Julie's Real-Life Coro Romance

‘I’m going to marry you'

- Francine White

We meet actress Julie Hesmondhalgh, aka Coronation Street’s Hayley Cropper, at a restaurant in Manchester just off Jack Rosenthal Way. It seems a rathe appropriate place given he was one of Coro’s first writers in the 1960s and his wife Maureen Lipman is currently in the show.

Julie (49) bounces in, oozing warmth, smiles and hugs. Her almost white-blonde spiky hair is set off by a big pair of black-rimmed glasses, and she’s dressed comfortably in a black denim big-buttoned top and trousers. She immediately orders a pot of tea and when we mention the pizza looks good, she says, “Oh, I was going to have a salad, but stuff it, I’ll have a pizza as well!”

Julie became famous for portraying the first transgender character not only in Coro but in a British serial. For 16 years Hayley was much-loved and people still do a double-take when they see Julie − even our waiter was a bit giddy.

“I totally get it,” she says. “There were moments when I was working there that the other actors and I would suddenly go, ‘OMG, we’re on Coronation Street!’ It’s iconic.”

When Hayley succumbed to pancreatic cancer in 2014, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house as her final episode aired.

“I was in bits myself,” she says. “On my last day, more than 100 casts and crew came round to cheer me off; I was on the floor in a foetal position!”

Since then, Julie has starred in other hit series such as Happy Valley and Broadchurch, as well as a host of theatre productions.