RIP, continued

Anne Kirkbride (1954-2015), aged 60. Much lamentation at the rather sudden death of Anne, who memorably played Deirdre Barlow in England's long running (since 1960) soap CORONATION STREET. Deirdre was a staple of the Street, like those other great characters Ena Sharples and Annie Walker, Elsie Tanner, The Duckworths, The Ogdens, Fred the butcher, Raquel the barmaid, Rita and Mavis, Emily, Norris, Gail and her annoying family, Bet Lynch and Alec Gilroy and lots more. 
We laughed at Deirdre scoffing at husband dreary Ken's intellectual pretentions, as she served her stuffed marrows and made awful pottery, and indulged her vile daughter Tracy and her acid-tongued mother Blanche, and wore those glasses with aplomp. Deirdre was quite a racy lady too during her 44 years on the soap - 4 husbands including dodgy Ray Langton, unfortunate Samir, and Ken twice! Then there was the romance with Mike Baldwin and also that fake airline pilot who got her involved in a fraud scam which saw poor Deirdre banged up in prison and having to share a cell with nightmare Margi Clark! But through it all Deirdre kept going and triumphed. We liked her and missed her when she had to leave the show suddenly some months ago due to illness. Unlike the also recently-departed popular tv actress Lynda Bellingham (1948-2014) who talked about her cancer openly, Anne preferred to keep it secret to the end.