Ken Barlow

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Kenneth "Ken" Barlow (born 9 October 1939) is a character in the long-running British soap opera Coronation Street. He is the only surviving character from the first episode of the series, back in 1960 and is commonly known by his fans as the 'Silver Fox', in part because of his ability to survive over the years and in part owing to his never changing now coloured-silver side parted hair style. Barlow is portrayed by William Roache who has played the character since the beginning. He is famous for having a quiff. He has been a teacher, a newspaper editor, a community activist and, most bizarrely of all, a trolley-pusher at a supermarket, before returning to teaching and writing. He has been married three times, widowed twice, divorced once, and had 27 girlfriends, including a character played by the now-famous actress Joanna Lumley. When interviewed for an edition of the series Coronation Street: Secrets, Roache commented on the number of girlfriends Ken had accumulated, and remarked, "It's not that Ken is a Lothario; he's just not good at holding on to women!"

Barlow entered the storyline as a young radical son, the elder of two brothers, epitomising the youth of 1960s Britain, where figures like the Beatles, the model Twiggy, the Rolling Stones and the Who were reshaping the concept of youthful rebellion. Though the rest of the family were killed off or moved, Ken Barlow has remained the constant link throughout 46 years of Coronation Street.

His family has all departed, his mother Ida died after being struck by a bus in 1961, his father Frank left in 1964 and died in 1975 from old age, his brother David was killed in a car accident in 1970, and his daughter Susan died in 2001 in a motorway crash. After his house burned down in 1971 (killing his wife Valerie), he lived with his 'Uncle Albert', another of the Street's original characters - Albert Tatlock was the uncle of Barlow's late wife Valerie. Tatlock himself died in May 1984.

Roache took exception to the public image of the character as "boring", and attempted to redress the balance by persuading the scriptwriters to let his on-screen character have an affair and leave his third wife, Deirdre (Anne Kirkbride).^{[citation needed]} His first wife, Valerie Tatlock (Anne Reid), died when she electrocuted herself with a faulty hairdryer in 1971. In 1973 he wed town clerk Janet Reid (Judith Barker) but the marriage quickly degenerated when she refused to play stepmum to Ken's children. She showed up in 1977 and begged Ken to take her back. He refused and she then took an overdose of sleeping pills and died. In 1979 Ken began dating divorcee Deirdre Langton and proposed in 1981. Deirdre and Ken were married from 1981 to 1990; their divorce caused great personal turmoil for both of them (culminating in Ken's suicide attempt). The two were reconciled and re-married in 2005.

Ken has had four children during the Street's existence: the twins (by Valerie), a daughter (Susan) who was killed in a car accident, and a son (Peter) who returned to live on the street (and was once played by the actor's own son) but has since departed again (after being unmasked as a bigamist). Another son, Daniel, lives with Ken's former girlfriend. Finally, there is Ken's adopted daughter, Tracy Barlow (again a street returner, played by the fourth actress to have the role!), Deirdre's daughter by her ex-husband Ray Langton.

One of the most-watched episodes of the soap was when Ken discovered Deirdre was having an affair with his great rival, Mike Baldwin, and was planning to leave him. William Roache has described how the director allowed him to improvise his reaction to seeing Mike at the front door after Deirdre had confessed to the affair. The question of whether or not Deirdre would leave Ken was a hot news topic at the time.

Ken and Deirdre have been reconciled on several occasions and are currently married. After Deirdre's romance with Baldwin (who had been her boyfriend before she married Ken), Barlow himself formed a relationship with council secretary Wendy Crozier. When Deirdre found out, she was furious, and famously threw him out just as midnight dawned on the new year in 1990. His relationship with Wendy quickly fizzled, and he attempted suicide just before the new year in 1991, only to be distracted, and inadvertently saved, by Bet Gilroy.

While Ken and Deirdre were apart, he had relationships with numerous women, including the headmistress of the school where he worked, Baldwin's ex-girlfriend Alma (who later married Mike), and with Maggie Redman, the mother of Baldwin's son Mark. The latter two affairs both resulted in further antagonism between Ken and Mike.

On April 7, 2006, Mike Baldwin died in the arms of his former enemy Ken Barlow, with whom he had previously had three high-profile fights

Ken Barlow took over the Kabin for Norris and Rita after they went on Holiday to Budapest and has seen all his family disputes especially involving daughter Tracey.

Despite this record, Ken's on-screen activities have done little to alter the popular image of the character. In the UK, 'Ken Barlow' remains a synonym for a boring man. The British group Half Man Half Biscuit highlighted this point in their 2001 song Lark Descending, comparing the character from Coronation Street with a member of the US underground music scene with the lyric: "I could have been like Lou Barlow, but I'm more like Ken Barlow."

Politically, Ken Barlow is left wing in his outlook and reads the Guardian, unlike Bill Roache, who in real life is a staunch Conservative.

[edit] Biological

• Father: Frank Barlow (deceased)
• Mother: Ida Barlow (deceased)
• Brother: David Barlow (deceased)
• Wife: Deirdre Barlow
• Sons: Peter Barlow, Daniel Osbourne
• Daughter: Susan Barlow (deceased)
• Grandsons: Adam Barlow, Simon Richards
• Nephew: Darren Barlow (deceased)

[edit] Adoptive

• Adoptive daughter: Tracy Barlow
• Adoptive granddaughter: Amy Barlow