So, as we bid goodbye to Betty, it seems that Gordon will relent and permit her to be 'with my Cyril' right there in Weatherfield. As her friends mourn her passing, we are reminded of how integral Betty was to life in the Street.
Rita, in her tangles with men over the years, was always grateful to Betty for 'her sympathy, her outrage and a tissue.' Betty was a friend to young and old as Tina referred to her as 'my mate' and bought some drinks in her honour.
The word 'apath' doesn't feature much nowadays, and certainly doesn't appear in young people's vocabulary, so it was good to hear Gordon using it when speaking about his mother. Gordon gave a poignant description of the fact that Betty was reading 'Five Children and It' in hardback that Gordon himself had bought her, when she died. Betty had read it to him when he was a child.
Betty's death causes Norris to contemplate his own mortality. In an example of terrific writing, Norris talks of how it's as if he's on one of those 'shove machines' and that he is 'edging towards the drop.' Norris was gifted another brilliant line when he, notably the only one to project any negativity concerning Betty's passing, said that once she had referred to him as an 'interfering weasel' - no surprise that nobody defended him!
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