CorrieLiz
‘Bill was wonderful ...I suspect she is up there having a drink with him right now
SOAP LEGEND’S WIDOWER ON STARS’ SPECIAL BOND: PAGES 16&17
AS the bubble-permed battleaxe of Coronation Street, she left a nation transfixed. Vera Duckworth’s acid-tongued putdowns of her hapless husband Jack also provided some of TV’s most golden moments.
But the actress who played her was a world away from a character now immortalised in soap legend.
That’s the moving testimony of the man who knew Liz Dawn better than anyone – her husband of 52 years.
“Liz was once quoted as saying I’d never have put up with her nagging like Jack did on the street,” Donald Ibbetson says.
“But the truth is I never had to worry because my Liz wasn’t like Vera. She just wasn’t cut that way.”
Yesterday in the Sunday Mirror, Don revealed Liz’s final, moving words. “You don’t know how much I loved you, Don. I did from the very first moment we met,” she told him before she died on September 25, aged 77.
He also told how the family raised a toast to her just hours after she died during a celebration of her life in the lounge. Now, in a new interview, the 77-year-old widower reveals a series of secrets about his remarkable life by the side of the soap queen.
In it, he tells of the friendship he enjoyed with the late Bill Tarmey, who played her Corrie hubby Jack. And he tells how he takes solace in the fact they will probably be keeping each other company in heaven.
Sitting in the Manchester flat where Liz saw out her final days, Don is surrounded by pictures of his beloved late wife. It is the place where, since her retirement from ITV’s Corrie in 2008, Don lovingly acted as Liz’s carer.
It’s also the place where her family held a vigil as she slipped away. It boasts a stunning outlook and is close to a school. “Liz used to like watching the kids down there playing on the school field,” says Don.
“She used to get really upset if she saw any of the little ones playing on their own. She hated that. But that’s the kind of person she was.
“She was a carer. Liz was a much softer person than Vera. Quieter, calmer, easy going. We weren’t like Jack and Vera!
“Liz never involved herself in the money side of marriage like Vera. She left all that to me. But I knew where I stood with Liz.”
With a smile, he adds: “What was our secret to a long and happy life together? Put it this way – any man who thinks he is the boss in a marriage has got a very clever wife.”
It was largely down to Don’s encouragement that Liz went on to have the career she did.
He urged her to sing in the 1960s and 1970s in clubs near their Leeds home. Don also put Liz forward for acting auditions, which led to her being cast in a play called Kisses At 50.
She later won a part in Z-Cars and a string of theatre roles.
But her big break came when she joined Corrie in 1974.
It was a role that didn’t just transform Liz’s life, it changed Don’s too. “Seeing Liz on Corrie made my heart burst with pride,” he says. “Liz was over the moon. We both were. Those first few episodes were like a dream and something we’d never imagined. Seeing her on the telly alongside the likes of Pat Phoenix blew me away. “We’d watch the episodes together. Then, whenever we went out, everyone would stop Liz and I. When she introduced me as her husband people used to give me funny looks. They were like: ‘He’s not Jack!’ “In the end Liz and I used to joke about it. The kids used to get it too: ‘Is Jack really your dad,’ they’d say.’ But Bill was a wonderful man.”
Don’s favourite Corrie moments involving Liz always had Bill in them.
“Two scenes stick in my mind,” he recalls. “The one where they are moving house and she shoves him.
“And the episode where their bed falls through the ceiling. When Princess Diana met Liz she mentioned that and how much she’d loved it.”
The royals seemed to like Liz, says Don: “When she met the Queen to get her MBE, Liz was dressed so smartly compared to her ‘Vera’ outfits that the Queen asked her if she’d come in disguise.
“Liz had an ability to talk to anyone and connect.”
Off-screen, Liz and Don became firm friends with Bill and his wife
Liz was a carer... a much softer person than Vera, more easy going and quieter
After Liz filmed her final Corrie scenes, we drove off ... she never went back
Alma. They enjoyed holidays and nights out together. Bill was a huge support to Liz when she was diagnosed with emphysema in 2001. She immediately quit smoking having previously puffed 30-a-day for more than 30 years.
Doctors gave Liz just five years to live. But she remained on Corrie until that tearjerking scene when she died in her armchair in 2008.
“Things just became harder and harder for Liz to stay on Corrie,” Don says.
“She was breathless all the time. She made sure she was on set before her scene was filmed so she didn’t have to rush from her dressing room. And she avoided stairs. She hated them. She did all she could but in the end it became too hard to carry on.”
Yet Don says she didn’t look back after being killed off in the soap. “After Liz filmed her final scenes, I picked up her up in the car at Granada Studios. She got in, gave me a kiss and we drove away.
“She never went back. For years Bill would tell her to pop in. But Liz never did. She watched it on the telly but it was a chapter that had closed. Instead she focused on spending more time with family. Family always came first for her.” Liz didn’t just spend time with her own four children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She went on to raise more than £1million for charity. She also supported Bill Tarmey’s son Carl, who is suffering from inoperable brain cancer. When Bill died in 2012, Liz continued to speak to Carl. And the support continued when his mother Alma passed away two years ago. “Carl called me a couple of days ago and said how sad he was to hear Liz had died,” Don says. “He said having Liz in his life was like having two mothers.”
Don says the family have been watching old clips of Liz on YouTube since she died. “It helps us smile and remember her. Our favourites are the clips of the out-takes of her on Blankety Blank with Paul O’Grady. Another we adore is a sketch with Hale and Pace.
“We are lucky to have so many amazing memories of Liz to look back on. She lived three lives in one and now we are able to reflect on it.”
And despite his grief, Don says he takes comfort in the fact he believes Liz is being looked after well.
“I suspect she’s up there now with Bill having a drink, chewing his ear off and waiting for me,” he smiles.
“I know he will take good care of her – until we are together again.”