William Roache

William Patrick Roache (born 25 April 1932) is an English actor. He is best known for playing Ken Barlow in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street. Roache is the longest serving cast member in Coronation Street having appeared in the show since its very first broadcast on 9 December 1960. He is listed in the Guinness World Records as the longest-serving television star in a continuous role. Early life Roache was born in the Basford suburb of Nottingham the son of Joseph William Vincent Roache, a doctor, and Hester Vera, daughter of Albert and Mary Zillah Waddicor. Albert Waddicor was a violent drunk, but his wife was a successful businesswoman, who ran a restaurant and tea rooms at Alton Towers, which had been opened as a tourist attraction - but not at that time a theme park – after the death of the 20th Earl of Shrewsbury. Roache grew up in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, where he attended a Steiner school set up by his grandfather, a physician and surgeon, in the family's garden. His grandfather was a Freemason who was interested in such things as theosophy, esotericism, hypnotism, spiritualism, and homoeopathy, as well as the teachings of philosopher and educationalist Rudolf Steiner. Roache was later educated at Rydal School. He joined the British Army and was commissioned into the Royal Welch Fusiliers in 1953. A year later, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. He left in 1956 with the rank of captain. Due to an exploding mortar round during his military service, he suffers from tinnitus. Career After leaving the military, Roache turned to acting. He appeared in various stage productions, then had uncredited roles in several films, and later won small parts in television serials including Knight Errant Limited and Skyport. He played the minor role of a space centre operator in the Norman Wisdom film The Bulldog Breed. Shortly before joining Coronation Street at the beginning of the programme in 1960, Roache played the leading role in a Granada Television play called Marking Time, transmitted on ITV in 1961. In an interview with the Liverpool Post in 2007, Roache recalled "I played a young soldier in Germany who fraternised with a German girl, although I can't remember now how it ended.