Roll up! Hilda’s curlers up for auction
THE humble housewife’s outfit made famous by Jean Alexander as Hilda Ogden in Coronation Street is going up for sale.
The auction will take place in Southport, where Jean lived until she died last October, aged 90.
Her family have now decided to put some of her prized possessions up for sale, including her famous curlers, headscarf and pinny.
Sonia Hearld found the original version of Hilda’s pink flowered pinny neatly packed away in her late aunt’s wardrobe.
Jean, who played Hilda Ogden for 23 years, had attached a hand-written label which read: “Hilda’s curlers, headscarf and pinny”.
The much-loved star had held onto the items after leaving Corrie in 1987 as they had belonged to her mum, Ellen Frances Hodgkinson.
And she had used them to bring the character of Hilda to life when she was first beamed into the nation’s living rooms in 1964.
Sonia, 64, told the Mirror: “She had kept them carefully in the top of her wardrobe. They had belonged to her mother, my grandma.
“Jean was not an overly sentimental person. But obviously they were a link to her mum and a link to her character.
“It is just what ladies of the era wore for cleaning up around the house. You wore a pinny, you only dressed up for best.
“You would stand on your doorstep chatting to your neighbour with your pinny on, because you scrubbed your doorstep every morning.”
Jean took the pinny and curlers she had seen her mum wear around their home in Toxteth, Liverpool, to mould Hilda’s image.
Sonia said: “The scriptwriters wrote a character but Jean filled it out by calling to mind the various people she had met over her life, particularly the Liverpool housewives she would have come across growing up.
“I know she brought to all her character little snippets of people she observed if she was on a bus or on a train.”
The pinny and curlers are part of the sale next month of some of Jean’s best loved mementoes.
But there are no flying ducks as the ornaments from Stan and Hilda’s “muriel” belong to the ITV props department.
Jean, who was also famous for her role as Auntie Wainwright in BBC TV’s Last Of The Summer Wine, was loved by millions and the auction is expected to generate huge interest.
She never married and had no children so the sale is being organised by her nieces, Sonia and her sister, Valerie Thewlis, 60.
Sonia said: “We have chosen our personal favourites which hold special memories of Jean and we thought we would give her fans an opportunity of a treasured memento of ‘Hilda’.
“There are all her TV awards, including a 2005 award when, in a UK TV Times poll, she was voted the nation’s greatest alltime soap character and a 1987 Bafta TV Award nomination for Best Actress.”
And she added: “She was quietly quite proud of herself and what she achieved. As she always said, ‘I’ve not done bad for a girl from Liverpool 8’.”
Also up for auction will be Jean’s large Teddy bear, Ambrose, bought for her 4th birthday, and poetry signed by former poet laureate John Betjeman, who was a huge fan of Jean.
A presentation brick from the original Rovers Return pub, jewellery, figurines, books, ornaments, photographs from her career and the rest of her household possessions will also be sold.
Sonia added: “Jean left bequests to a number of her favourite charities and a percentage of the proceeds of the sale will be sent to them.”
The sale on May 17 will take place at the Royal Clifton Hotel, handled by Outhwaite and Litherland.
When Jean left Corrie in 1987, fans, including Sir Laurence Olivier and Sir John Betjeman, started “Save Hilda” campaigns. Her final touching scene in the Rovers Return attracted more than 27 million viewers.
In 1988 she made a guest appearance in Last Of The Summer Wine as Auntie Wainwright, the money-grabbing junk shop owner.
But she was so popular she became a regular in the show until it ended in 2010.