Violet Carson OBE
Publicity Photo of Violet Carson
Born	Violet Helen Carson (1898-09-01)1 September 1898 Ancoats,Manchester, England
Died	26 December 1999(1999-12-26) (aged 101) Blackpool,Lancashire, England
Occupations	Actress, singer, pianist
Years active	c.1913–1980
Spouse	George Peploe ​ ​ (m. 1926; died 1929)​
Relatives	Nellie Kelly (sister)

Violet Helen Carson (1 September 1898 – 26 December 1983) was a British actress of radio, stage and television, and a singer andpianist, who had a long and celebrated career as an actress and performer during the early days ofBBC Radio, and during the last two decades of her life as the matronly Christian widow, town gossip and elderly battle-axeEna Sharples in theITV television soap operaCoronation Street. She was one of theoriginal characters from the series debut in 1960 and would feature in the role for twenty years.

Carson was born on German Street inAncoats,Lancashire. Her Scottish father, William Brown Carson, ran a flour mill and her mother, Mary Clarke Carson (née Tordoff), was an amateur singer. As a child, she took piano lessons while attending aChurch of England school and performed with her younger sister Nellie as a singing act called the Carson Sisters. In 1913, she became a cinema pianist providing themusical accompaniment for silent films.^[1] As silent films fell out of fashion following the arrival of "talkies", Carson took up singing.^[2]

She married road contractor George Peploe on 1 September 1926, her 28th birthday. Peploe died in 1929 at the age of 31.^[1] They had no children and Carson never remarried.

In 1935, Carson joinedBBC Radio in Manchester, singing a range of material from comic musical hall style songs to light operaticarias. She began in a show calledSongs at the Piano and was a regular member ofChildren's Hour on theBBC Home Service. Carson was also the star ofNursery Sing Song from Manchester, in which she frequently sang with producer Trevor Hill, many years her junior. Contrary to popular opinion, she was never known as "Auntie Vi", that epithet belonging only to Violet Fraser in the 1920s. "I was never anyone's aunt," Carson exclaimed when Hill produced a BBC Radio programme about her in 1981.^[1]

In 1938, Carson provided piano accompaniment for two songs in anAl Bowlly recording session, which were released on aHis Master's Voice 78 with Carson being credited.^[3][4] She worked with theCouncil for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts during theSecond World War, and was for six years the pianist for theWilfred Pickles radio showHave A Go.^[1]

Her extensive radio career included a period as a presenter and interviewer onWoman's Hour for five years, and she acted in numerous radio dramas. It was while recording a children's programme in 1951 that she first worked withTony Warren, who would later become the creator ofCoronation Street.^[1]

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Carson is best remembered for her role asEna Sharples, the flint-faced and gruff moral voice ofCoronation Street, a role she played from 1960 to 1980. In 1962, she was named ITV Personality of the Year for her portrayal of Ena.^[5]

For much of her time on the programme, Ena's moralising caused her to spar regularly withElsie Tanner (Patricia Phoenix). She appeared in the first episode, which aired on 9 December 1960. Long after her departure from the programme and after her own death, Carson continues to be synonymous with thehairnet that Ena chose to wear for almost every occasion. As a singer, Carson was in thesoprano range and was a regular on the Christian hymnal programmeStars on Sunday during its ten-year run from 1969.

On 14 February 1968, Carson sailed fromSouthampton on theOrient Line's linerOriana, bound for Australia. She arrived inFremantle on 6 March 1968 andMelbourne on 9 March. Thousands of Australians greeted her on the docks. On 22 March 1968, she attended the 10th AnnualTV Week Logie Awards (named afterJohn Logie Baird) at theSouthern Cross Hotel in Melbourne, where she presented awards to some of the winners that year.

During the 1970s, Carson suffered from ill health, and only played Ena sporadically from 1972 onwards. She was absent fromCoronation Street for most of 1974 after suffering a stroke.

In April 1980, Carson made what would ultimately be her final appearance onCoronation Street. A storyline involving Ena moving toLytham St. Annes to stay with a friend while her flat at the street's community centre was being renovated, was aired. When the character returned, the flat was not ready and Ena announced on screen (to charactersKen Barlow andAlbert Tatlock) that she would return to her flat — but only if she felt like doing so. It was at this point that Carson became ill withpernicious anaemia and was forced to leave the programme, although at the time it was anticipated that she would return at some stage. However, this did not happen and all subsequent storylines involving Ena were shelved due to Carson's poor health, although Ena was not written out.^[6]

Carson lived in a bungalow inBispham,Blackpool, with her sister Nellie, and refused to make any public appearances after her retirement. The year after she retired, Carson underwent surgery for an abscess from which she never fully recovered.

Violet Carson released an EPViolet Carson Sings and Plays for You on the Columbia label in 1961.^[7] She later recorded an albumStars on Sunday: Miss Violet Carson for theYork label.^[8][9]

Carson died ofheart failure onBoxing Day 1983 at the age of 85. She was cremated in a private ceremony atCarleton Crematorium, Blackpool, on 4 January 1984, and is commemorated atBispham Parish Church in Blackpool.^[10][11]

A memorial service dedicated to Carson was held atManchester Cathedral on 28 February 1984, the same Cathedral where she was baptised and married. The service was attended by 500 people, as well as many of herCoronation Street colleagues includingWilliam Roache (Ken Barlow) andGranada Television presidentLord Bernstein.Sir Charles Groves conducted theBBC Philharmonic Orchestra, including an arrangement of Carson's favourite song, "Cherry Ripe".^[12]

Carson left £193,190 in her will, with bequests including to the Grand Theatre Trust in Blackpool, the Sharp Street Ragged School in Manchester, for whom she was the former president, and Friends of Manchester Cathedral. The residue of her estate went to her sister, Nellie Kelly.^[13]

Carson was made an Officer of theOrder of the British Empire in 1965 and had arose cultivar named after her ('Violet Carson', McGredy 1964).^[14] Wax statues of her are held atMadame Tussauds in London and Blackpool. She switched on theBlackpool Illuminations in 1961.^[2]

Carson is commemorated by ablue plaque outsideGranada Studios inManchester, where she filmed the majority of her work asEna Sharples.^[15]

• Over the Airwaves [Chapter 9] by Trevor Hill (the Book Guild) (2005)

• Violet Carson atIMDb

• 1898 births
• 1983 deaths
• 20th-century English women pianists
• 20th-century English actresses
• 20th-century English women singers
• 20th-century British pianists
• Actresses from Manchester
• English film actresses
• British soap opera actresses
• English stage actresses
• English television actresses
• British radio actresses
• British radio personalities
• Officers of the Order of the British Empire
• People from Ancoats
• Actresses from Blackpool
• Musicians from Blackpool
• British women radio presenters
• English people of Scottish descent
• York Records artists
• Deaths from congestive heart failure in England

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