John Normington (28th January 1937 - 26th July 2007) appeared on Coronation Street in two roles: firstly in August 1970 as P.H. Vine, the accountant of Alan Howard; and he returned to the programme in September 1997 as George Groves, proprietor of Bide a Wee Guest House, where Mavis Wilton and Rita Sullivan stayed in Cartmel.
Born in Dukinfield, Cheshire he was educated locally at the Crescent Road School and trained as an opera singer at the Northern School of Music in Manchester, making his stage debut in 1950 as Hopcroft Minor in The Happiest Days of Your Life at the Oldham Rep. He spent three years in rep at Manchester's Library Theatre where the director David Scase was an important mentor, and then at the Oxford Playhouse, before making a London debut in William Gaskill's production of Fred Watson's Infanticide in the House of Fred Ginger at the Arts Theatre in 1962.
With a list of on-screen credits from the early 1960s, they include roles in The Villains, Sexton Blake, Softly Softly: Task Force, On the House, Nearest and Dearest, Churchill's People, Crown Court, Strangers and Brothers, Jack the Ripper, Doctor Who, In Sickness and in Health, The Bill, Midsomer Murders, Torchwood, Casualty and films including Inadmissible Evidence, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Reckoning, Stardust, Rollerball, The Medusa Touch, The Thirty-Nine Steps, The Monster Club, Wilt and Atonement.