Biography
The actor Helene Palmer, donned a black wig and frumpy overalls in the television soap opera Coronation Street to play Ida Clough, one of a triumvirate of stroppy machinists who tested Mike Baldwin's patience at his denim garment factory in Weatherfield in the 1970s. With Ivy Tilsley and Vera Duckworth, Ida featured from 1978 until 1988 as a militant unionist at Baldwin's Casuals - in a decade when strikes and lockouts were the order of the day in the real world.
The loudmouthed Ida challenged Ivy for the role of shop steward in 1980 but lost the election. She lost her job when, eight years later, she shopped Mike for drink-driving and he received a ban. At various times, Ida's children - the even louder Muriel (Angela Catherall) and the dopey van driver Bernard (Jeffrey Longmore) - worked at the factory.
Palmer was written out after asking to leave, having reached the age of 60, with plans to retire. However, she returned in 1995 for Ivy's screen funeral and was persuaded to do another stint (1996-98), with Ida working at Mike's new underwear factory. Once more, there was conflict when Ida complained that Sally Webster had been promoted to supervisor over her head. Palmer left Coronation Street again after insisting that she wanted to enjoy her retirement, but was persuaded to return to television one last time, in 2002, when she was enticed by the opportunity to play Eric Sykes's screen wife in the comedy-drama Stan the Man, starring John Thomson as a small-time crook.
Palmer was born Helene Mapplebeck in Bolton upon Dearne, near Barnsley, South Yorkshire. Her father, George, was a miner who also had some success as a boxer. On leaving school, Mapplebeck teamed up with her sister, Betty, to form the Beck Sisters, singing in pubs and clubs. Eventually, she went solo, as Helen Beck, and had a successful career on the northern club circuit, appearing on the same bill as comedians such as Les Dawson and Freddie Starr, and the singers Lynne Perrie and Elizabeth Dawn - who both later joined Coronation Street as Ivy Tilsley and Vera Duckworth.
She had married Alex Palmer in 1948. In 1970, she and her husband took over the New Inn pub, at Stainforth, near Doncaster, and she gave up her singing engagements. She started getting acting roles when the director Ken Loach scoured Yorkshire and County Durham to cast Days of Hope (1975), Jim Allen's epic tale of the labour movement from 1916 to 1926. Acting under the name Helen Beck, she played Martha Matthews, the mother of Ben (Paul Copley), who deserts from the British army after serving in Ireland and joins the Communist party, and Sarah (Pamela Brighton), who helps him in his cause during the general strike.
Then came the role of a pools winner's mother in a BBC Play for Today, Spend Spend Spend (1977), Jack Rosenthal's adaptation of a book based on the true story of Viv Nicholson, a Yorkshire housewife who won the pools in 1961 and found herself unable to handle the sudden wealth. In 1977, Palmer and her husband started running the Britannia hotel, in the Balby suburb of Doncaster, and she continued to perform as a singer once they had converted the first floor into a nightclub.
After joining Coronation Street, she always used her married name, Helene Palmer, for acting work. While drifting in and out of the serial, she also appeared on television in the Alan Bennett play All Day on the Sands (1979), as the surly boarding-house waitress who refuses to serve meals until an entire family is seated, and the Fay Weldon drama Life for Christine (1980), as the mother of a jailed 14-year-old girl, which was based on a true story. There was also a small role in the film Yanks (1979), Colin Welland's tale of American troops stationed in Yorkshire during the second world war, directed by John Schlesinger and starring Richard Gere.
From 1986, Palmer and her husband ran the Nags Head in Bridlington. On his retirement four years later, they moved to nearby Sewerby and enjoyed time spent at their holiday home in Spain. Palmer was survived by her husband and their son, David.
