Actress Jane is celebrating her 10th wedding anniversary with wife Isobel Middleton as the couple anticipated a second wedding on the Cobbles the following week as Bernie Winter knots with corner shop owner Dev Alahan.
Even after meeting the love of her life, Coronation Street actress Jane Hazlegrove never imagined she’d ever tie the knot.
Jane and fellow actress Isobel Middleton fell in love after a chance meeting 30 years ago. But with same-sex weddings outlawed in Britain, their own big day seemed an impossible dream. Now the couple are preparing to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary and Jane admits it’s a day she could never have hoped for when she was younger.
“I love a wedding, but I never thought that I’d actually get to have my own big party, full of all the people that I love and lots of laughter”, she says.
It was both beautiful and unexpected. I’m still in shock and proud of how we did it, and I’m also proud of my love for Isobel. It’s my greatest achievement, regardless of the career.
“I just can’t believe that I can love this woman and lead a life without persecution and oppression,” she said. Yes, homophobia still occurs every day, but I just make an effort to educate and lead from the front.
In 2019, Jane, the mother of twins Gemma and Paul, made her debut on Coronation Street.
And as she gets ready to celebrate her own wedding anniversary, Dev Alahan, the owner of Corner Shop, and Bernie are getting married on the big screen.
In the world of soap however, weddings rarely go according to plan. And with Bernie and Dev’s big day no exception, it remains to be seen whether the happy couple actually get to say ‘I do’.
First of all, Bernie’s quadrilateral grandchildren are unable to watch the wedding with their brother Joseph live on a stream. Then Bernie forgets her lucky charm locket, but when she runs home from the bistro to get it, she disturbs a burglar.
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” Everything goes wrong, “Jane laughs”. When she arrives at the wedding, she develops an allergy and collapses. At first, the quads become ill and are unable to attend. It is a pretty serious matter. She can’t breathe and she’s taken away to hospital in an ambulance. “
Jane can reveal what her character wears for her big day, which is not traditionally done in Bernie’s style, but she can’t reveal whether she will end up having a happy ending.
Elkie Brookes is a singer, and Jane explains, “I’m mad about her.” I adore her and have done since I was a nipper.
“I was watching a lot of stuff on the Old Grey Whistle Test about Elkie just before we started filming my screen wedding.” I thought, “That’s got to be Bernie’s wedding dress,” as she was sporting a rather stunning kaftan.
” So, I went down to our brilliant costume department and said: ‘ Can I please look like Elkie Brookes on acid? ‘ and that is what we have created!
Anyone who remembers the 1970s will want to watch it and say, “Oh my good Lord! The dress is white and it’s a bit Demis Roussos!” It’s exactly what I wanted and it looks brilliant. The costume department did a fantastic job, and I’m really pleased with what they came up with.
Jane, who grew up in Manchester, began acting at a young age and made her TV debut at 13 in the Yorkshire TV series The Book Tower.
Then, when she was 16 years old, she signed up for Coronation Street as Sue Clayton, where she spent a year. She has since worked on a number of other TV shows, most notably Casualty, where she spent eight years as the paramedic Kathleen Dixon.
She was thrilled to return to the cobbles 34 years as off-the-wall café worker Bernie, a character who has divided viewers, with many shocked over her poor mothering skills to Gemma, Paul and long-lost son Kit.
However, Jane claims that she has changed as a result of Bernie’s relationship with Dev. Dev and Bernie are “cheese and cheese,” she says, “but he’s just incredibly kind to her and I don’t believe Bernie has ever received much kindness from men.”
“Their relationship is not without problems, because she acts so impulsively through her heart and eventually it gets up to her brain, and he’s the opposite. It shouldn’t work on paper because he’s a huge deep thinker, but it does because of that.
In Derbyshire, Jane, 56, and Isobel, 58, spend time walking through the hills and savoring classic car passions. “I’ve got a 1969 MGC. She is lovely, and she makes me happy when I drive her.
She has been with me for 18 years. I called her Lulu because Lulu was No 1 when she came off the conveyor belt”.
The couple first met in 1995 when Jane appeared in the sold-out play Boom Bang-a-Bang at the London Bush Theatre. “It was directed by Kathy Burke and loads of big television people came to see it”, she recalls. One night, Isobel and Isobel saw it, and we exchanged words.
In 2010, the couple rekindled their relationship. Jane recalls: “Same-sex marriage wasn’t allowed for many years because we were two women, so we had a civil partnership.
It was amazing because I was all dressed up and wore a really nice frock to the ceremony in Bristol.
Because Isobel had been ill, we made the decision. She was in London and I was in Bristol working on Casualty, and I wasn’t allowed to know anything about what was going on with her operations and hospital treatment. Despite having been in a relationship for ten years, we were only seen as her friend. They couldn’t tell me, either. So, we did the civil partnership because we thought, ‘ no-one can touch us then’.
Five years later, the wedding took place at a Bristol register office. I initially opposed doing it. I didn’t want to do it just because the government now said we could. I’ve never been a gang member; instead, I see myself as a person who doesn’t fit in.
“So we simply went and did it ourselves, without telling anyone. All we had to do was take a gas bill and upgrade! Really romantic Then, we made a curry with six of our friends.
Jane feels strongly that gay men and women around the world should enjoy the same rights and happiness as she does, and she is a passionate member of All Out, a global political campaign group fighting for LGBT+ rights around the world.
She claims that Gay Pride has been outlawed in Hungary this year. “Visibility is key. Because someone has decided it’s unacceptable, there are many men and women like me who are unable to spend time with their loved ones. That is simply disgusting.
While Jane has made her name at Coronation Street, wife Isobel works on the other side of the Pennines in Emmerdale, where she plays village detective DI Roberts.
She also appeared on the cobbles in a cameo as feminist author Persephone Braxton, who published a book in Roy’s Rolls in 2022.
She was having none of it, Jane laughs back as she enters to serve as her chaperone for the day. “She was in the café chatting with Ken Barlow and there was a fight when Tracy comes in and catches him with his mistress.
“I regret not working that day.” I don’t believe her character would have liked Bernie very much, which is probably true.
*For further information on All Out’s work and campaigns go to: allout.org
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