1990 ITV Telethon The 1990 ITV Telethon was ITV ’ s second mammoth fundraising event following the success of the previous one two years earlier . In that edition , the producers had featured as a highlight the return of Doris Speed to the Granada studios , five years after her retirement from " Coronation Street " . The 1990 edition was , like its predecessor a twenty - seven hour continuous broadcast , carried by all of the ITV channels to raise money for “ the needy , the disadvantaged and the disabled ” . It began at 7 . 00pm on Sunday 27th May and finished on the following evening , a Bank Holiday , at 10 . 00pm . As before it was hosted from the studios of London Weekend Television and presented throughout by . All of the ITV regions took part with many local op - outs from the London coverage to highlight events in their own area . The Granada coverage came from the Quay Street studios in Manchester and featured many spots in which the stars of " Coronation Street " took part , including meeting fundraisers and taking part in entertainment slots . One the Sunday , viewers in the North West were promised in the 10 . 20pm slot “ Ivy Tilsley , the Weatherfield nightingale and Percy Sugden the Relentless Raconteur . ” However nationally on the following evening of 28th May , during the programme ’ s usual 7 . 30pm slot , a specially - scripted and shot mini - episode of " Coronation Street " was shown in which Hilda Ogden made a brief return to Weatherfield for the first time since her departure to Derbyshire three years earlier . Well - publicised with a " TV Times " cover , Alexander was interviewed in the same magazine in which she said : She went on to say : The entire evening segment gained 10 . 7 million viewers , putting it at 11th place in the charts . Hilda ' s Return . Hilda Ogden returns to her old home of Coronation Street in a taxi , disappointed that no one is around to see her arrive in style . She insists the driver beeps his horn to attract attention but this only annoys Alec in the Rovers . Jack peeps out of the door and tells the regulars that they ’ ll never guess who ’ s getting out of the cab . He holds the door open for Hilda who walks in to cries of delight from Bet and Betty . Bet insists Alec gets her a Port and Lemon on the house but Hilda wants the Port by itself as that ’ s the people drink it where she lives now . Alec tells her she can have his special : a - “ a small British port ” . Bet snappily countermands the order and states it ’ s to be a large one . Within moments Hilda is swapping barbed insults with Vera when she is asked if she is still scrubbing for Doctor Lowther . Hilda insists she ’ s never been anyone ’ s scrubber but Bet deduces from her manner that she has news she wants to impart . Hilda tells her old neighbours that the doctor has proposed and a stunned Alec asks if the man has gone senile . Bet hastily offers her congratulations but Alec insists that Hilda get the offer in writing before he has a remission and his mind clears again . Bet tells him to give over . . . Later , Hilda is at the cemetery , tidying up Stan ’ s grave . She talks to her dead husband and tells him that she ’ ll be turning down the proposal . It wouldn ’ t be right and she wants to be Mrs Stanley Ogden for good as he always came first . Cast . John Stevenson wrote the mini - episode although the director is unknown . After a few bars of the closing theme music , Jean Alexander was shown returning to the Rovers set where cast members Sally Ann Matthews , Peter Baldwin , Thelma Barlow , Beverley Callard , Amanda Barrie , Bill Waddington and Dawn Acton were present when she was presented with a cheque for £50 , 000 by a representative of Heineken for the telethon . This added to the total raised on the evening of £24 million . Even so , the efforts were not appreciated by some as there protests in both 1990 and for a similar event two years later ( when there was no specific " Coronation Street " insert ) by disability rights groups campaigning for jobs , education and accessible transport instead of charity . As regards the return of Hilda , the critics were similarly unimpressed with Margaret Forwood in the " Daily Express " of 31st May stating “ It lasted 4 minutes , of which 30 seconds was believable . What a con ! ” and rival Hilary Kingsley in the " Daily Mirror " of 1st June opining “ Hilda Ogden and her soppy soliloquy at Stan ’ s grave was a travesty . ” Until 2016 , the master tape of the mini - episode was not in the ITV archives and the only known extant copies were VHS recordings taken on the day of transmission , however the television preservation organisation Kaleidoscope located and returned the tape in that year . This does not included the sequence of Jean Alexander collecting the charity cheque , only the scripted material .