had gone out - I believe to have jabs of some kind and my grandmother came to look after me. So what was this major event - has anyone guessed?
Yes it was the first ever episode of Coronation Street. And today the Soap celebrates its 60th anniversary.
Soaps may come and go but I have always remained loyal to The Street. I watched EastEnders for a while until they all started shouting at each other. I watched Brookside, Neighbours, Crossroads, Home and Away, Hollyoaks and even Emmerdale when it was Emmerdale Farm. But over the years all of them have fallen by the wayside as I became uninterested in plot development.
But from that day in 1960, Corrie has always been with me. Occasionally I have missed an episode or two although, with the advent of video recorders and now downloads, that has been less and less likely. I have stayed with it - fascinated by the plots, the relationships, the twists and turns and slightly banjaxed at the number of serial killings, murders and mayhem over the years.
So there I was at 7 pm, presumably having just had my tea when the signature tune came on for the first time. I remember it as if it was yesterday. I believe my grandmother said something along the lines of "what's this?" Of course I had no knowledge of what it was or that 60 years later I would be writing about it on a thing called the Internet and a column that is now known as a blog but then was completely unheard of.
So to get a flavour of the time, here is a list of television programmes on that day. Remember if you can that there were only two television channels - ITV and BBC. TV sets were as broad as they were long and contained things called valves which took time to heat up when you turned the machine on. There was no such thing as remote controls and programmes shut down late at night and didn't open up again until well into the next morning. There was none of this 200 channels 24x7 nonsense! if you wanted to see a particular programme you just had to wait until it came on and if you missed it, tough luck unless it was repeated another day.
On that day, ITV opened up with schools' programmes and then had an hour's break before re-starting with Huckleberry Hound. Then there was Right to Reply, Douglas Fairbanks (must have been something featuring the actor) and then Coronation Street. This was followed by Emergency Ward Ten which was responsible for my dislike and fear of medical soaps and used to scare me rigid, and then the current affairs programme This Week. Then there was the quiz show Take Your Pick (recently re-introduced by the likes of Ant and Dec and Alan Carr) and Bootsie and Snudge (the follow-up to the Army Game and another that I remember well). I even had the board game of the Army Game.
The BBC came up with a number of programmes in Welsh (yes Welsh) and then Watch With Mother, Gardening Club, Tonight, The Charlie Drake Show, Barnaby Rudge and professional Boxing (wow they were exciting days).
So anyway there we were - me and my grandma Dew - watching this new programme that one critic said would only last three weeks - don't critics just love putting their foot in it, it's the kind of thing I used to do when reviewing books, theatre, music for various publications in the past?
I'm not sure how much notice I took of the programme and may remember the first episode more from re-visiting it over the years than from watching it on that night. But it became a staple part of life. I'm sure at that time I had no idea what the North of England was or where Manchester was.
I believe to start with it was on Mondays and Wednesdays at 7.30 pm. I particularly remember the Wednesday edition as it was the day myself and my mother went to visit my grandmother. When I got to the age of 11 I would get the bus from Tombland, get off in Unthank Road and walk to my grandmother's house in Rupert Street. I'm not sure why I didn't walk from the Norwich School as it really wasn't that far across Chapel Field and Vauxhall Street.
I still remember watching Coronation Street in those days and then walking to St Giles to get the bus home. We must have left around 8 pm and it was a 10 to 15 minute walk to the bus stop. Those were the days when the top end of St Giles was open and buses came round from Unthank Road. We must have got home by around 9 pm. I still remember how tired I was by that time and how I often suffered from travel sickness on the bus.
I do remember sitting on the front seat upstairs, pretending to drive the bus, something I know lots of kids did (and maybe still do).
Anyway back to Coronation Street. Over the years it has both mirrored and made a mockery of life. By mirroring life I mean dealing with many issues such as alcoholism, depression, teenage pregnancy etc etc. By making a mockery I am referring to the ridiculous number of serial killers that have been involved. It's a known fact that if you live in Weatherfield you will end up in prison or in intensive care in hospital or get murdered or, in the case of one of the characters, get married seven times.
The problem over the years is that soaps have to push the boundaries. Once you've had a tram disaster you have to find some way of eclipsing and outdoing that. So you have a factory collapse. Then you have to outdo that.
In the early days of Corrie that certainly wasn't the case. It was a genuine reflection of Northern Life. The themes of the first edition were things that we could all identify with - marriage break-ups, making ends meet, new relationships and a few more basic things. Not much happened in the first episode - it was more setting the scene for the future and introducing the characters and their relationship to each other.
Coronation Street of the 1960s was about life of the 1960s without any particular embellishment. Sadly kept at that level Corrie would soon lose its attraction and so storylines became more gritty and it was the issues rather than the characters that came to the fore.
But that doesn't detract from the fact that there have been some wonderful characters over the years - particularly as far as comedy is concerned (characters such as Hilda and Stan Ogden, Mavis Riley, Jack and Vera Duckworth and many more).
Today much of this comedy seems to have been lost as the soap hurtles headlong into drama. The three main storylines as we approached the 60th anniversary were a court case revolving around domestic violence, the death of a toddler and attempts by a shady developer to raise the street to the ground - something that is obviously doomed to failure.
Of course whilst Corrie has been going on, my life has developed alongside it, although I haven't been divorced or been the victim of a serial killer (well not yet anyway). But I have been to college, taken various jobs, got married, had children and now grandchildren and subsequently retired and Corrie has been with me all the way. That's why I will continue to watch and that's why Coronation Street will be with us for many years to come.
Just one question though. Why are there never any cars parked in the street? Any street like this anywhere in England will have cars double parked the entire length.
Tomorrow I'll be back with some photos of the weekend's visit to Felbrigg Hall.