Right, I didn't want to do this, but since certain posters on the Digital Spy forum and elsewhere are proving the point about people becoming more and more stupid as years pass, I'm forced to reiterate what sensible DS posters like felixrex, Filiman, PerfectPrincess, ayeshire lass, maurice75 and kitkat71 have been hammering home repeatedly.
Cora is not not not not not not not not not Sharon's mother.
As has been repeatedly pointed out, we know who Sharon's birth mother is. We saw her. She constituted occasional appearances and played an important, if limited, role in a very major storyline which culminated in Grant and Sharon's wedding.
This is a picture of Sharon's mother, Carol Hanley:-
And here's the actress who played her, Sheila White:-
Here is Ann Mitchell, circa 1990:-
Mitchell is 73 and plays a 69 year-old woman. Sharon was born in 1969. When she met her birth mother, it was intimated that Carol Hanley, nee Stretton, was a teenager when she gave birth to Sharon. Sheila White is currently 62 years old and would have been 40 when she appeared as Carol Hanley, but was probably playing a few years younger. Still, even if she weren't, the character would still have been nineteen when she gave birth to Sharon, instead of twenty-six, as Cora would have been.
Still, logic aside, let's look at the circumstances surrounding a story which some forum members on Digital Spy are arrogant enough to think that just because they weren't around to savour the storyline that established Sharon's biological mother, the writers now should just brush that storyline aside as though it didn't exist and accommodate their fantasy in order to validate a new character into a role that's too big, at present, for her to fill. The theory that more people would accept Mother Superior Cora as the Matriarch of Walford if she were related by blood to one of two remaining original cast members and ensconced as the landlady of the Vic by virtue of this relationship is pure unadulterated hoakum.
Sharon should not be used to validate Cora's existence on the Square at the expense of dismissing her as a part of one of the most important families ever to grace the show - the Watts family. Neither should she be used as a vehicle by which to impose the Brannings as the focal point of the programme. That's cheap. It was done exploitatively when Pam St Clement left, and it was disrespectful to the actress and to the character she played.
Now, boys and girls - and by this, I mean vaslav37, Tim Willis and Louisiana - listen up. This is how important Carol Hanley was to Sharon's story.
It was 1990. Angie had been gone from Walford for a couple of years. Den had died. Sharon had found out that Vicky was her sister. She'd been betrayed by Simon with Cindy, and was just beginning to get close to Grant Mitchell. She was uncertain of herself, and when Grant inadvertantly referred to her as "princess" one evening, she went on a downward spiral, until Michelle suggested she try to find her birth parents.
She got her birth certificate, learned that her mother's name was Carol Stretton, She made the enquiry properly, along the accepted channels - Eastenders did research in those days. They knew that if no attempt had been made by her birth parents to trace her, there would be no contact, but there had been. The agency arranged a meeting, and instead of going along, Sharon sent Michelle to speak with Carol and find out about her. Michelle met her, thought she was genuine, and referred Sharon, telling her that Carol was now Carol Hanley, married and pregnant.
Sharon and her mother met a few times, always in a public place, always for coffee. She learned that her mother had been very young, and that her birth father was a boy named Gavin. Sharon wanted to establish a family unit of her own, as she felt that she'd been deceived by Den with Vicky and was worried she was getting too close to Grant as a crutch for fear of being alone. The last time she saw Carol, she was in hospital, having given birth to her second son. She introduced Sharon to her older son as a "friend," and Ron, Carol's husband told Sharon it was probably best that she bow out as they had their own family unit now.
So she was rejected by Carol. Believe me, there was no babyswap, no mistaken identity at birth, none of that shit - and given the recent unpopular babyswap storyline, preceeded by the equally inane Corrie babyswap ten years after it happened and then swept under the carpet, anything like this would just be Eastenders not only jumping the shark, but getting a shark-bite in the arse.
What happened after this rejection is that Sharon allowed herself to become more and more involved with Grant until, on Boxing Day 1991, they married. This was, effectively, the metamorphosis of Sharon from being totally Watts to being (and still being) a quasi-Mitchell. Whenever you think of Grant or Phil now, you immediately think of Sharon.
Sharongate is the most popular storyline to date in British soap history. Before Shannis, there was Sharon and Grant, and still may be again. But even if Grant never returns, there's loads of mileage in Sharon and Phil. Sharon left Walford in 2006, involved with Phil, and she'll return to be involved with him again.
Viewers who've come of age only within the last decade need to stuff down their gullets the fact that Eastenders existed before 2000, and it had established history. Jim Branning may have been BFFs with Patrick Truman, but even Jim acknowledged that he used to be a racist and still didn't agree with inter-racial romance. At Billy's death, Carol even accused him still of racism. If we wipe away the fact that Sharon found and knew her birth mother, let's wipe away the fact that Phil didn't burn the car lot down, or that Sharongate never happened, or that Phil's first wife wasn't named Nadia. And Cindy never cheated on Ian. Mark Fowler didn't die of AIDS. What next?
