'Coronation Street' Stars Turn Out For Tony Warren's Funeral

'Coronation Street's most familiar faces have turned out to remember the man behind their soap, creator Tony Warren, whose funeral took place today. 

Stars including Bill Roache and Barbara Knox joined friends, family and fans to farewell Tony at Manchester Cathedral, three weeks after he died, aged 79, at the beginning of this month. 

Today's sad occasion comes a little more than a year after the cast were left in mourning by the death of Anne Kirkbride, who played Deirdre Barlow.  

 Tony Warren was much loved by his cast and crew, many of whom remembered his hard work convincing Granada bosses that a soap about the daily lives of the inhabitants of a Northern town would go down well with audiences. 

Helen Worth, who has appeared in the show for more than four decades, said following his death: “Tony followed on from Charles Dickens really, didn’t he? He brought real life drama into our homes. People we could relate to and laugh with and cry with, those first greats of ‘Coronation Street’. Doris Speed, Violet Carson, Pat Phoenix… he loved them all and I think we’ve all followed on in that tradition.

“Humour is what his scripts were all about, and still continue to be by the writers of today. And he was working with ‘Coronation Street’ right until the end, right until just before Christmas.

“He used to come in for story conferences, and then we’d gather in the canteen for lunch with Tony. And we’d sit down and say, “go on, Tony, tell us a story…”. And of course he would.”