Camilla pulls a pint in the Rovers

Royal appointment for ‘Corrie’ stars

THE Duchess of Cornwall pulled a pint behind the bar of the Rovers Return during a visit to Coronation Street — and met a host of Oldham stars.

Camilla walked along the cobbles of Weatherfield before stopping at the pub during her tour of the Granada Studios set in Manchester yesterday.

After watching the cast film a scene to be broadcast in April, she accepted an invitation to try out the beer tap, watched by Oldham actress Anne Kirkbride, who plays Diedre Barlow.

Camilla told her: “I hope I’m not going to spill it. Who is going to drink this afterwards? Any takers?”

Her visit marked the programme’s 50th anniversary year, and was part of a day in Manchester for the Duchess and the Prince of Wales.

William Roache OBE, who plays Ken Barlow, greeted Camilla as the only original cast member.

She told him she started to watch the soap with her mother 50 years ago.

She met several other cast members, including Beverley Callard who teetered over in high heels and a mini skirt as pub landlady Liz McDonald.

And also there to greet her were Kevin Le Vell, who trained at Oldham Theatre Workshop and plays mechanic Kevin Webster, Shaw’s Shobna Gulati, who is back as Sunita Alahan, and Oldham-born Barbara Knox who plays Rita Sullivan.

Camilla stayed longer on the set than she was scheduled to, and told the cast she did not want to leave.

The royal couple arrived in the city on the Royal Train, pulled by the country’s newest steam engine, Tornado, before Prince Charles visited the oldest passenger station in the world, Liverpool Street, now part of the Museum of Science and Industry.

Prince Charles used a backdrop of old technology at the museum to launch a new initiative called “Start” to provide the public with advice on how to lead more environmentally sustainable lives.

He toured an exhibition of steam engines used in trains and cotton mills around Manchester, which he called the “cradle” of the Industrial Revolution.

He added: “But I trust we do all know that these wonderful innovations carried with them a long–term cost that nobody at the time could possibly have foreseen.”