Corrie Antony is a life-saver

CORONATION STREET’S Antony Cotton says he saved the life of a homeless man.

Antony, 42, was in the middle of filming Dancing On Ice when he discovered a message on Facebook from a man pleading for help. He phoned him back and spent the next nine days trekking around housing associations and charities.

“It’s a monstrous beast being homeless,” said the actor who is actually filming a storyline in which his character Sean Tully ends up homeless. “He did it for six months and it nearly killed him. He was so thin – about eight stone. Previously he was a massive lad.

“He says, ‘I think I would have died’ because he was so cold. He was so fragile. That’s a really sobering thought. It happens very quickly.”

Antony contacted charities in the area and put up the man – who was sleeping in a tent in a stairwell in January – in a Travelodge until he was housed.

He explained: “Because I’ve got a big gob I was able to knock on doors and say, ‘I don’t give a s*** about whether someone else has an appointment. We are not leaving until it’s sorted!’”

Antony eventually found the man a room in a private house. “I realised that to go to these charities – and he had to go every day – was a 12-mile walk in that freezing weather. It’s no wonder people give up.

“Because I was in my car we shot between places and got everything in place. He now has employment with a construction company.

“The one thing I hope people take from this is the thought, ‘God, that could happen to anyone’.”