Ann McManus, the creator of hit series, Waterloo Road, has died, aged 67.
During her career she’s written and produced some of the UK’s best known dramas, including Coronation Street, Bad Girls and Take The High Road.
“It was an utter privilege to work with Ann on Bad Girls, Footballers’ Wives and Waterloo Road, the fact that we have had the opportunity to continue her legacy with the rebooted show, is a huge privilege,” said Cameron Roach, Executive Producer, Rope Ladder Fiction.
“Ann’s capacity for story was genius, she trod a careful line of balancing huge entertainment, wit and heart alongside urgent social justice issues – through her time at Shed and also whilst on Coronation Street. You can look around the industry now and numerous key players learnt under her brilliant guidance and clear story principles. We still reference her daily in the Waterloo Road Story Room and the character Noel McManus was named in her honour. We will miss her hugely.”
Born in Ayr, in Scotland, she was still an English teacher in Glasgow, when she penned 6 episodes of Take The High Road in 1993.
In an interview with The Guardian in 2009, she explained that she’d seen a newspaper ad to “learn how to be a writer” and enrolled for a correspondence course, writing short stories.
One of those landed on the desk of STV, which was producing Take The High Road.
READ MORE – Two production companies set to establish Manchester base to produce Waterloo Road
She then moved to Coronation Street, where she storylined more than 200 episodes in the 90s. These included making Hayley Cropper the first trans character in a British soap and devising the plot of the “Weatherfield One” – when Deirdre Rachid was jailed for fraud in the soap, but the story became so big that it was mentioned by the Prime Minister, who said Home Secretary Jack Straw would investigate the issue.
McManus went on to form Shed Media with fellow writer and partner, Eileen Gallagher and Maureen Chadwick. The three had all met at Granada in Manchester.
READ MORE – Waterloo Road has generated £6.5m for Greater Manchester economy since its 2023 return to screens
Their first big show, was Bad Girls, the second, Footballers’ Wives. However, with a teaching background, she said in an interview that “Waterloo Road is the best thing we’ve ever done.”
Saddened to hear the passing of the icon that was Ann McManus.
— Wendy Bowker (@wendybowker36) August 28, 2025
She gave me the opportunity to share my prison stories for #Badgirls . And listened with the amazing ear & skill to get the very best out of me. #bodybag #fenner #shelldockley . Tara Ann , as we in Liverpool
In 2008 she said:
“I was delighted to be asked by the BBC to devise a drama about a comprehensive school. If there is one single issue that dominates the thinking not only of parents but of everyone who wants a decent and fair society, it’s how we give our children the best start in life.
“Without overstating the case, teachers are at the front line of humanity and what they do in the classroom affects all of our lives.”
However, she did admit she wasn’t the best pupil herself:
“It’s fair to say I was not the easiest pupil to teach. There was nothing I liked more than winding the teachers up and having a laugh at their expense. But I learned to really value those teachers who could control the class and was contemptuous of those who couldn’t.
“When I did my first stint at teaching I knew I wouldn’t be able to teach anything unless I got the respect of the class. Little things mattered like making them sit in rows instead of groups and targeting the troublemaker leaders from the outset.
“Although corporal punishment was still allowed when I stared teaching, I chose not to use it as I found that making the class laugh at the ring-leaders was much more effective than making heroes out of them by belting them.
“Some of the pupils I taught were genuinely tough cases but they all had their crosses to bear. Many were living in chaotic homes where school was first and foremost a refuge.
“Given a chance, many of them really wanted to learn but they needed a strong teacher to create the conditions where they could. I can honestly say there was not a pupil I taught whom I didn’t genuinely like.”
While she fell out of love with teaching in the mid-80s, she said that she wanted Waterloo Road to have a positive impact on the profession:
“I hope that Waterloo Road in its small way can have a positive effect on how we regard teachers and education. Although the drama features good and bad teachers and pupils, at its heart is a message that a few good teachers in one school can succeed in achieving the near-impossible.”
Shed was so successful that it was bought out by Warner in 2010, valuing the company at £100m.
Ann McManus died aged 67, after suffering a cardiac arrest.
