Roache, William: The Rover who has kept returning - for 45 years

A young Ken Barlow

Bill, with his two children by his first marriage to actress, Anna Cropper – Vanya and Linus - pictured in 1970

WHEN a new television series about life in the north of England was being planned, Ilkeston-born actor Bill Roache was offered a part in a pilot edition.

Doubtful about its success and convinced it wouldn’t last long, he accepted – because the money was good.

Forty-five years on, British TV’s longest-running and best-loved soap, Coronation Street, is still going strong with Bill at the centre in the role of Ken Barlow – the sole survivor from that original episode.

The character he once described as “a rat, a swine, a lecher, but never boring” has helped write his name into television history.

Though he has long since left his roots in Ilkeston – where he inherited his acting ability from his mother Hester, a talented amateur thespian – Bill has never forgotten the happy childhood he spent there.

The school he attended, Michael House, in Heanor Road, Ilkeston, was right next door to his family home – a beautiful old building with the grand name, Rutland House, a far cry from the back-to-back, two-up, two-down setting of Coronation Street.

His father, Dr Vince Roache, was a well-respected local GP for more than 30 years.

Bill has never forgotten his roots and made regular visits when his parents were still living in Ilkeston. He has also returned to Derbyshire many times in his celebrity role to open shops and stores or help out local charities.

A very private man, who gives few interviews, he did take part, in 1998, in a television programme which took well-known personalities back to their roots. Walking round Ilkeston, he revealed several hitherto unknown facts about himself to the camera.

He was once, for instance, a keen biker, blazing a trail round the Derbyshire countryside on the Frances Burnett motorbike, bought for him by his parents.

And acting, he confessed, was not his first choice of career; before treading the boards, he had five highly successful years as an Army officer.

It was soon after his family moved to a new bungalow in Cossall Road, Trowell, that the 21-year-old Bill embarked on his Army career. He was an officer with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, serving all over the world, including Germany, Holland, Jamaica, Bermuda and British Guyana.

He was also in the Persian Gulf with a small colonial force which acted as arbitrators between warring rival Arab sheikhs.

In 1957, after achieving the rank of captain, he decided to return to a civvy street and had plans to set up a business in the Middle East, dealing in Persian carpets, for a London company.

This never materialised and so he turned to his old love – acting, although his previous experience had only been in school productions.

Full of enthusiasm, he took acting lessons, then gained experience in repertory in Nottingham, Oldham and Clacton-on-Sea. He landed parts in four films, including one which starred Michael Redgrave, and quickly moved into television, playing the lead in a TVplay and smaller roles in various serials, including the hospital drama, Emergency Ward 10.

Then, in 1960, came the Coronation Street offer which was to change his life. At the time, he said he thought it was going to be a comedy series and didn’t feel it was quite his forte.

“I really didn’t want to do it, but I agreed to do 13 weeks. It’s been a very long 13 weeks,” he joked.

This week sees him reaching his 45th anniversary in the soap. Fame, he says, has meant little to him apart from being able to play his beloved game of golf with legends like Gary Player and Bernhard Langer.

“I enjoy the trappings but I don’t need them. I don’t go out searching for them. I can live just as happily without them,” he said.

He could, doubtless, have lived without the famous court case, in the 1990s, when he sued The Sun newspaper for libelling him in an article which branded him “self-satisfied and smug, hated by the Coronation Street cast, and boring and arrogant”.

Stars from The Street, including Johnny Briggs (cocky Casanova Mike Baldwin), Betty Driver (Rover’s Return barmaid Betty Turpin) and Bill Waddington (busybody know-all Percy Sugden), went into the witness box to speak on his behalf.

He won the case, was officially branded “not boring” and awarded £50,000 damages by the High Court, but the following year faced a £130,000 legal bill after the Court of Appeal ruled he had to pay both sides’ costs because he had refused an offer from the newspaper to settle for £50,000 out of court.

But he bounced back and his television career has continued to be a remarkable success story, although there have been downsides.

His first marriage, in 1961, to actress Anna Cropper, ended in divorce in 1974. The couple had two children, Vanya and Linus. The latter followed in his father’s footsteps, making his debut on screen at the age of nine as Ken Barlow’s son in Coronation Street, and is now an acclaimed actor.

Three years later, Bill wed his second wife, Sara Mottram, and they had three children, Verity, William, and baby Edwina Jane. But tragedy was to strike when 18-month-old Edwina died of a viral infection in 1984.

Having had early doubts about its future, Bill now believes Coronation Street could go on forever. And the 72-year-old appears to have no plans to retire.

Twelve years ago, when he was asked how long he planned to stay on, he said it was not unlikely that he would still be Ken Barlow when the character was 90 – which, doubtless, will delight his millions of fans.

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