Peter Whalley
DESCRIBED as a “story genius”, script writer Peter Whalley was at the heart of some of Coronation Street’s most sensational storylines, having written 601 episodes of the soap. His output during his 35 years with Corrie meant he had written more episodes than any other writer in the show’s history.
The son of factory supervisor Francis Whalley and his wife Edna, he was born in Colne, Lancashire.
After studying at St Mary’s College, Blackburn, and reading philosophy at Lancaster University, Whalley taught English for 10 years. At the same time he began writing plays, several of which were broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and in 1976 he broke into TV with A Man Of Morality, starring James Grout.
Three years later he joined Granada Television working on Coronation Street. One of his earliest episodes, in 1980, was a slanging match across the Rovers Return bar between Elsie Tanner and Bet Lynch over a man.
Among some of the other memorable scripts he was responsible for was the punch-up between Mike and Ken in the Rovers in 1990, Alan Bradley posing as the late Len Fairclough to defraud his widow Rita out of her house in 1988 and Mavis Wilton leaving the soap in a tear-jerking final episode in 1997.
As well as Coronation Street he also wrote episodes of Albion Market, Revelations, Families, Angels and Jury. He created the family soap Castles, about a couple separating on their 40th wedding anniversary, and penned the ITV drama The Good Samaritan, starring Shane Ritchie, in 2007.
In 2009 he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement award at the British Soap Awards and retired four years later.
Whalley died of cancer and is survived by his second wife Janette and by Matthew and Esther, his children from his first marriage.