No1 for telly ++ No1 for telly + DON’T LET ME DIE, BEGS CORRIE KEN

CORRIE legend Bill Roache is calling on bosses to let him stay in the soap for its 60th birthday celebrations next summer.

Rumours are swirling his character Ken Barlow will be killed off in a shock storyline this Christmas.

But Bill, 87, who has been in the show since its first episode in 1960, is desperate to help it mark the milestone.

He said: “I like being Ken Barlow and I like being a part of the Coronation Street family and success story, so I have no plans to call it a day.

“I certainly hope I will be there for the 60th. I am looking forward to the party. Having been there at the very start, I would certainly like to still be there 60 years later.

“But I am never sure where Ken is going. He has had many adventures and I hope he will be going strong and having some good storylines in the years ahead.”

Bill is the world’s longestserving male star in a continuous role but plays down the achievement.

He said: “I wouldn’t dream of walking around wearing a T-shirt saying I am the longest-serving actor in a role in the world. I never think about such things.

“As far as my acting life is concerned, I just seek to do my best whenever I am in front of the cameras – like everyone else who is, or has ever been, in Coronation Street.

“There have been many great characters and many great actors ever since the start. Violet Carson as Ena Sharples is still lovingly remembered to this very day.” Bill is the only star to have been in Corrie since it began – and he has vivid memories of the early days.

He said: “It has been an amazing journey really. When we started nobody expected we would still be going all these years later.

“I don’t think we gave any thought to the fact that we were starting what was to become such an iconic TV series. “We were just doing what we thought was going to be an ongoing series and we were just happy to be making an unusual drama.” Bill said Corrie capitalised on the trend for gritty drama in the 1960s. He went on: “When Coronation Street started there was a move in the film world towards what can only be described as realism. “There were films like Look Back In Anger and the trend was to present life as it really was, rather than the glittering Hollywood approach that we were more used to seeing in our cinemas. “Coronation Street was to be the TV equivalent of that. It was a cutting-edge series which presented the people and their lives in the terraced houses of towns and cities.

“The realism meant that there would be agreements and disagreements, romances, problems and laughter.

“It was not a documentary, so we all needed to be character actors. And it worked.”