Martha Longhurst Martha Longhurst ( née Hartley ) was a widow who resided at 7 Mawdsley Street . Her husband Percy had died in 1946 , with whom she had two children : Harold , who was drowned at age three , and Lily , who went on to marry Wilf Haddon . As a pensioner , Martha spent most of her evenings gossiping with her lifelong friends Ena Sharples and Minnie Caldwell in the Rovers Return snug . Unlike her companions , who were also widows , Martha was open to finding love again and dreamed of better things . In 1964 she accepted an invitation from the Haddons to join them in Spain - her first foreign holiday - but died of a heart attack before she got the chance to go . Biography . 1896 - 1934 : Early life . Martha Hartley was born in Weatherfield to Jack and Mary Hartley on 2nd September 1896 . She was educated at Hardcastle ' s Factory School in Bessie Street , where she formed lasting friendships with her younger schoolmates Ena Schofield and Minnie Carlton . Though she never distinguished herself scholarly - in fact , she was often smacked for being bottom of her class - Martha had a happy childhood . Martha went to work at Chasen ' s Mill after completing her education . Albert Tatlock described the young Martha as a " good - looking wench " , with lovely red hair , who had her pick of suitors . She was set to marry Eddie Brown , but the boy was gassed in the First World War . Handel Gartside also considered asking her to marry him at one point , but when the heroes came home , it was shunter Percy Longhurst with whom she ended up . Martha and Percy were married in 1919 and moved into 7 Mawdsley Street immediately afterwards . Her one regret about her wedding day was that they hadn ' t been able to afford photographs - the couple rectified this in 1930 by holding another ceremony especially for the pictures . The 1920s were a time of sorrow for Martha . Her mother and sister passed away , and the Longhursts had trouble conceiving , with Martha suffering two miscarriages . In 1926 , their daughter Lily was born , with a son , Harold , following soon afterwards . The decade ended with Harold drowning in Mosley ' s Flash and Percy losing his job at the shunting yards , entering a period of unemployment which lasted over a year until he was taken on at a local warehouse as a storeman . By this time , Martha was charring at the new Town Hall , earning wages which had to keep the whole family for a time . Martha ' s marriage was a precarious arrangement at the best of times ; Percy knocked Martha about and , after Lily was born , started going about with other women . When she suffered her last miscarriage , Martha ' s womb was damaged and her doctor advised her not to get pregnant again . Martha followed his advice by refusing to let Percy touch her at all , which paired with his unemployment , caused Percy to become bitter . Martha knew about Percy ' s girlfriends , and tolerated his infidelity as she felt she had failed to do her wife ' s duty . However , the couple frequently had blazing rows , which Lily used to listen to on the stairs as there was no light in her bedroom and they sounded worse in darkness . In 1934 , Percy ran off with a hairdresser . Hurt and lonely , Martha fled to Blackpool with Lily , where she had a romance with a man named Philip ; a rare moment of contentment in her gloomy life . She returned to Weatherfield without her new man , and was then reconciled with Percy . Her holiday liaison remained a secret even to her closest friends Ena and Minnie , with the only memento being a record of the pair proclaiming their love for each other , recorded at the Golden Mile . 1934 - 1960 : The lonely widow . Percy calmed down as he got older , and with the Longhursts both working , they had a modicum of tranquility before Percy succumbed to illness and passed away in 1946 . Martha kept herself plenty busy ; during the war , she worked on munitions with Ena , and charring jobs were always easy to come by . During the Blitz , her home was bombed , and Percy and Ena feared she was dead . Their panic ended when Martha walked over and in her usual tone questioned . . " " What , you cryin ' bout . . ' ere , where ' s me ' ouse ? " " . Martha and Percy lived at 13 Coronation Street while the house was being rebuilt . Lily married Wilf Haddon during the same period as her father ' s death , and moved to a nicer area ; the couple later provided Martha with two granddaughters , Sandra and Pauline . During evenings , Martha was a fellow denizen of the Rovers Return snug along with Ena and Minnie . Their conversations would invariably begin with gossip before descending into the ladies criticising each other . More likely to speak her mind openly to Ena than Minnie , she was often mocked for her continuous references to Lily . She was proud of her only daughter , and often spoke glowingly of her Lily ' s Wilf and the Haddons ' middle - class lifestyle . Martha was cut down to size when Ena said that Wilf earned so much by working nights . 