Chalkie Whitely Thomas " Chalkie " Whitely was the owner and tenant of 9 Coronation Street from 1982 to 1983 . He worked with Eddie Yeats on the bins and counted Phyllis Pearce among his relations . Biography . Thomas Whitely ( invariably referred to by his nickname " Chalkie " ) was born on 21st December 1924 . He was married to Mary Whitely and they had at least one son , Bob Whitely . By 1982 , Chalkie was a widower and living in Viaduct Street with his grandson Craig , who was living with him while Bob , a merchant seaman whose wife had also passed away , was at sea . Chalkie worked as binman alongside Eddie Yeats and Curly Watts . It was usually his job to drive the lorries . When Chalkie got word that his home was to be demolished , he started house - hunting and became interested in 7 Coronation Street , recently rebuilt by Len Fairclough seventeen years after it collapsed in 1965 . Len and his wife Rita lived next door at No . 9 and were asking for £14 , 000 for the adjacent property , which Chalkie thought was too much . Fortunately , Rita also had her eye on the new house and tried to interest Chalkie in No . 9 , with the Faircloughs moving next door . Chalkie offered £10 , 000 - less than Len wanted but eventually Len was talked round and in August Chalkie moved into the house with Craig . More disputes with the Faircloughs were to come . Just before the Whitelys were to move in , Rita sold the house ' s carpets to Chalkie , only for them to be ruined when Len threw an inpromptu farewell party at the house . When Chalkie forgot to pass on a letter to Len for a week , Len lost his temper and shouted at Chalkie , resulting in Chalkie refusing to pass on any of Len ' s post , costing his plumbing business work . Rita later settled it by paying to have Len ' s post redirected : a victory for Chalkie . Looking after Craig was an arrangement which worked for Chalkie but it wasn ' t without difficulties . Craig was starting to become rebellious by skiving off school and playing his drums , annoying Chalkie and the neighbours , but worst of all was Craig ' s maternal grandmother Phyllis Pearce , who in September tracked the pair down even though Chalkie hadn ' t passed on their new address to her . Phyllis thought Chalkie was not meeting Craig ' s needs and started hanging around the house to keep an eye on them both ( as Chalkie had feared ) . When Chalkie and Craig built a pigeon coop together , Phyllis released the pigeons as she thought they were dirty . Chalkie got the pigeons back and looked after them . In November , Bob returned from the Navy to a welcome home party thrown by Chalkie . To Chalkie ' s surprise , Bob wanted to leave the Navy and settle in Australia to raise Craig . Chalkie was also invited but although the prospect of being out of Phyllis ' s reach appealed to him , Chalkie had made a life in Weatherfield and felt too old to start again . Phyllis appealed to Chalkie to talk Bob into letting Craig stay but Chalkie decided against it , feeling that Craig would be better off in Australia with his father . In January 1983 , now living alone , Chalkie fell ill with Flu and , against his will , was looked after by Phyllis . He kept in touch with the Whitelys in Australia as much as possible and in February decided to sell No . 9 and live somewhere smaller so that he could give the money to Bob . Phyllis saw this as an opportunity to get her man and asked Chalkie to move in with her but unsurprisingly the idea didn ' t appeal to him . At the time , Chalkie was pursuing widow Alice Kirby and agreed to live with her despite being somewhat frightened of Alice . He was ready to sell No . 9 to Mr and Mrs Cheetham but Phyllis put them off buying the house , aware that losing that would mean losing any chance of Craig returning . Just as he was to move , Chalkie found out that Alice had dumped him for a retired all - in wrestler . In July , Chalkie put £10 on a five - horse accumulator and came up trumps with £3 , 554 . 75 winnings . He immediately started making plans to move to Australia by quitting his job and , leaving No . 9 to be auctioned , left for Australia in August . Phyllis made a plea for Chalkie to take her with him but they were dutifully ignored . Quotes . " What a load o ' drivel . " ( First line , to Eddie Yeats ) " Bye all ! Bye ! Bye ! Cheerio ! " ( Final line )