Child welfare campaigner and actress Coral Atkins dies

Atkins was best known for her roles in A Family at War and Emmerdale.

A family at War followed the lower middle class Ashton family of the city of Liverpool and their experiences during WWII. The Granada Television series ran between 1970-1972, with Atkins portraying the role of Sheila Ashton. In 1993, Atkins played Ruth, lady friend of Frank Tate, in YTV’s Emmerdale.

Other credits include Dixon of Dock Green, The Likely Lads, Z-Cars, The Sweeney and Within These Walls.

The actress was inspired to help needy children by a visit to a children’s home in Manchester in 1970. The level of deprivation and distress that she witnessed there reminded her of painful experiences from her own infancy, as a wartime evacuee.

She set up her first children’s home in Newbury in 1971 and later had one in Gloucestershire, caring for 37 children before retiring in 1997.

“She was a remarkably powerful character. She was completely fearless as she faced the end of her days, telling me, ‘There’s no tragedy in an 80-year-old woman dying’. When she decided to set up the home she had no university education and no experience in child care.  She went on a child psychology course in Manchester and then moved back to where she grew up to set up the home.” – Atkins’ son Harry Whitehead

Atkins was twice-married to British actor Jeremy Young and film director Peter Whitehead.

Her memoirs were published in 1990 under the title Seeing Red, and later adapted into an eight part radio series for BBC Radio 4. In 2000, ITV aired a drama based on the book, with Sarah Lancashire in the role of Coral Atkins.