Coronation Street reached a low of eight million in February 1973, when Pat Phoenix quit as Elsie Tanner, Violet Carson (battleaxe Ena Sharples) was written out for most of the year due to illness, and Doris Speed (haughty landlady Annie Walker) took two months' leave due to bereavement. The audience of ITV's other flagship soap opera "Crossroads" increased markedly at this time, as its established cast, such as Meg Richardson (Noele Gordon), grew in popularity. These sudden departures forced the writing team to quickly develop characters who had previously stood in the background. The roles of Bet Lynch (Julie Goodyear), Deirdre Hunt
Elsie Tanner Three years after leaving, Phoenix died, and a few months later, a special video special titled "The Lives and Loves of Elsie Tanner" had the return of Anne Cunningham as Elsie's daughter Linda, hinting about Elsie's previous passing and including archive footage for flashbacks. However, 24 years later, when Philip Lowrie returned as Elsie's son Dennis Tanner, it was revealed that Elsie had died in a car accident along with Bill Gregory in 2004/2005, meaning that the video is not part of the canon of the show (on which the events have not been mentioned). In 2011, it was revealed