CORONATION Street actor Roy Barraclough, who began his career in Huddersfield, is heading back to West Yorkshire.

The Street’s former grumpy and tightfisted landlord Alec Gilroy will be narrating the Corrie! stage play at Bradford Alhambra next week.

And it marks his 50 years in showbusiness. It’s a landmark in a career which began at Huddersfield’s former New Theatre.

Roy appeared in Coronation Street from 1964 to 1998. He said: “This play is very funny and very nostalgic – it’s the sort of show which cheers you up.”

The stage return marks a full circle for the actor, whose professional career began half a century ago as assistant stage manager at the New Theatre in Huddersfield’s Venn Street.

He was offered the job by owner Nita Valerie and had to find his own digs, which he did with a landlady called Amy in Zetland Street.

He later recalled: “Dear old Amy was a lovely character. She never wore her teeth, except on Friday nights when the club man came to collect her money.

“The digs were £3 a week, but you had to buy your own food and she’d cook it – and inevitably ruin it!”

The house was extremely cold, but for an extra 2s 6d (12½p), Amy would arrive every morning with a shovel full of flaming coals which she threw into the fireplace in his room.

He remembers one performance of Jayne Eyre at the Venn Street theatre when Nita Valerie thought the audience’s attention seemed to be flagging. She rushed on stage, grabbed the character of Rochester by the throat and pinned him to the floor.

As she finally exited the stage, leaving the audience and other actors aghast at this departure from the script and the Bronte story, she said: “There, that’s given it a lift!”

Despite all the ups and down of theatre life on a shoestring in Huddersfield, Roy added: “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”