John Stevenson, who has died aged 86 after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, was one of Coronation Street’s most prolific scriptwriters, brilliant at both drama and comedy. He wrote 447 episodes of the ITV soap opera over three decades from 1976.
In one of the earliest of them, Ernie Bishop, the wages clerk at Mike Baldwin’s denims factory, was killed in a bungled armed robbery. The story was Stevenson’s idea, brought about when the actor Stephen Hancock, who played Ernie, husband of Emily, refused to sign a new annual contract over what he felt was an unfair anomaly. Several long-time cast members were paid for all episodes regardless of whether they appeared in them, whereas the rest were guaranteed payment for only half.
