Tea & Sympathy

Homesick Jennie McAlpine talks about missing her family and serving tea fit for a queen. MAIREAD MAHON reports.

- Mairead Mahon

WHEN A TEARFUL Jennie McAlpine broke down on I’m a Celebrity she explained how much she was missing her partner, Chris Farr, and their three-year-old son, Albert.

There’s a good chance that Jennie, who plays Fiz Brown in Coronation Street, was also missing a good old cuppa. One of her other passions is tea, so much so that she and Chris opened Annie’s, a charming tearoom and restaurant just off St Ann’s Square in the iconic Royal Exchange building in Manchester.

‘We must have walked by the shop hundreds of times but the idea of opening Annie’s didn’t occur to us until what must have been our 450th time,’ says Jennie.

‘To be fair, it was in a bit of a state, almost derelict, so it did take some imagination to see what it could be. We did have one great advantage – Chris is a professional restaurant manager and, let’s not forget, I too have experience. I did once work as a Saturday girl at a tea shop in my home town of Bury!’