1968 was a make-or-break year for Coronation Street. After staving off cancellation by Granada in 1967, producers made a concerted effort to update the programme. Everitt hired as story consultant novelist Stan Barstow, who believed that instilling social issues into storylines was the way forward and submitted many suggestions; he was behind the Clegg family, led by alcoholic Les who regularly beat his wife Maggie. Once their initial storyline concluded, Les was written out and Irene Sutcliffe carried on as Maggie, with Bill Kenwright playing her studious son Gordon. Barstow was also behind Emily Nugent's fling with Hungarian Miklos Zadic, and Elsie Tanner's meltdown in front of Len Fairclough after her return from the USA - a scene which was played as an 11-minute two-hander between thos