1960 - 64 : Final years . By the 1960s , Martha had retired and was drawing her pension . Money was tight , but she made it last without having to work to supplement it . In December 1960 , when Ena collapsed due to stress and had a spell in hospital , Leonard Swindley asked Martha to temporarily take over Ena ' s caretaker duties at the Glad Tidings Mission Hall . Martha accepted but only lasted a few days as Ena ' s suspicious nature led her to walk out of hospital and return to her vestry , senile decay or no senile decay . Dismissing Martha from her post , Ena caught her friend using her feather duster and accused her of rooting through her things . Martha protested her innocence , and the pair spent a few weeks not speaking to each other until they agreed to forgive and forget . In March 1963 , Martha was taken on by the Walkers as the new Rovers cleaner , and she also worked in the same capacity at Laurie Frazer ' s Viaduct Sporting Club the following year . Although she pushed herself hard , Martha was pleased to be able to put some money away . In the summer of 1963 , Martha saw a doctor and was put on pills which she took three times a day - a fact she kept private even from her family and friends . With health issues and money stashed away , Martha was of a mind to break from her mundane routine . The catalyst was the return of Ted Ashley , a former classmate at Bessie Street who had long since emigrated to Australia and made a good life for himself as a farmer and shopkeeper . Ted was back in Weatherfield to look up old friends and visit his cousin Clara - who also happened to be Martha ' s next - door neighbour . Setting her cap at Ted , who was now a widower , Martha asked Clara to invite him over to hers for tea . Ena ' s suspicions were aroused when Martha bought a tin of best salmon from the Corner Shop and invited both her and Minnie to tea , even though it wasn ' t a Sunday . Ted did turn up , but he barely remembered the ladies from his school days and got his memories of them hopelessly confused . Martha clung to Ted throughout his stay , and the man was too gentlemanly to put her off . When Martha told him that she had never been out of Lancashire , Ted suggested that she go to London to stay with his sister Alice as she missed the north . Martha took this as an invitation to go along with him when he left Weatherfield , and she immediately made travel arrangements - much to the surprise of Ted , who had no romantic interest in Martha . Martha went to London expecting a proposal from Ted , but none came and instead she spent her time sightseeing on her own . Back in Weatherfield , a humiliated Martha hid away from her friends , although Frank Barlow spotted her going into her house and told everyone that she was back . Ena and Minnie confronted her and she sheepishly admitted that Ted had shown no affection for her whatsoever . Martha had enjoyed London itself and the excursion had whetted her appetite for travel . When invited to go on holiday in Spain with Lily and family , Martha bought her first passport and proudly showed it off to anyone who showed the slightest interest . It was during a singsong at a party in the Rovers thrown by Frank Barlow to celebrate his win at the Premium Bonds that Martha became ill and retreated to her usual chair in the empty snug . Unnoticed by anyone else , Martha had a sudden heart attack which killed her instantly . She was eventually spotted by Myra Booth , who thought that she had fallen asleep . One - by - one , the revellers stopped singing and looked towards the snug as Annie Walker and Len Fairclough tried to wake Martha while Jack called for a doctor . Ena , on the harmonium , was the last to notice . Failing to find a pulse , Len declared Martha dead . Martha was laid out in the vestry bedroom prior to being buried in the family plot with Percy . Her insurance policies only came to £22 , 4s and 9d ; not enough for a funeral so Lily and Wilf had to pay the rest . Helping Lily clear out the house , Ena and Minnie happened upon the record Martha had made in Blackpool in 1934 . Although unable to identify the man in the recording , they were pleased to know that their friend had once had some fun in her life . Personality . Martha Longhurst was a woman who had never known happiness . By 1930 , she had experienced poverty , the death of a child , and marriage to a man who knocked her about and went with other women . Like most ladies of her generation , Martha kept her suffering private and did her duty as a wife and