Life at the corner shop flat on Coronation Street

The flat over the corner shop on Coronation Street has had a long and colourful history. There were living accomodations on the main floor behind the shop in its early days but there has always been a little flat upstairs. The flat has seen many a tennant over the 47 years, quite often a retreat for single women such as Emily Nugent, Bet Lynch and Sunita Parekh. Sometimes it has offered temporary housing for short periods of time for characters like Jerry Booth, Janet Reid, and Peter Barlow.

The person that lived in the flat for the longest continuous time was Ken Barlow who occupied it from August 1990 to July 1994 followed closely by Sunita from March 2001 until her wedding to Dev in October 2004 . Bet Lynch lived in the flat at various times over a longer period of time. People always remember flatmates Doreen Lostock and Sheila Birtles, and later, Gail Potter and Tricia Hopkins (with Suzie Birchill later on) but in all cases of these famous flatmates, the tenancy was actually not much longer than a year or so each.

In 1985, the main floor living accomodations disappeared when Alf converted the shop to a mini-mart and the flat was then the main living space. Sometimes, the shop owners lived there and other times it was rented out. After Alf and Audrey's purchase of a house in 1989 fell through, Alf moved them back into the flat until something else came along. Audrey was mortified because she had lorded it over everyone about their new posh house.

The flat has seen it's share of excitement, too. Sheila Birtles attempted suicide in 1963. In the mid 1970s, a stalker kept a young Gail Potter in the flat until Emily Bishop twigged there was something wrong and called the police. Greg Kelly has been seen to knock Sally around while they were living there. Mad Maya Sharma, probably one of the most notorious Corrie villains, burned the shop and flat down in 2004, with Sunita and Dev chained to the fixtures in it! Ciaran McCarthy and Charlie Stubbs saved them before it was too late! There's a really great description of Mad Maya Week on this blog. The shop and flat were rebuilt and currently Dev has moved in with his teenage daughter, the wonderful Amber. Corrie.net has a fairly detailed list of comings and goings in the flat which is almost up to date.