My passion for Corrie found me a husband
...and he even popped the question on the cobbles
Asa little girl Glenda Young used to cuddle up on the sofa between her mum and her gran and watch their favourite show – Coronation Street.
Glenda was enthralled by the strong women such as Elsie Tanner and Rita Fairclough, who inspired her life-long passion for the ITV soap.
The show, which celebrates its 60th birthday this week, would change her life – and even find her a husband.
“It was part of family life, sitting down with my mum and my grandma watching it,” she says.
“It just seemed a natural thing to carry on watching a show which brings back so many memories of happy family times.”
Glenda, now 56, started the first Corrie fan website in the early 90s when ITV was not on the internet. And that was where she met her husband Barry – who proposed on the cobbles.
Glenda, of Sunderland, explains: “I started the original corrie.net because there were no fan sites back then.
“It was back in the very start of the internet, so fan groups were finding each other and people overseas in America wanted to know what was going on. So I started writing a Coronation Street weekly update and sending it out all over the world.
“I met Barry in a fan group online. It was in the mid-90s and there was no social media, it was very basic bulletin boards. As a group we all met up in London, and then we had a weekend in Blackpool at the Coronation Street attraction on the prom. I got to know Barry through that.”
They were together for 13 years before Barry, 60, popped the question – in Weatherfield, of course.
“It was a huge surprise,” Glenda says.
“I thought we’d be together for ever and we wouldn’t need to be married.
“We got invited on a tour of the set. He kept insisting I sit on Maxine’s bench and I was like ‘ no, I’ve got to go and see the Kabin or see the Rovers’.
“Eventually, I sat down and he got down on one knee, and I remember thinking he’s going to get his jeans really
Coronation Street has changed my life, I couldn’t be happier
GLENDA YOUNG ON THE IMPACT OF THE ITV SOAP
dirty but then he asked me to marry him.
“Our cake had Hilda’s ducks going up the side. “The wedding march played and, halfway through, it morphed into the Coronation Street theme tune. Everyone burst out laughing. Instead of having table numbers we had characters. Our table was the Rita table.”
Glenda’s passion for Corrie has given her a new career. She runs the Coronation Street blog, which caught the attention of Corrie bosses who brought her on board to bring the characters to life in a range of books.
Once working as a university administrator, she has now written books on Roy and Hayley Cropper, Richard Hillman and Carla Connor.
But her biggest honour was writing the official tribute to Deirdre Barlow after the death of actress Anne Kirkbride. She says: “When I turned it into the publisher I thought if I can do that for Coronation Street, I want to create my own strong women and write fiction.” Glenda landed an eight- book publishing deal to write gritty sagas set in the village where she grew up in the North East – featuring strong women just like her Corrie favourites. She says: “Elsie Tanner was my favourite when I was younger. Now it is Rita, she is a soap icon.
“I can honestly say that Coronation Street has completely changed my life. I could not be happier.”