Favourite Corrie stories - Terry Duckworth sells baby Tommy

My very first memory of Coronation Street was in February of 1993 when Lisa Duckworth was knocked down and killed by Ashley the vicar from Emmerdale.  A couple of years ago I delighted in watching the whole storyline again on Granada Plus and was captivated by the events surrounding her death.  Lisa Horten was a girlfriend of bad boy Terry Duckworth and before long she fell pregnant and was left to cope on her own as Terry was jailed for a charge of GBH.  Terry proposed to Lisa who accepted and the pair were married with Terry handcuffed and under guard by two prison officers. Click below to follow the rest of the story.

Terry managed to escape by talking the prison guard into taking his handcuffs off for the wedding photographs and went on the run.  He was later caught and sentenced to three years imprisonment.  Lisa moved in with the Duckworths and gave birth to a baby boy, Tommy, on September 9 1992.  Lisa started a friendship with Des Barnes from No.6 and took Tommy over to play in his garden from time to time.  Vera would not believe that Lisa and Des were just friends and told Terry about the relationship who arranged for Des to be beaten up.  Lisa was horrified by Terry's actions and moved to Blackpool to live with her parents but was soon followed by Des who told her that he was in love with her and asked her to move away from Weatherfield with him.

Des put No.6 on the market and the pair decided to celebrate.  It was a dark February evening and just as Lisa was leaving the Rovers with a bottle of wine, her purse catch broke and its contents dropped into the middle of the street.  She bent down to pick up her money but was hit by a car that was turning into Coronation Street from Rosamund Street.  The episode closed with a shot of the smashed bottle of wine lying on the cobbles - very poignant.

Lisa died in th'hospickle and Vera took it upon herself to look after grandson Tommy.  Vera quit her job at Bettabuy and struggled with the exhaustion of looking after a young baby on very little money - she was even caught stealing from the corner shop.  In December of 1993 Terry was released on parole and came back to No.9 to spend Christmas with his parents and his baby son.  On Christmas Eve Terry told a stunned Vera that Tommy was going to live in Blackpool with Lisa's parents but gave no explanation as to why.  Jack guessed correctly that his son had sold the child to the Horten family and Jack punched Terry and told him never to call him 'dad' again.

The scene where baby Tommy was taken from No.9 is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful scenes ever to have featured in Coronation Street.  The Hortens' car pulls away as a completely distraught Vera chases after it, longing for her grandson to return.  She screams and shouts until the realisation hits her that Tommy is gone and stands in the middle of the street weeping.  Jack then walks across and comforts his devastated wife.  This storyline proved how truly fantastic Liz Dawn and Bill Tarmey are as actors and it is even more heart-wrenching today when we very rarely see Jack and Vera on our screens.