BEFORE she became the hot pot queen of the Rovers return, Betty Driver was in demand as a star in her own right.

Colleague Neil Atkinson told earlier this week that she had appeared at the David Brown Tractor Plant at Meltham in a Workers’ Playtime radio show in 1952. But that was not her first visit to the area.

There’s more Playtime memories on page 18.

But old chum Mike Shaw, former editor of the Colne Valley Guardian, recalls Betty’s visit in 1951.

“She was top of the bill in the panto at the Huddersfield Palace,” says Mike. “And she also went to Slaithwaite Civic Hall to help choose Miss Colne Valley. She was slim, attractive and very vivacious.”

Mike noticed such things as he was then a teenage cub reporter waiting to be called up for his National Service.

Betty, who has died aged 91, dropped from the limelight as a singer after she had trouble with her voice and turned to acting. She auditioned unsuccessfully for the role of Hilda Ogden in Coronation Street in 1964, and was running a pub when a Granada producer, who was also a pub customer, asked her to try again in 1969.

This time she was accepted and became a star again, spending 40 years on the most famous street in the world.

Does anyone remember her at Slaithwaite Civic Hall? And who was chosen as Miss Colne Valley that year?