Liz Dawn’s funeral to be held on Friday

The funeral of Coronation Street actress Liz Dawn will take place on Friday 6 October at Salford Cathedral.

The Requiem Mass and Holy Communion Service will commence at 2pm conducted by Father Brendan Curley, former Dean of Salford Cathedral and a friend to Liz.

The current Dean of the Cathedral, Father Michael Jones, will officiate alongside Father Curley. A private family committal will take place following the service.

Liz died on Monday 25^th September, aged 77. Her death followed reports that she’d been rushed to a Manchester hospital with chest pains and a build-up of lung fluid.

Liz Dawn was born Sylvia Butterfield on the 8th of November 1939 in Leeds. The Yorkshire girl spent her early years not in show-business, but in a factory. Working from the age of 15 in the clothes making industry she later switched over to retail where she worked on the light bulb counter of Woolworths. Other early jobs included as a sales assistant in a shoe shop and in a cinema as an usherette.

The showbiz spotlight was turned onto Liz when she began working as a club singer, notably over in Scarborough and at a club next to the Butlins seaside holiday camp in Filey. It was during this time in the early 1960s she changed her name from Sylvia Butterfield to the name we all now know as the actress Liz Dawn.

She mostly took on extra work and minor roles before joining Corrie in 1974. Liz was cast as factory worker Vera who shared most of her early screen time with Ivy Tilsley – the late Lynne Perrie – and the legendary Elsie Tanner played by Pat Phoenix. She later became one half of an iconic TV partnership when Bill Tarmey joined the cast of the saga as Vera’s husband Jack.

The Duckworths, complete with wayward son Terry (Nigel Pivaro) gave ITV viewers some of Corrie’s most amusing, and in equal measure heartbreaking scenes.

Liz retired from performing in 2007 due to the incurable lung disease emphysema making life on set difficult. Vera was killed off in 2008, but returned as ‘a ghost’ in 2010 when Jack was also sent to soap opera heaven.

Liz, who had been wheelchair-bound in recent years, suffered a heart-attack in 2013 and had to have a pacemaker fitted. She was reported to have had further heart-related surgery whilst in hospital recently and earlier this year. She stepped out of retirement briefly to appear in a Corrie sketch for Text Santa in 2012 and had a small part in fellow ITV saga Emmerdale in 2016 when she played a demanding guest at Eric Pollard’s B&B.