| Bill Webster | |||||||||||||||||
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| Peter Armitage as Bill Webster (2011). | |||||||||||||||||
| Coronation Street character | |||||||||||||||||
| Portrayed by | Peter Armitage | ||||||||||||||||
| Introduced by | Mervyn Watson (1984) Sue Pritchard (1995) Steve Frost (2006) |
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| Duration | 1984–85, 1995–97, 2006— | ||||||||||||||||
| First appearance | 6 February 1984 | ||||||||||||||||
| Classification | Present; regular | ||||||||||||||||
| Profile | |||||||||||||||||
| Date of birth | 2 November 1942 | ||||||||||||||||
| Home | Outside Weatherfield | ||||||||||||||||
| Occupation | Retired (since 2010) Builder (until 2010) |
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William Geoffrey "Bill" Webster is a fictional character in the UK television ITV soap opera, Coronation Street. Portrayed by actor Peter Armitage,[1] the character first appeared onscreen during the episode airing on 6 February 1984 and remained in the show until 1985 when Armitage decided to leave. The character was reintroduced in 1995 but he was again written out two years later. Armitage returned once again in 2006 and although reported to have been axed for a second time in 2011, he remains a part of cast, albeit in a reduced role.
Bill is the father of Kevin Webster (Michael Le Vell), his sister Debbie (Sue Devaney) and another son, Carl, from his marriage to Elaine Prior. He is grandfather to Kevin's daughters Rosie (Helen Flanagan) and Sophie Webster (Brooke Vincent) and Kevin's baby son Jack Dobbs.
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On 6 February 1984, Bill makes his first appearance when he comes to look at Brian Tilsley's (Chris Quinten) garage roof, which is leaking. Bill buys No.11 from Linda Cheveski, who is acting on behalf of her mother, Elsie Tanner (Pat Phoenix). He also rents Len Fairclough's builder's yard from his wife Rita (Barbara Knox), and in the process the widow and widower become very friendly. Bill's first wife, Alison, had died of cancer in 1980. However, it is Percy Sugden's niece, Elaine Prior, whom Bill falls for, and in January 1985 they marry and move down to Southampton with Bill's daughter Debbie, where Elaine opens a hair salon. Elaine later gives birth to Bill's second son Carl.
Sometime after this Bill and Elaine move to Germany, where Elaine has an affair, and in July 1995, Bill realises their marriage is over, and moves back to Weatherfield, turning up on the doorstep of his son Kevin. Bill moves into Kevin's house whilst Kevin's wife Sally (Sally Dynevor), whom he has never met, is away. To welcome his daughter-in-law home he cooks a meal, and burns down their kitchen in the process. Fortunately, he uses his building skills to give Kevin and Sally a new kitchen. Bill then gets a job as cellarman at The Rovers Return, and later moves in there. In November 1995, Bill loses his job at The Rovers when the Duckworths take over, and to make things worse, the next month he gets a tax bill for £1,400. He cannot afford to pay, so Kevin and Sally lend him the money - much to the annoyance of Rita who had given the Webster children £5,000. Mike Baldwin (Johnny Briggs) asks Bill to do some work at the Crimea Street flats; in return he gets himself one of the flats and gets a business partner in the shape of Jim McDonald (Charles Lawson). In 1997, Bill has an affair with Maureen Holdsworth (Sherrie Hewson) and the pair run away together to Germany just ten days after Maureen has married Fred Elliott (John Savident).
