The Barman was sent by brewery Newton & Ridley to tend bar at the Rovers Return Inn when Jack and Annie Walker were at a party at the Glad Tidings Mission Hall on Christmas Day 1963. Unbeknown to the Walkers, the party was a This Is Your Life for Annie, organised by several Coronation Street residents. As it was Christmas Day, the barman did not have many customers, although at one point he served Elsie Tanner and Len Fairclough a gin and tonic and half a mild. When Elsie heard that someone who lived in the Street would be getting a This is Your Life she worried that it would be her, and asked the barman if he had seen a chief petty officer, a reference to her old flame Bill Gregory, who served with the Navy. The barman replied that he hadn't.