"I can't believe you watch this rubbish!", my dad would regularly berate my mother and me as we turned on the TV to the soothing melody of the brass band playing that oh so familiar theme tune. How many times over the years have I heard that tune and settled down to watch Coronation Street, to catch up on the goings on chez Duckworth, Platt, Barlow et al., fictional families that I have grown so fond of over so many years.

The changes in my own life can be plotted against the varying crises in that northern neighbourhood. The first time I watched the show was over 27 years ago when I was at school. I remember I would watch Monday's episode with my mum (it was only broadcast twice a week back then), discussing Curly Watts' lack of a love life and Bet Lynch's incredible taste in fashion, before rushing out to band practice with my brothers.

In 1987, when Hilda tragically lost Stan and left the show forever, I too left home to start a new episode in my life at university in an unfamiliar city surrounded by strangers, my homesickness assuaged when I left my unfinished essays to walk to the students union where fellow Corrie watchers and I would gather around the small TV to catch up on the latest news from Weatherfield.

I married my childhood sweetheart in 1995, the same year as Curly married Raquel on the Street. Unfortunately, their marriage was doomed to failure - luckily mine is still going strong and we now have two wonderful sons. They are growing up fast and the eldest one is now heavily into playing electric guitar in his band, hanging out with his mates and dowloading music. His father and I may embarrass him in public but he's not too cool to sit down with his brother and me four times a week (with, of course, the double episode on a Monday) and watch Coronation Street. They are as captivated with it now as I was at the same age, watching the exploits and dramas of the children of the characters that I grew up with. Long may it last!

Learn more about this author, Sarah Vaughan.
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