CORRIE CATH ON SOAP
CORRIE’S Catherine Tyldesley today reveals her real-life sorrow at losing friends to suicide – as fans await one of the soap’s most heartbreaking scenes. Viewers will this week see Shayne Ward’s character Aidan Connor take his life after secretly struggling with depression. Catherine, 34, plays Aidan’s ex-fiancee Eva and fully supports the controversial plot because of the positive impact it could have on real-life sufferers. She admits: “I know several people who have been lost to suicide and I think most people have had some experience of the tragedy of someone taking their own life. “That’s why I am 100 per cent behind this storyline. I feel it is important to highlight it in this way, because I really don’t think it is talked about enough at all. “Men do not talk as much as they should and this shows in the figures of the number of men who, tragically, have taken their own life. Aidan is so loved and it appears everything is going well for him and on the surface he is happy. “I believe this is what happens and it can be very hard to spot the signs someone is struggling to the extent they are considering suicide. “Shayne and his character Aidan are men that people identify with. “If this encourages someone to talk about how they are feeling then surely that is a good thing. When you get to my age everyone in some way has been affected by suicide.”
Heartbroken
Suicide is the single biggest killer of men aged under 45 in the UK. Around 75 per cent of all such deaths are male. Former X Factor winner Shayne, 33, told last week how the suicide of a family member helped him play out the harrowing scenes. He said of factory boss Aidan’s sad exit: “It’s really tough to watch. I was just full of all different emotions. I was scared, nervous and completely heartbroken, because I knew this was more than just a storyline. “I just drew upon an honest truth and how I would feel in that situation. “I knew the impact it’s going to have on the public when it airs. It’s amazing Coronation Street is covering this.” With both Catherine and Shayne having personal experience of suicide, the emotions fans will see are all too real. Catherine goes on: “The scenes asked for Eva to cry, but I didn’t have to try. I replayed the scenes we played together in my head, all the wedding scenes, the lovely moments between Eva and Aidan and the tears just flowed. “I had all those memories to draw on and I didn’t have to try and dig for those emotions, because they were already there. The scripts are beautifully written and it wasn’t difficult to feel the emotion, but they were incredibly tough to film. It felt very real. “Shayne’s final scenes were just the two of us out on location at the cottage and it was very emotional. We were both wiped out afterwards. “We’ve worked so