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Message: <blockquote data-quote="cobbles" data-source="post: 236940" data-attributes="member: 5138">Frank Barlow (1960-64, 1967. 1971)[ATTACH=full]22477[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]22475[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]22476[/ATTACH]    Frank Barlow (portrayed by Frank Pemberton) was another original character introduced in that first episode on the 9th December 1960. The head of the Barlow family, intended as the more straight down the road family on the street - an alternative version of a working class family to the Tanner family that we see first. He is the father to Ken Barlow and to David Barlow. A wife to Ida Barlow.Frank is characterised very much as a typical working class man of the times and is clearly unnerved by his son’s ambitious and intellectual nature. He worked as a postman, a fact regularly referenced in the show. One of the earliest ongoing story-lines between Ken and Frank being an argument regarding Ken wanting to take a girl he’s courting to the kitchens of the Imperial Hotel - where Ida worked.Sadly tragedy would strike for Frank and the rest of the Barlow family in 1961 when his wife Ida was fatally struck down by a bus; only the second death in Coronation Street. Frank took several years after the death of Ida to find his way again, eventually opening a DIY shop on the street. He enjoyed brief relationships with both corner shop owner Florrie Lindlay and with Christine Hardman - a woman half his age!The character was written out in 1964 by a man described by a talking head in a Corrie behind the scenes documentary in the 1990s as a ‘script psychopath’. Whilst most famous for the decision to kill off Martha Longhurst, Frank was another victim of his heavy pruning.In 1965 Frank Pemberton suffered a stroke, which would leave him unable to return to acting the role - even when producers wanted him too. He was brought back on two occasions to see if this would be possible - one to try and persuade Ken to pay a fine rather than go to prison, and a second time for his daughter in law Valerie Barlow's funeral in February 1971.Frank Pemberton would pass away just over a month later in March 1971. Ken referred to Frank having passed away by 1975 in a conversation with Peter Barlow - indicating an off screen death had taken place in the intervening years.</blockquote>

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