More people watched Eastenders in 1990 than watch it today, but there are still a fair number of us who do, and we remember Carol Hanley and her storyline. Retcon this and enough of us will turn off for good so that viewing numbers might just be significantly affected. Contrary to what people might think, Eastenders isn't tweenies snogging about and steroidically-enhanced men parading around shirtless. It's not Shaggerman mysteries and educated professionals turning psychopathic.
Cora had a baby out of wedlock at a time when it was still shameful to do so. Cora is 69. Tanya is 36. That would mean that Cora was well past thirty when she gave birth to Tanya and Rainie. So this child would be significantly older than Tanya - possibly closer to fifty.
Now here's a thought which no one has broached, and one which would make sense. Maybe Shirley is Cora's daughter.
If you think that would make Tanya gag a maggot, think of what that would do to poor little monalisa62003.
Maybe Ava was stillborn. More than likely, Cora's lying to shut Bouncy Tan the fuck up. Maybe she finds the memory of having to give a child up for adoption too traumatic still. Maybe, as someone suggested, the child was mixed race, which may account for some of her reaction to Patrick's amorous advances. Somewhere along the line, I've no doubt we'll see Ava, but I hope it's a long way down the line, when the inhabitants of Branningville have been thinned out considerably.
But one thing's for certain. Cora's not Sharon's mother. She could be Shirley's though.
As for the Brannings, the fact that TPTB are planning on dropping Sharon in their midst immediately upon her return is just another pathetic attempt to validate this family front and centre as the focal point of the programme. Besides, a Sharon-Jack romance would justify keeping Scott Maslen on when he really should be shown the door.
The Brannings are currently shoehorned into every possible important storyline. They comprise 60% of the Shaggerman suspects. Max and Jack are going to have some sort of hagglefest over Sharon (which is why I think Derek's the one who's been porking Slut Slutter). Max and Tanya are involved in the search for Ian, and Joey's paying Lucy for sexual favours so he'll have a say in keeping Ian out of his own home.
Walford is becoming Branningville.
As someone sensible pointed out on Digital Spy, the Brannings are the current Slaters. John Yorke reckoned they'd be the next Fowler demographic, but once Michelle Ryan left, they started dropping like flies. Once Jo Joyner leaves (please, get over yourselves ... she isn't taking a break any more than Letitia Dean did in 2006 - she's leaving), then the floodgates will open for various and sundry others to depart - Derek first, followed by Jack, Joey, Alice and Lauren. Bianca should never return. The right about of Brannings are the best ones - Max, Carol, Abi and Oscar.
Update:
Still don't believe me? Watch this ...
Cora is not not not not not not not not not Sharon's mother.
As has been repeatedly pointed out, we know who Sharon's birth mother is. We saw her. She constituted occasional appearances and played an important, if limited, role in a very major storyline which culminated in Grant and Sharon's wedding.
This is a picture of Sharon's mother, Carol Hanley:-
Still, logic aside, let's look at the circumstances surrounding a story which some forum members on Digital Spy are arrogant enough to think that just because they weren't around to savour the storyline that established Sharon's biological mother, the writers now should just brush that storyline aside as though it didn't exist and accommodate their fantasy in order to validate a new character into a role that's too big, at present, for her to fill. The theory that more people would accept Mother Superior Cora as the Matriarch of Walford if she were related by blood to one of two remaining original cast members and ensconced as the landlady of the Vic by virtue of this relationship is pure unadulterated hoakum.
Sharon should not be used to validate Cora's existence on the Square at the expense of dismissing her as a part of one of the most important families ever to grace the show - the Watts family. Neither should she be used as a vehicle by which to impose the Brannings as the focal point of the programme. That's cheap. It was done exploitatively when Pam St Clement left, and it was disrespectful to the actress and to the character she played.
Now, boys and girls - and by this, I mean vaslav37, Tim Willis and Louisiana - listen up. This is how important Carol Hanley was to Sharon's story.
It was 1990. Angie had been gone from Walford for a couple of years. Den had died. Sharon had found out that Vicky was her sister. She'd been betrayed by Simon with Cindy, and was just beginning to get close to Grant Mitchell. She was uncertain of herself, and when Grant inadvertantly referred to her as "princess" one evening, she went on a downward spiral, until Michelle suggested she try to find her birth parents.
She got her birth certificate, learned that her mother's name was Carol Stretton, She made the enquiry properly, along the accepted channels - Eastenders did research in those days. They knew that if no attempt had been made by her birth parents to trace her, there would be no contact, but there had been. The agency arranged a meeting, and instead of going along, Sharon sent Michelle to speak with Carol and find out about her. Michelle met her, thought she was genuine, and referred Sharon, telling her that Carol was now Carol Hanley, married and pregnant.