In August 2006, it was reported that Bill Webster was making a return to the cobbles of Coronation Street.[2] He appears again on October 15, 2006 when Kevin, Sally, Rosie, Rosie's boyfriend Craig Harris (Richard Fleeshman) and Sophie go for a weekend in Paris. He returns to visit his family shortly after and begins romancing Audrey Roberts (Sue Nicholls). Bill returns to the Street again at Christmas 2006, and carries on his relationship with Audrey. However, Maureen turns up on Christmas Day, while Bill and Audrey are having dinner at the Platts' and Audrey's grandson David Platt (Jack P Shepherd) reveals Bill and Audrey's relationship to a devastated Maureen. After Christmas, Bill and Maureen go home to Germany to talk through their problems. Several weeks later, Bill returns to Weatherfield alone confirming that his marriage is over. He moves in with Audrey, after working with Jason Grimshaw (Ryan Thomas) on the new take-away. Bill then announces his plans to buy 'Stubbs Building Yard', after the murder of owner Charlie Stubbs (Bill Ward). Audrey puts up the money for the venture and the offer is accepted in April 2007. Bill goes on to hire David but later fires him as he believes that he is too much of a liability. Audrey and Bill split up in August 2008, following a disastrous trip to France with Janice Battersby (Vicky Entwistle) and Roger Stiles (Andrew Dunn). In March 2009, Audrey tells Bill that she needs him to start making repayments on the loan she gave him and as business isn't sufficient enough he is forced to employ Jason on a job-by-job basis.
In June 2009, Bill meets a woman called Vanessa (Gabrielle Drake) at a singles night and lies that he is an ex-soldier called Newton. He soon gets bored of Vanessa, and meets neighbour Pam Hobsworth (Kate Anthony) who is having equally poor luck. The two manage to get rid of their respective dates during the next few days and begin to write personal ads. They soon realise that they are a compatible match and begin dating each other. In December 2009, Kevin tells Bill that Sally has breast cancer, and Bill is sympathetic and wanting to support him, as Bill lost his first wife, Alison (Kevin and Debbie's mother) to breast cancer in 1980. However, Kevin later admits to Bill that he has been sleeping with Pam's niece Molly Dobbs (Vicky Binns). Bill is disgusted with him and urges him to stand by Sally and forget about Molly. Facing increasing pressure from rival builder Owen Armstrong (Ian Puleston-Davies), who wins the contract to rebuild Underworld, as well as suffering the effects of the credit crunch on the building trade, Bill agrees to sell the building yard to Owen in August 2010. Since his retirement, Bill's appearances on the Street became less frequent. When Molly is killed in the tram crash in December 2010, a disgusted Bill cannot face attending her funeral with Pam, as he knows the truth about Kevin being the father of Molly's baby son Jack and is angry with the lies that Kevin is telling by comforting Tyrone and acting like his friend. Tyrone is suspicious about Bill's strange behaviour and has a furious argument with him after the funeral when he realises that Bill knew about the affair and Jack's paternity. Bill tries to reason with Tyrone and apologises for Kevin's actions but Tyrone furiously throws him out of his house. In April 2011, Kevin meets up with Bill in The Rovers and tells him that Sally had wanted half of the money he won on a lottery scratch card and that he had won the legal battle to keep it. Kevin tells Bill that he feels guilty for winning the money and tells Bill that Sally thinks he is greedy. Bill tells Kevin to prove Sally wrong and he later gives her the money. Bill and Pam later go travelling.[3].
In September 2011, Bill returned with Pam and announced their plans to marry. After Pam told Kevin he is not allowed to attend the wedding an argument started and Bill suffered a heart attack and was rushed into hospital, he later recovered but Pam still stuck by what she said and refused to let Kevin attend the wedding.
Originally set to be a long-running character from his introduction, Peter Armitage decided to leave the show early on, and bowed out from his first stint as Bill Webster in 1985. Producer Bill Podmore voiced his disappointment about that in the book Coronation Street - The Inside Story (1990). Bill was reintroduced 10 years later in 1995, and remained until he was axed by Brian Park in 1997.
The character was brought back for the second time in 2006, but as time went on his roles began to reduce. In 2011, the character was barely seen, only once in April. Later that year, it was said that Bill was axed by Phil Collinson, and that the character was travelling with Pam, which happened on-screen. Despite this however, Bill was brought back in September 2011 along with Pam. [4] Collinson decided to bring him back later in 2011, having had a "change of heart" and later stating in an interview that he likes Bill and Pam together and admitted he had no clue as to why he wanted him axed.[5]