Ena Sharples

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Coronation Street character
Ena Sharples
Played by	Violet Carson
Duration	1960-1980
Date of Birth	November 14, 1898
Date of Death	1983
Marital Status	Widowed
Occupation	Mission Caretaker
Family	Alfred, Vera (both deceased)

Ena Sharples was one of the original characters of the long-running British soap opera, Coronation Street and her name became a byword for a "battleaxe" woman.

Ena, played by Violet Carson between 1960 and 1980, was the caretaker of the mission hall, and spent much of her time criticising the activities of the street's other inhabitants. She almost always wore a double-breasted coat and hairnet, and, with her two cronies, Martha Longhurst and Minnie Caldwell, would spend much of her free time in the snug bar of the Rovers Return Inn, drinking milk stout.

[edit] Biography

Ena had known rough times, having been seen to work on a loom at Palmerstone's Mill at the age of 11. Her husband Alfred had died young, and her son Ian drowned. She had two daughters, Madge Sharples and Vera Lomax. Vera considered herself too good for Ena, and visited her rarely. Over the years, her friends left her one by one (Martha Longhurst died in the snug of a heart attack, and Minnie Caldwell left to live in Whaley Bridge with Handel Gartside), until acquaintance Albert Tatlock was the only one left to keep her company. When Minnie left the street in 1976, Albert and Ena got drunk in the snug of the Rover's Return and reminisced about the past.

For almost 20 years in the show, Ena had a rivalry with Elsie Tanner, the so-called "tart with a heart". Ena disapproved of Elsie's affairs with various men and the two often clashed–almost always in the street, on full view. One particular example of Ena's dislike for Elsie is contained in the first episode of the programme:

In November 1961, Elsie received a poison-pen letter from someone claiming to know all about Elsie's affairs (she was not yet legally divorced from her husband, Arnold). Elsie accused landlady of the Rovers Return, Annie Walker, of writing the letter, but she strongly denied it. Afterwards, she accused Ena. In a showdown outside Elsie's house, the two fought. Elsie finally realised it was not Ena who had written the letter; Ena told she that if she had written it, she would have had the decency to sign her name "at the bottom of it, and well you know it!"

1967 did not turn out to be a good year for Ena. As well as losing her daughter Vera to a brain tumour, Ena became trapped unconscious underneath a wrecked train to the south of Coronation Street. A goods train had collapsed from the viaduct, which also buried a police officer and his girlfriend. David Barlow struggled to find Ena through the wreckage, but rescued her. Elsie Tanner was the first to ask after her: "If that woman were dropped off Blackpool Tower I swear she'd bounce! Cuts, bruises and a broken arm!". Although the two seemed "mortal enemies", Elsie and Ena most probably held a slight affection for each other. This is demonstrated in several episodes throughout the 1970s, when the characters had mellowed considerably — one such example is in an episode from 1973, when Elsie was about to take an overdose. Ena let herself into No 11 and talked her out of it:

The combination of writing and acting showed that Ena was not just a two-dimensional battleaxe, but quite the contrary.

In 1973, Violet Carson suffered a breakdown through overwork and took an extended break. Carson's health began to fail throughout the 1970s, and this, with her hatred of her character, meant Ena appeared less and less. In 1974, she returned to Coronation Street and appeared sporadically the next year. Carson often commented to the British press: "Violet Carson was destroyed the day Ena Sharples first appeared in Coronation Street."

In 1980, Carson became ill with a serious bout of anaemia and could not return to the show; her last filmed scene was telling Albert Tatlock that she wanted to leave Coronation Street for good. Granada Television was disappointed that Carson could not return to the cast in 1982 to watch Queen Elizabeth II open the new exterior set in the Granada backlot.

Carson died in her sleep in 1983, aged 85. As a tribute to her, an episode of Coronation Street from January 1967 featuring Ena was screened on ITV.

Ena Sharples' death was never announced in the programme, but on a video special entitled The Jubilee Years in 1985; it was said that Ena had died in 1983. Whilst it was not an event referred to in the series proper, all references made to Ena have been worded as if she has died.

Ena Sharples (without her hairnet) and Minnie Caldwell drinking milk stout in the snug bar of the Rovers, January 1961.

[edit] Trivia

• Ena did not wear her famous hairnet in early episodes of the programme (see image); Violet Carson added it to her costume because she refused the make-up department to touch her elegantly-styled silver hair.

• Violet, a native of Blackpool (a coastal resort in the North West of England), switched on the Blackpool illuminations in 1961, then considered a real honour.

• When she received the insignia to her OBE in 1965, the Queen told Violet that she was "an ardent fan".

• In the programme, Ena Sharples and Elsie Tanner were mortal enemies; in reality, Violet Carson and Patricia Phoenix were the best of friends.

• Ena's hairnet was put up for auction in 2005, and was sold for £65. It was bought by a Dutch gentleman, who had bought it for his mother, a lifelong fan of the programme.

• Ena's distinctive overcoat still exists, preserved by Granada TV. When Granada operated the tour of their studios, it was the main exhibit in the costume museum section.

• In tests and pilot episodes of Coronation Street, the role of Ena Sharples was played by Nan Marriott-Watson. A rare photograph of Marriott-Watson as Ena Sharples can be found in Daran Little's 1995 book The Coronation Street Story. The picture also shows Alison Bayley as Minnie Caldwell and Doris Hare as Martha Longhurst.