Sharon and her mother met a few times, always in a public place, always for coffee. She learned that her mother had been very young, and that her birth father was a boy named Gavin. Sharon wanted to establish a family unit of her own, as she felt that she'd been deceived by Den with Vicky and was worried she was getting too close to Grant as a crutch for fear of being alone. The last time she saw Carol, she was in hospital, having given birth to her second son. She introduced Sharon to her older son as a "friend," and Ron, Carol's husband told Sharon it was probably best that she bow out as they had their own family unit now.
So she was rejected by Carol. Believe me, there was no babyswap, no mistaken identity at birth, none of that shit - and given the recent unpopular babyswap storyline, preceeded by the equally inane Corrie babyswap ten years after it happened and then swept under the carpet, anything like this would just be Eastenders not only jumping the shark, but getting a shark-bite in the arse.
What happened after this rejection is that Sharon allowed herself to become more and more involved with Grant until, on Boxing Day 1991, they married. This was, effectively, the metamorphosis of Sharon from being totally Watts to being (and still being) a quasi-Mitchell. Whenever you think of Grant or Phil now, you immediately think of Sharon.
Sharongate is the most popular storyline to date in British soap history. Before Shannis, there was Sharon and Grant, and still may be again. But even if Grant never returns, there's loads of mileage in Sharon and Phil. Sharon left Walford in 2006, involved with Phil, and she'll return to be involved with him again.
Viewers who've come of age only within the last decade need to stuff down their gullets the fact that Eastenders existed before 2000, and it had established history. Jim Branning may have been BFFs with Patrick Truman, but even Jim acknowledged that he used to be a racist and still didn't agree with inter-racial romance. At Billy's death, Carol even accused him still of racism. If we wipe away the fact that Sharon found and knew her birth mother, let's wipe away the fact that Phil didn't burn the car lot down, or that Sharongate never happened, or that Phil's first wife wasn't named Nadia. And Cindy never cheated on Ian. Mark Fowler didn't die of AIDS. What next?
More people watched Eastenders in 1990 than watch it today, but there are still a fair number of us who do, and we remember Carol Hanley and her storyline. Retcon this and enough of us will turn off for good so that viewing numbers might just be significantly affected. Contrary to what people might think, Eastenders isn't tweenies snogging about and steroidically-enhanced men parading around shirtless. It's not Shaggerman mysteries and educated professionals turning psychopathic.
Cora had a baby out of wedlock at a time when it was still shameful to do so. Cora is 69. Tanya is 36. That would mean that Cora was well past thirty when she gave birth to Tanya and Rainie. So this child would be significantly older than Tanya - possibly closer to fifty.
Now here's a thought which no one has broached, and one which would make sense. Maybe Shirley is Cora's daughter.
If you think that would make Tanya gag a maggot, think of what that would do to poor little monalisa62003.
Maybe Ava was stillborn. More than likely, Cora's lying to shut Bouncy Tan the fuck up. Maybe she finds the memory of having to give a child up for adoption too traumatic still. Maybe, as someone suggested, the child was mixed race, which may account for some of her reaction to Patrick's amorous advances. Somewhere along the line, I've no doubt we'll see Ava, but I hope it's a long way down the line, when the inhabitants of Branningville have been thinned out considerably.
But one thing's for certain. Cora's not Sharon's mother. She could be Shirley's though.
As for the Brannings, the fact that TPTB are planning on dropping Sharon in their midst immediately upon her return is just another pathetic attempt to validate this family front and centre as the focal point of the programme. Besides, a Sharon-Jack romance would justify keeping Scott Maslen on when he really should be shown the door.
The Brannings are currently shoehorned into every possible important storyline. They comprise 60% of the Shaggerman suspects. Max and Jack are going to have some sort of hagglefest over Sharon (which is why I think Derek's the one who's been porking Slut Slutter). Max and Tanya are involved in the search for Ian, and Joey's paying Lucy for sexual favours so he'll have a say in keeping Ian out of his own home.
Walford is becoming Branningville.
As someone sensible pointed out on Digital Spy, the Brannings are the current Slaters. John Yorke reckoned they'd be the next Fowler demographic, but once Michelle Ryan left, they started dropping like flies. Once Jo Joyner leaves (please, get over yourselves ... she isn't taking a break any more than Letitia Dean did in 2006 - she's leaving), then the floodgates will open for various and sundry others to depart - Derek first, followed by Jack, Joey, Alice and Lauren. Bianca should never return. The right about of Brannings are the best ones - Max, Carol, Abi and Oscar.
Update:
Still don't believe me? Watch this ...
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