Celia Smethurst, along with her friend Maggie Lincoln, were two churchgoing friends of Emily Bishop who attended a charity Butler Auction in the Rovers in March 2015 in aid of church funds, along with several other parishioners.
Emily was nervous of the ladies' reactions if the proceedings were a bit ribald and asked compere Sean Tully to keep it as clean as possible. She also asked the others in the bar to mind their profane utterances and Liz McDonald and others constantly found themselves apologising when the odd oath slipped out. Norris Cole also had to apologise when he compared the auction in the pub to The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and Mary Taylor had to explain to them that it was a Dolly Parton film. Finding out who Norris was, the two ladies, who had heard of him from Emily, immediately burst into laughter, discomposing the little man.
Maggie won Kevin Webster in the auction while Celia bagged Tyrone Dobbs, explaining that it would save them the cost of a car service each and leading a tipsy Sean to make a comment about the two mechanics fiddling under their bonnets. Emily apologised once more but the two happy ladies told her not to be concerned as they were both fans of the Carry on films though Sean was not pleased to hear himself compared to a young Kenneth Williams. The ladies were later surprised when Norris put in a bid of £70 for Sally Webster as they had heard him described by Emily as a "penny-pincher" and someone who could "squeeze a pound coin so tight that the Queen's eyes bleed!" An outraged Norris immediately upped his bid to £100. They did get confused though when Michelle Connor stepped on stage to propose to Steve McDonald, thinking it was part of the auction.
Four months later, Celia and Maggie both attended the funeral of Deirdre Barlow with other members of the One o'clock Club. They said that they were there as they had been friends of Blanche Hunt but it quickly became apparent that they were really there as, like Blanche, they spent a disproportionate amount of their leisure time in ghoulishly attending every funeral in the vicinity. As Kevin was at the funeral, they made a beeline for him and at one point he was even goosed by the supposedly religious ladies. En masse, they all made a beeline for the buffet at the wake in the Rovers and started to fill up Tupperware boxes that they had brought with them with the food until they were roundly told off by a hungry Amy Barlow. The ladies were delighted though as they were delighted to recognise the character of Blanche coming through in her great-granddaughter's words.
List of appearances[]
2015