It went to 3 times a week at the end of 1989 - there was a special programme hosted by Cilla to celebrate this fact! - and that was a perfect number because it filled the long gap between Wednesday and Monday to have a Friday episode.

The quality didn't suffer, But when it got more than 3 it must be like a sausage factory, churning out more and more affairs, murders and 'shocking' storylines to outdo the other soaps!

And of course sometimes for a really really 'big' storyline they've done an episode every night of a week, haven't they?! Ridiculous.

I read a newspaper review of the Hilda tribute and the bloke who wrote it said something like 'Stan and Hilda as a couple couldn't exist these days in Corrie. Lots of comedy and no drama'

One very obvious difference to the old Corrie was that there was no 'kids' - back in the 70's Gail and Suzy - aged around 20, were the two youngest people in the cast. All the men were middle-aged, mostly unfit and overweight, the women were middle-aged, there was not a 'hunk' or a 'sexy young thing' to be seen And it was wonderful cos it the characters and the writing and the acting.

I saw the 70's stuff on Granada Plus when they started showing the episodes around 2000 and I loved every bit of it. The 70's is my favourite era to watch Of course, Stan and Hilda - and Eddie - were comedy gold in that era.

The 80's - when Kevin arrived - was brilliant as well. By the mid 80's it was starting to have a new look because so many of the old characters had gone, but it kept the quality. Its just not the same programme anymore and hasn't been for years.

That was the back story for when they arrived but as Kat Kelly who was narrating the tribute said, the other two kids they had were never even mentioned - ever. So it's like they never existed so why have them in their back story?! Very odd that! Maybe once they saw Jean and Bunny playing them on screen they changed what they might have originally intended them to be like? Who knows. From the 60's episodes I've seen, Stan was never nasty.

Gail and Suzy were youngest cast until Tracy came along

He was too lazy

You can't really judge twenty years of Stan for some backstory that may not even be canon or relevant anymore. After all, his two other kids were never mentioned or seen at all and treated like they didn't exist.

This sort of thing has been done with many characters, before the writers decide to run with something else. Roy Cropper was originally meant to be a creepy stalker when he arrived but is a more 'nicer' character. Ray Langton was supposed to be a rapist. There was rumour of Tim Metcalfe being more sinister before they decided to make him a nicer and comical character. The list goes on.

Presumably, when the Ogdens first arrived on the Street, the producers wanted to keep their options open, so two kids that were never mentioned were created as part of the backstory in case it was ever decided to bring them in, but they never followed through on that.