mother , but she gave Percy hell for his shortcomings and rows between them were part of the daily routine . After Percy ' s death , Martha received her ' reward ' for her decades of endurance and compromises in a daughter who tolerated her and used her mainly as a baby - sitter , although Martha turned a blind eye to this as Lily ' s family were all she had . In 1964 , when Martha was pursuing Ted Ashley in the hope that he would propose to her and whisk her away to Australia , she similarly ignored clear signs that he had no romantic interest in her , and embarrassed herself by going away to London to visit his sister , the truth only dawning on her there . Whenever she did have something to brag about , she made sure that everyone knew about it , such as when she got her first passport for her family holiday in Spain . Martha had a deep - seated bitterness which manifested itself through criticising and gossiping about her neighbours . She was often critical of the ways of the younger generation and was responsible for Len Fairclough getting the sack from his job at Birtwistles . She had shopped him to his bosses as she disapproved of him spending so much time with Elsie Tanner when he was a married man . However , she occasionally stuck up for her neighbours when they were attacked by an outsider , as she did for Frank Barlow when Ethel Tyson slandered him outside his DIY shop in 1963 . Relationships . Lily Haddon . Martha ' s only daughter Lily had little in common with her mother . Having grown up listening to her parents row , Lily got as far away from 7 Mawdsley Street as she could , leading a settled life in middle - class suburbia with her husband Wilf and their children . Martha saw the Haddons often and indeed they were her only escape from her mundane life , and she frequently bored Ena Sharples and Minnie Caldwell by going on about them . Behind closed doors , Martha and Lily weren ' t as close as the former made out . Lily used her mother mainly as a babysitter and Martha would occupy her time at the Haddon household by doing the housework . Her constant nagging made Lily wonder if she had a grudge against her because of the way that her father Percy Longhurst had changed after she was born , but in the interests of keeping the peace she never called Martha on it . After Martha died , Lily threw out most of her things , taking only the family photos and one or two brooches . At the funeral , Ena berated Lily for never caring about her mother unless she needed a babysitter . Ena Sharples . Martha and Ena ' s friendship stretched back to their school days . Among the three inhabitants of the Rovers snug , Martha was second in the pecking order , above Minnie . She was close in personality to Ena but lacked her bossiness and thus could be shouted down in an argument . Martha ' s friendship with Ena was often fractious . She normally deferred to Ena but questioned when to let her have her way and when to stand up to her . In 1961 , when Ena moved in with Martha after being sacked from the Glad Tidings Mission Hall and subsequently evicted from her home in the vestry , Martha was given no choice in the matter and was driven to despair when Ena moved her furniture around and tricked her into parting with her whiskey . Martha was relieved when , after three weeks , Ena moved back into her vestry . When the ladies ventured beyond Coronation Street , Ena was the one who decided on their activities . In 1962 , when Ena insisted on going to see " Spartacus " at the Luxy with her friends , Martha and Minnie waited for her at the Rovers only for her to fail to appear . As there was a light on in the vestry , they assumed that she ' d stood them up out of thoughtlessness and shouted through the door that they were no longer her friends . Only afterwards did they find out that Ena had had a mild stroke and was lying collapsed on her floor . The pair attempted to make amends by buying Ena a mynah bird called Archie as a welcome home present , but Martha was forced to take in the bird when , having listened to the pair witter on , it kept repeating the phrases " Ena won ' t like it " and " Minnie Caldwell " . With Ena on the mend and her friends having some grovelling to do , Ena quickly re - gained the upper hand . Martha collected the pensions of Ena and Minnie for them on a regular basis and this was to lead to trouble when , in May 1963 , she lost Ena ' s pension book . It was found by a schoolboy , Michael Butterworth , who cashed it and spent the money . In 1979 , fifteen years after Martha ' s death , Ena remembered Martha and told Annie Walker that she would always remember her friend as she was when they first met as girls . Minnie Caldwell . Minnie ' s docile nature made her a useful ally to Martha in her