Ena ' s Brief Encounter Ena ' s Brief Encounter was a two - part piece of " Coronation Street " fiction which appeared in " TV Times " magazine for the issues dated 22nd December 1979 to 4th January 1980 and 5th to 11th January 1980 . Written by programme scriptwriter Leslie Duxbury , the instalments were illustrated by Jeff Cummings . Plot . Part 1 It is Christmas 1917 : Ena Schofield is working as a bus conductress on the trams and at the age of nineteen lives with her parents at Alliance Street . Her “ young man ” is Alfred Sharples who is over on the battlefields of the western front near Poelkapelle having survived the Somme and Passchendaele . He has evolved his own methods for surviving the trenches , keeping his head down and being able to “ crawl with the rapidity and agility of a greasy snake ” through the trenches . He has recently met ols schoolfriend Albert Tatlock after two years apart on the front and Albert has found his own survival methods , ones of crafty cunning involving volunteering for training or driving , anything to get him away from the edge of No Man ’ s Land . Back in Weatherfield , Ena hears from widowed Mrs Watson , next door but one , that her son and a childhood friend of Ena ’ s , Will , is home on leave after six weeks ’ training after joining the army . The next day , Ena bumps into the shy nineteen - year old lad in Mrs Shuttleworth ’ s Corner Shop on Alliance Street and they swap pleasantries as he tells her of his seven - day ’ s leave . Two days later , on Sunday 23rd , on a weak sunny dinnertime , Ena passes Will ’ s house as she returns from the service at the Mission . He invites her for a walk and she agrees , much to her mother ’ s disapproval although her father gives his consent . The two go to the Clough , a wooded area near Bullen ’ s Farm that the factory builders had somehow missed out in developing and sit on a wall . Will tells her he ’ s received a telegram and that he must report back to the army tomorrow in Ashton as his regiment is being sent to France , although they haven ’ t finished their training . He is circumspect about the move , fully expecting to be killed in action although he does regret that he ’ s done nothing in his life , not even kissed a girl . The two hold each other and walk home arm in arm , though they do respect a distance between each other as they near the terraced streets . It isn ’ t enough though to stop Bessie Vickery seeing the two together and she mentions this in a letter to her fiancé Albert Tatlock , voicing the opinion that Ena must have forgotten all about Alfred Sharples … Part 2 - Six little words and then he was gone Ena and Alfred reach home to a disapproving greeting from her mother . That night , Ena realises that she is in love with Will as well as Alfred and cries herself to sleep on her pillow . Over the channel , Albert Tatlock is disgruntled that the leave he and Alfred expected for Christmas has been postponed until New Year . Bessie ’ s letter to him arrives and he reads of her sighting Ena and Will together . Alfred and Albert previously had a bet of ten bob that Alfred would get Ena to marry him within two years of him arriving home . Albert is torn : Bessie ’ s news means that he ’ s won the bet and while the comradeship of the trenches includes an unwritten rule that while the menfolk can sow wild oats while on leave in France , their girls back home are expected to behave and save themselves for their returning heroes . But Albert , seeing Alfred ’ s disappointment that he has not received a letter from his Ena , decides to withhold his gossip for now . Almost immediately afterwards , Alfred is sent on a mission with his reckless Captain , Oliver Todd Benson , a man who will return from the war to be his father ’ s executive skivvy in his tallow factory and therefore is making the most of his life at the front . Benson has spotted what he thinks is a pattern in a German sniper ’ s habits of using a cart track each morning and evening to get to a dug - out from where he can pick off the Tommys . Benson decides that he , Private Sharples and a Geordie called Thompson will go the track that night and ambush the man , despite the fact that the Germans frequently shell the place they are making for . They fail to return for three days , during which Albert frets for his friend and the possibility that he is dead . Miraculously they turn up on the back of a French army lorry , having had to escape from the cart track during a bombardment and sheltered with a group of French soldiers in an abandoned farmhouse , fortified by fine wines . Alfred ’ s relief at his survival is so transparent that Albert again resolves not to tell his friend of Ena ’ s betrayal , besides which , he ’ s lost Bessie ’ s letter in an attack on the trench … The two men make it home for their New Year leave . Bessie and Albert spot Will at the station as he leaves home to go to France . That night , Alfred makes his way to Alliance Street and , with her parent ’ s permission , takes Ena out to a dance at the Mechanic ’ s Institute , together with Albert , Bessie and Minnie Carlton . Albert sees Ena and Alfred ’ s infatuation with each other has not lessened “ unless she ’ s a good actress ” . Will Watson is killed on 10th January 1918 at Passchendaele in his first action of the war . Two weeks later , his grief - stricken mother drowns herself in the canal .