John Finch, who has died aged 97, was a Coronation Street scriptwriter who helped to shape the television soap during its first decade before going on to create and write two hugely popular dramas also set in his native north of England.
A Family at War, regarded as one of the first “television novels”, followed the trials and tribulations of the lower-middle-class Ashtons of Liverpool as they faced conflicts of both a human kind and international proportions. Colin Douglas starred as Edwin, the patriarch, with Shelagh Fraser as his wife, Jean.
