It feels like only yesterday we were welcoming Evelyn Plummer (Maureen Lipman) back to Coronation Street, and yet the time has already come to bid her farewell once more.
Viewers will know that Evelyn left the cobbles earlier this year to pursue a law degree at university, though she has popped back to visit on several occasions since her course began.
At the time of her exit, actress Maureen explained that she was stepping away from the show to ‘have a bit of a life’, explaining that she and partner David Turner, who she’d recently got engaged to, wanted to have a ‘gap year’.
Since then, they have made the most of Maureen’s time away from the show by tying the knot earlier this month.
On-screen, Evelyn returned to the show after bumping into Roy Cropper (David Neilson) in hospital a couple of weeks ago.
She was there to help a fellow student, while Roy was seeking advice for a bad back.
As the friends got talking, Evelyn decided to head back to the street with the cafe owner and crashed Carla Connor (Alison King) and Lisa Swain’s (Vicky Myers) engagement dinner.
Since then, she has been on hand to support her family following the hit and run that left Tyrone Dobbs (Alan Halsall) hospitalised.
After being mowed down by a stolen car, which was later revealed to have been driven by Carl Webster (Jonathan Howard), Tyrone suffered two fractured vertebrae and a blood clot pressing against his spine.
He was horrified when he woke up to realise that he couldn’t feel his legs, and was clearly in denial when the doctor explained that it could be years before he gets total feeling back.
With Tyrone having confided in Evelyn about his fears that Fiz Dobbs (Jennie McAlpine) had too much on her plate, she decided to drop out of university to look after her family.
She brushed it off as an easy decision, telling Fiz that she felt too long in the tooth for the course, but Fiz wasn’t having any of it.
When she discussed Evelyn’s decision with Roy, he revealed that it was out of character, explaining that she had been writing to him throughout the course and seemed to be really enjoying it.
Thankfully, Fiz managed to talk Evelyn out of quitting by promising to call her if she needed any help while Tyrone was ill.
As Evelyn headed back to uni, Fiz updated Tyrone, who seemed disappointed that his nan wasn’t going to be around.
Will Fiz really be able to cope without Evelyn’s help, or will she be back sooner than we expect?
