Monday 3 May 2010

Ida Clough - Unsung Heroine Of The Street

Looking through my newspaper collection this morning, I was very happy to find the above photograph of Helene Palmer - the Street's Ida Clough from 1978 to 1988 - and for several years in the mid-to-late 1990s.

Ida was one of my favourite Street characters "back in the day". She didn't follow the route of her two colleagues at Baldwin's sweat shop, Ivy Tilsley (Lynne Perrie) and Vera Duckworth (Liz Dawn) by eventually moving into the Street, which I thought was a shame, but nevertheless Ida was excellent.

And so real. I could just imagine her in the queue at my local pork butcher's, or popping into my local to meet her pals before going on to bingo.

Ida was the mother of Bernard (Jeffrey Longmore) - something of a gormless puddin' - and the beautifully cartoonish Muriel (Angela Catherall), I'm sure the Cloughs would have made their mark as Street residents.

Ida/Helene newspaper and magazine articles are few and far between, so I was especially pleased to find the one featured here, in the Sunday People, September 4, 1983.

Helene Palmer had been successfully dieting, and so the People decided to give her a glam makeover to celebrate.

"Even Mike Baldwin wouldn't recognise me now!" said Helene.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sad to say that Helene Palmer recently died.She was 82