battles with Ena . Whenever Martha was snubbing Ena , she would instruct Minnie to do the same . In October 1963 , due to Ena refusing to have a children ' s party at the Mission , the residents blamed her for its subsequent cancellation . Ena was sent to Coventry , with Martha eagerly shunning her and Minnie less so . They made up with Ena after the vestry was trashed by a mystery person ( later revealed to be Michael Butterworth ) and it was established that she wasn ' t to blame for the party being shelved . The downside of Minnie being so potty was that Martha had to make sure she didn ' t unthinkingly upset Ena , usually without success . In December 1961 , Martha stopped Minnie from using Ena ' s harmonium when she was helping out at the Mission although it proved only a temporary setback as Albert Tatlock subsequently let her play on it , resulting in Ena hearing it and trapping Minnie in a wardrobe to teach her a lesson . In March 1961 , when Ena went to the Town Hall to complain about her gas pressure , she got Minnie and Martha to test theirs . Missing the point of the exercise , Minnie reported to Martha that hers boiled much faster than Ena ' s . Before going to make her complaint , Ena got Minnie to alter her form . Martha ' s " ghost " . In 1975 , Annie Walker went to visit Billy in Jersey , and barmaids Betty Turpin and Bet Lynch moved into the Rovers for a few weeks to look after the pub in her absence . One night , after locking up , Betty found a pair of glasses on the bar and , as she went to pick them up , caught sight of a woman in the empty snug and heard a woman ' s voice , mentioning Minnie Caldwell by name , and also " our Lily ' s Wilf . " The next day , Betty told Bet that she thought she ' d seen a ghost . The story of Betty ' s paranormal sighting soon reached Ena and Minnie ' s ears , and they got her to describe the " ghost " as being middle - aged and wearing a beret and round glasses - a perfect description of Martha Longhurst . Ena and Minnie took it as a fact that she ' d seen their late friend , but others had different interpretations - Bet asked if Betty had had a go at the optics , while Ken Barlow tried to debunk the idea of an apparition , positing the theory that she ' d been told about Martha by Ena and Minnie in the past and that the glasses had triggered her subconscious . The mystery was never solved , with the exception of the glasses on the bar , which shortly afterwards were claimed by customer Barney Gardner . Background information . Creation and casting . The character of Martha was conceived early on , when Tony Warren realised that Ena Sharples would need drinking companions . His experiences of the real - world Enas and their cronies greatly informed the character . Warren : " Whenever you got tough old viragoes like Ena , they always had henchmen . They generally had a talkative one that could be shouted down , and then there was always a silent one who nodded but was a bit rebellious . " " ( Minnie Caldwell Remembered - A Tribute to Margot Bryant ) " The former character outline turned into Martha Longhurst , and the latter Minnie Caldwell . Martha was present in the second of the two dry runs made in November 1960 , where she was played by Doris Hare . During final casting for the show proper , casting director Margaret Morris offered Hare the larger part of Ena Sharples , but Hare had to turn it down as she had commitments with the RSC . " ( The Coronation Street Story , Boxtree Limited , 1995 ) " Lynne Carol was a Welsh - born actress who was living in Blackpool in 1960 . The daughter of stage actress Mina Mackinson , Carol had been a child performer since the age of three and went on to have a long career in theatre , radio and television . Though Martha was the second - oldest character in the programme , 46 - year - old Carol was given the part of the 64 - year - old . Her relative youth compared with her co - stars was obscured by the character ' s wardrobe , with Martha normally wearing a hairnet , beret , spectacles , and an old mackintosh , all of which were provided by Carol who bought them second - hand in a jumble sale . Development . Martha and Minnie were initially supporting characters , with their storylines revolving around Ena Sharples . Over time , they got stories of their own , notably Martha ' s attempts to affect a relationship with her old school friend Ted Ashley . The three were most often seen in the Rovers snug , where they reminisced and shared the latest gossip over glasses of milk stout . Most of these scenes weren ' t connected to any storylines , but proved very popular with viewers . Carol : " The scriptwriters used to say that . ' We don ' t need to think about scenes for you , you three , we can say anything , and as soon as