In the 1960s my mother and I would watch Coronation Street happily and discuss the characters as if they were real. Nothing much has changed in the Street: the cobble stones are there, Ken Barlow is still there and the Rovers Return is certainly there.
I always found it odd that my mother accepted totally the three old ladies having their milk stout in the snug over 45 years ago but didn’t think that a woman should go into any of the many pubs in Dalkey. Things have certainly changed in that area. I look around me in south Dublin wondering if everyone has had an affair or at least a one-night stand with almost everyone else in the neighbourhood.
I was hugely proud to be mentioned in it a few times. On the last occasion Blanche died and left her collection of my books to Ken Barlow, who received them with huge horror and disdain. But I didn’t care. I was in Corrie – would my mother have been astounded?