Byker Grove creator and Coronation Street scriptwriter Adele Rose dies

Byker Grove creator and Coronation Street scriptwriter Adele Rose has died at the age of 87.

The only female writer in the soap’s early days, Adele Rose contributed almost 460 scripts to Coronation Street between 1961 and 1998.

Adele – a former secretary at Granada – had seen the early episodes of the show and taken away from them that the scripts were lacking “a woman’s touch”.

It was on the advice of writer Jack Rosenthal that she submitted a sample script to Granada, which led to her writing episode 40 of the soap – the first of many.

The Salford-born writer also created the North East youth centre based drama Byker Grove which made stars out of Ant and Dec. Like Grange Hill the programme won praise for bringing gritty topics to a young audience such as homosexuality, alcoholism, teen pregnancy, abortion and drug use.

Adele – whose other credits include Heartbeat, Z Cars and The Dustbinmen – won a BAFTA for her work in 1993.

In 1980 she helped to launch, along with future Brookside creator Philip Redmond, Southern Television’s apartment based twice-weekly serial Together. Airing in ITV’s daytime schedules it also pioneered some taboo storyline telling for its time including bringing soap’s first gay couple to central storylines.

Also in the 1980s she penned episodes of Central Television’s Crossroads under the pen name of Lee Roades as Corrie bosses didn’t like their writers ‘moonlighting’ elsewhere.

Adele’s husband Peter Chadwick spoke to Chronicle Live about her passing, revealing that she died from pneumonia on December 28.

“In June, she fell over and broke her hip. She developed pneumonia about a week ago and never got over it. She passed away in the local hospital, where she had the best care. She had a huge sense of humour which was often quite naughty and quite wicked. She loved writing the battleaxes in Coronation Street.” – Peter Chadwick, Husband of Adele Rose

Adele also leaves behind her son, Steve, and grandson, Daniel.