Stan Ogden

Stan Ogden first appeared in the Street in 1964, looking for his eighteen-year-old daughter Freda, who had run away from the family. Freda had changed her name to Irma and was working as Florrie Lindley's assistant in the corner shop. Stan, a long-distance lorry-driver, was away from home much of the time, leaving his wife Hilda to look after their four children. When he was home, he was given to drinking bouts and terrible rages, which had caused their two younger children to be taken into council care. Stan managed to convince Irma, as she was now known, that he had changed his ways, giving up lorry driving and trying to control his temper. He promised Irma anything if she would return to the family. At the time, No13 Coronation Street was for sale, Jerry and Myra Booth having been forced out by financial troubles, and Irma made the condition of her return that Stan buy the house to provide the family with a permanent home. Stan surprised her by finding a deposit and buying the house for £565. In June 1964 Stan moved his family; wife Hilda, son Dudley (who followed his sister's lead and changed his name to Trevor) and Irma, into

No13 Coronation Street. Hilda quickly found work as a cleaner in the Rovers, and Irma also worked there for awhile as a barmaid. Trevor proved more troublesome, however. He ran away with money stolen from the neighbours when he was fourteen and wrote to his parents telling them to disown him. Stan complied with the letter and Trevor was unmentioned for years. Irma quickly fell for football star David Barlow, and they were married in late 1965. After that, Stan and Hilda were left on their own. Stan had mended his ways, although he was still quite fond of his beer and quickly became Newton and Ridley's best customer. His reward: a free pint every day for life. While Stan remained faithful to his local, for a few years he drifted from job to job. At various times, he was a milkman (early mornings compensated by afternoons in the pub), a coalman, an ice-cream salesman, a chauffeur, a street photographer, a professional wrestler (in his only match he was thrown from the ring into Hilda's lap) and an artist (creating sculptures from scrap metal; this backfired when his masterpiece was taken to the tip by mistake). However, in 1969 Stan bought a window-cleaning round, and this would remain his primary means of support for the rest of his life. Stan and Hilda had married six days after Hilda tripped over him in a wartime blackout. Through many harsh years of drinking and rages, Hilda stuck by him, believing that he was her man, no matter what. They were uncommunicative to each other, and Stan left Hilda to take all responsibilities for their home, including trying to pay the bills with their limited resources. This proved too much for Hilda, and in 1967 she suffered a nervous breakdown and disappeared. She was found wandering in Liverpool a few days later, and recovered, but the lack of promise in their lives hung over them like a shadow. For Stan and Hilda, life was marginal at best. They were never more than a short step from absolute poverty. To prove himself a dab hand at whatever he turned his hand to, Stan installed a serving hatch between the kitchen/living room and the front

room, but goofed and made it big enough for a canteen. Hilda liked the hatch, but pointed out that she had little use for it, as they never used the front room anyway. He also ruined Hilda's precious Alpine "muriel" that covered one entire living room wall when he fell asleep in the bath and overflowed water seeped through the floor. The seventies brought Hilda a long streak of bad luck. Their son-in-law David Barlow and grandson Darren were killed in a car accident in Australia in 1970, their house had to be fumigated, Stan was suspected of being a Peeping Tom, and a chimney accident caused coal soot to ruin their furniture. Hilda blamed their bad luck on No13 and ordered Stan to change the house number to No12A. Hilda prepared a roast lamb dinner to celebrate, but when she went outside to see the new numbers inadvertently locked them both out. By the time Stan broke in, their dinner was burned. It seemed that No13 wasn't unlucky, Hilda and Stan were. On top of this, the council ordered them to change the number back. In the seventies, as Stan aged, he grew weaker and more tired. He often didn't work, claiming his back wasn't up to the job. Hilda had to assume responsibility not only for all the household chores and looking after Stan, but also scraped to make ends meet on her wages as a charwoman. One day she had had enough, and ordered Stan out. He went, and disappeared for three weeks, much to everyone's shock. Hilda enlisted the aid of Stan's drinking buddy Eddie Yeats to find Stan. Eddie finally tracked him to Hilda's brother's chip shop, where he was helping himself to the chips and his brother-in-law's girlfriend Edie Blundell. Hilda dragged Stan home, and things went right back to the way they were. Thirteen years after his disappearance, Stan and Hilda tracked Trevor down. He was married and living in a semi-detached house in Chesterfield. Stan and Hilda made a special visit, only to have his wife Polly tell them that Trevor had led her to believe that his parents were dead. One high point of the Ogdens' marriage was in the late seventies, when they won a second honeymoon at the Savoy hotel. A limousine whisked them from Coronation Street to the hotel, where they received free champagne. Hilda decked out in a silk nightdress, only to find that, typically, Stan

had fallen fast asleep. Although the night was a quiet one, it was a fond memory for Stan and Hilda as they entered old age. In the early eighties, Eddie Yeats secured a job as a binman, and became Stan and Hilda's lodger. He saw Stan and Hilda as surrogate parents, and they saw him as a son. Stan was in his sixties and slowing down. Eddie helped him on his window-cleaning round, later buying it and making Stan his employee. However, Stan's deterioration was rapid and Hilda took extra cleaning jobs to make some money, including cleaning Mike Baldwin's factory and Dr Lowther's house. Eddie Yeats left in 1983 to marry his girlfriend Marion Willis, who lodged next door with Elsie Tanner. He moved in temporarily with Elsie and Marion, but they left to live in Bury afterwards. But not before helping Stan and Hilda celebrate their greatest milestone..... In December 1983, Stan and Hilda celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary with great fanfare. They had originally planned to go abroad, and when they went to get their passports, had an unusual surprise. Stan was not sixty-one, as he believed, but sixty-four. They didn't go abroad in the end, and hired the Select Bar of the Rovers for a Coronation Street gala. The party was spoiled when Rita Fairclough, who was singing for them, received news that her husband Len had been killed in a road accident. Again Stan and Hilda were left alone. Hilda had all the cleaning jobs she could handle, and Stan had become an invalid, requiring constant nursing. The strain was too much for Hilda, and in late 1984 Dr. Lowther told her to put Stan in hospital, at least temporarily. Hilda feared that this would rob her husband of his will to live. She was right, Stan Ogden passed away peacefully in his sleep on 21 November 1984 at the age of 65.