Jean Alexander’s portrayal of Hilda Ogden taught us a thing or two about class division

If Hilda’s scenes had featured in Mike Leigh films or in Alan Bennett plays, the critics would have applauded the show’s insights into class. Soap operas were immensely popular but not always treated with the same respect as ‘serious’ drama

Jean Alexander as Hilda Ogden with onscreen husband, Stan, played by Bernard Youens (Rex)

In the period in which Hilda Ogden featured in Coronation Street, it was commonplace for soap opera characters to become household names. In a pre-satellite, pre-digital era, tens of millions followed the goings on in the Rovers Return. If Brian Tilsley was stabbed or Deirdre Barlow was having an affair with Mike Baldwin, it somehow seemed to viewers as if such events were happening for real. They were discussed every bit as earnestly as the antics of the Royal Family or as the latest football news. You felt as much concern for these fictional characters dealing with bereavement, illness or financial problems as you did for your own relatives.

In a golden age of Coronation Street, Hilda Ogden was arguably the most popular character, even more cherished than Elsie Tanner, Bet Lynch, Alderman Alf or Albert Tatlock. Her wallpaper (those flying ducks) was as recognisable as she was. There was little about her that seemed immediately attractive. She was a shrewish and conspiratorial gossip, a cleaning lady who often had her hair in curlers. Jean Alexander played her beautifully, bringing out Hilda’s comic qualities, her occasional tendency toward malice and her character’s more sympathetic side. She was a busybody but one with a kind heart underneath it all.

The script writers took a sometimes malicious pleasure putting Hilda in excruciating social situations. A typical storyline might involve something like her husband Stan stubbing his toe on the pavement and suing for compensation. Stan and Hilda might go for a slap-up dinner to celebrate winning some money. They'd be served their digestif in glasses frosted with sugar and Hilda would complain about these glasses being dirty. She didn’t understand the secret codes of the middle classes and what they thought was proper behaviour. A scene in which she seemed to be the butt of the joke would always end in an ambivalent way. The embarrassment wasn’t felt by her but by the patronising types around her, squirming at her failures in etiquette or her inability to decode “polite” language.

If these scenes had featured in Mike Leigh films or in Alan Bennett plays, the critics would have applauded the show’s insights into class. Soap operas were immensely popular but not always treated with the same respect as “serious” drama. (Only at the very end of her stint on the Street did Alexander receive a Bafta nomination.)

Alexander’s Hilda had a wonderful comic rapport both with Stan (Bernard Youens) and with their roly-poly and very mischievous lodger, the bin-man Eddie Yeats (Geoffrey Hughes). Occasionally, she was also given the opportunity to mine deep seams of pathos. There was a famous scene in the mid-1980s in which she was trying to cope with Stan’s death. She is sitting alone, fiddling with a parcel which contains his effects. Hilda opens the package slowly. At the bottom, she finds Stan’s spectacle case. It’s at this point her lips begin to quiver that she breaks down, burying her head in his possessions. Her grief seems entirely real. The episode ends with a close up of her hand, the wedding ring still on it.

After Jean Alexander left Coronation Street in the late-Eighties, she spent over 20 years playing junk shop owner Auntie Wainwright in Last Of The Summer Wine and clearly relished the role. Nonetheless, it is for Hilda Ogden that she will be remembered; scolding, nagging and conspiring – and worming her way into the nation’s affections in the process.