The 50 barmaids of Rovers Return

On Monday, Becky Granger starts work behind the bar of the Rovers Return. Vicky Nash remembers the 49 other Coronation Street barmaids.

It has been the focal point of the country's most famous street for the past 47 years.

The hub of Coronation Street's every bust-up and booze-up, the barmaids who pull pints at the Rovers Return are certainly no strangers to controversy.

And today, as the pub prepares to welcome its 50th barmaid, we are looking back over the ladies who have made the boozer such a hit with viewers.

Chain-smoking man-eater Becky, played by Katherine Kelly, will join a long list of some of the soap's most iconic and well-remembered faces when she takes up her new role behind the bar.

Starting in 1960 with Concepta Riley, the pub has been graced by some of the street's biggest names, including Gail Potter, now Platt, Liz McDonald and probably the most famous and glamorous of its pint pullers, Bet Lynch. Emily Nugent, now Bishop, Irma Ogden, Natalie Barnes, Tracy Barlow, Maria Sutherland, Tricia Armstrong and Shelley Unwin have all also made their names behind the famous bar.

And judging by those who have gone before her, Katherine need not fear for her future acting career after her days pulling pints in the Rovers Return are over.

Eva Pope, who played Tanya Pooley on The Street between 1993 and 1994, has gone on to star in some of television's biggest shows, including Cold Feet, Heartbeat, Peak Practice, Casualty, Bad Girls, Life On Mars and Waterloo Road, since her days pulling pints on screen. She has also made it big by swapping the screen for the stage, appearing in a range of hit theatre productions including Comedy of Errors and Hobson's Choice.

After landing her biggest job on The Street as barmaid Raquel Watts in 1991, actress Sarah Lancashire has not been short of work.

Her loveable, dippy character was a firm favourite with viewers for eight years but she managed to shake off the image to create a solid career outside of the famous street. For two years she carved a career in drama series Where The Heart Is and also starred in BBC Sitcom Murder Most Horrid.

And serving up beer at the Rovers Return has certainly done no harm to Denise Welch, who was already a household name before being signed up to the street in 1997.

The former Soldier Soldier star was cast as Kevin Webster's mistress Natalie Horrocks, who eventually rose through the ranks to become landlady of the Rovers.

When she left to have a baby in 2000, Coronation Street bosses refused to kill off her popular character and said the door was always open for her return, but she has since appeared in a string of prime time shows, including The Bill, Holby City, Waterloo Road and has a regular slot on popular daytime debate show Loose Women.

But the toughest task Katherine will surely have to face is matching up to Coronation Street's most famous landlady Bet Lynch, played by Julie Goodyear.

After a brief stint on the show playing a factory worker back in 1966, the platinum blonde star quickly departed apparently being told to return when she had more acting experience.

She returned in 1970 as a barmaid at the Rovers Return under landlady Annie Walker and eventually took over as the first unmarried female boss in 1985. After leaving The Street in 1995, she made brief returns to the show.

Prison

She arrived back on the cobbles in 2002 in a blaze of glory but quit soon after, apparently suffering from overwork. She also appeared again in 2003 in a special storyline set in Blackpool, when she helped Jim McDonald escape from prison.

But bolshy Katherine is not scared of keeping up with the predecessors she has to follow.

"To be the 50th barmaid is more than I could ever have hoped for," she says. "It's really exciting it's like the start of an era for me and my character."

And pulling pints should come naturally to the 28-year-old, who will be drawing on her time as a barmaid when she takes on the role.

When she returned home to Barnsley during holidays from studying drama in London, Katherine worked in a local pub called the Miners Rest, and says the job made her a "real natural" behind the bar on the cobbled street.

Her customers included veteran actor Stan Richards who played Seth in Emmerdale. "I taught myself how to pull a pint in there and the guys would send the drink back if they weren't entirely happy with it," she says. "So when I did my first scenes in the Rovers, one of the props guys said I was a real natural."