With a bit of dosh to spend (if they were lucky) some working class folks did lovely things to their houses in the 1980s - "the decade of style". Having your homestead stone clad was quite a craze in the mid-to-late 1980s.Ooh, 'eck! We missed an important anniversary here at '80s Actual. Something that happened in the very crucial year of 1989.
Nope, we're not talking about the invention of the World Wide Web, the Fall of the Berlin Wall or the launch of Sky TV. Sure, they were all "crucial" events of 1989 - and their 21st anniversaries are well worth marking - but the event we have in mind makes those things pale into insignificance.
In February 1989, Mrs Vera Duckworth (Liz Dawn), a resident of No 9 Coronation Street since 1983, had her house covered in stone cladding.
Thus ensuring that the neighbourhood was set on an "upwardly mobile" path.
Just look at the posh houses which were built opposite later in 1989!
Would builder Maurice Jones ever have chosen that site if Vera hadn't made the grotty little terrace opposite so attractive?
We're so sorry we forgot the anniversary. It's unforgivable of us and a right kick in't teeth to't memory of the lovely Vera.
Sorry, chuck!
To make amends, we've included a "lovely" photograph in this post of the most attractive house in Coronation Street, taken when the Duckworths were still in residence. The handsome guy at the door (we've blanked out his face because he's too devastatingly good looking to be seen on-line) is the chief cook and bottle washer of this blog, calling round for a cuppa and a natter with Vera a few years back.
Some screen caps from our "Back On The Street" blog. Back to 1989 and the cladding is going up. Vera worries about the quality of the job the workmen are doing and asks Jack: "Does that look straight to you?"
"When you cover one eye, it looks to go down at one side..."
I loved the stone cladding fad of the '80s and early '90s!
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing wrong with stone cladding! The rendering on our bungalow was falling off in 1987, so we had the place stone-clad and it's all still in place and wonderful. The problem with the cladding in the Street is the setting - a tiny Victorian terraced house looks absolutely daft stone-clad - and the painted highlights daubed in later make it positively nightmarish. It is time it went.
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