The South Shields man who starred in Corrie, Emmerdale and Get Carter
A South Shields man had a special TV distinction of playing two different characters in Coronation Street.
He took Elsie Tanner’s furniture away
The storyline goes that he was dispatched by his boss to accompany a bailiff who was taking away Elsie Tanner’s furniture.
He returned to the Street a few years later when he played Brian Tilsley’s grandad.
It was just reward for Alan who, as a child had built up acting experience when he appeared in the Gang Show.
His working life began at Reyrolles
But he was not a man who had always been in the acting profession. He had previously been an electric engineer.
Earlier in his adulthood, he worked at Reyrolles in Hebburn and only made the switch when he was 32.
In 1973, he was appearing in the BBC miner’s drama, Sinker’s Row, alongside his long-time thespian pal and fellow South Shields lad, Edward Wilson.
Dolly Skilbeck’s stepdad in Emmerdale
He returned to soap operas when he got a part in Emmerdale as Dolly Skilbeck’s stepfather Leonard Purwick in 1978.
Roles followed as a scrap metal dealer in the cult Tyneside gangster film, Get Carter, and he played alongside Bill Maynard in The Gaffer on TV.
Alan, who lived for many years on the Lawe Top, South Shields, died in June 1992 after a lifetime of doing South Tyneside proud on stage and screen.
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