they see those three chairs round the table that ' s it , and you can make it funny without meaning to , just by being ordinary . ' " " ( Minnie Caldwell Remembered ) " About the popularity of Martha in particular , Carol once told " Weekend " : " There are an awful lot of Marthas in the world . Some viewers used to tell me to mind my own business but most people could see that Martha was really a pathetic old dear . " " ( The Coronation Street Story ) " Axing . In 1964 , 29 - year - old ex - journalist Tim Aspinall replaced Margaret Morris as " Coronation Street " ' s producer . January that year had seen " Coronation Street " beaten to first place in the ratings by a regular episode of another TV programme for the first time since November 1961 ( the sitcom " Steptoe and Son " on BBC One ) . Although ratings were actually up on the same month in 1963 , Aspinall felt that " Coronation Street " needed a shake - up . On 1st April , Lynne Carol was one of several unsuspecting cast members informed by Margaret Morris that they had been fired . Nearly half the cast were axed , although some of them were granted a reprieve by H . V . Kershaw when he returned as producer in September after working on Granada ' s " The Villains " . Carol was the first to depart , with Martha suffering a fatal heart attack in the Rovers snug in Tim Aspinall ' s inaugural episode as producer . Due to the nature of the character ' s exit , and her popularity with the cast and viewers , Carol ' s colleagues fought her sacking , with Violet Carson threatening to resign . She was talked round by Carol . When rehearsing the death scene , Peter Adamson refused to deliver the line " she ' s dead " , and during recording he hesitated before saying it so that his words could be cut , with the order likely to come from Cecil Bernstein , one of Granada ' s chairmen who was the programme ' s strongest advocate within senior management . However , no such order was given . After her sacking was announced by the press on 7th April , Carol spoke to a reporter , where she was resigned to her fate : " They ' ve been three wonderful years , and I am sorry to be leaving so many good friends behind me . " " ( The Coronation Street Story ) " Martha was the first character to have an on - screen burial . The graveside scenes were shot on location at Manchester General Cemetery in Harphurey on Tuesday 12th May . The episode featuring Martha ' s death was shown with silent end credits played over a shot of Martha ' s glasses , passport and sherry glass on the snug table she was sitting at when she passed away . Carol played Martha one further time : her voice was heard in the following episode , when Ena and Minnie played an old recording of Martha ' s in which she and an unknown man called Philip proclaimed their love for each other . The same episode featured Stephanie Bidmead as Lily Haddon , Martha ' s daughter who previously had been spoken of frequently but never seen . The killing of Martha has since been heavily criticised , with H . V . Kershaw describing it as one of the worst decisions in " Coronation Street " history . Kershaw : " No doubt Tim Aspinall felt that by such action he would bring the programme a great deal of publicity and in this he certainly succeeded . However I do feel - and this is only a personal opinion - that he broke the rule of conservation . By killing an established character he doubtlessly gave us a few episodes of high drama and created a talking - point in the factories and laundrettes which boosted our viewing figures for a period , but when the dust settled we were simply left with a " Coronation Street " without Martha Longhurst . The trio had been reduced to a rather sad duet and there is little doubt that by that one action many future stories were denied us . " " ( The Street Where I Live , Granada Publishing Limited , 1981 ) " Legacy . Subsequent producers have lamented the loss of Martha , with Bill Podmore referring to it as " the Street ' s greatest mistake " . After the death of Margot Bryant in 1988 , Podmore appeared with Carol on a BBC Open Air programme where they discussed the possibility of Carol returning to the programme as Martha ' s twin sister , who had been living in Australia , although the idea went no further . " ( Coronation Street : The Inside Story , Macdonald & co , 1990 ) " Eleven years after leaving the programme , Martha ' s voice was heard in Episode 1501 ( 16th June 1975 ) in which Betty Turpin heard her " ghost " in the empty Rovers . A voice clip from an old episode was used for the scene , for which Lynne Carol wasn ' t credited . Quotes . " Evenin ' . ' Ave you got a packet of crisps ? " ( First line , to Annie Walker ) " Can I ' ave a large sherry ? " ( Final line , to Concepta Hewitt )