Coronation Street star says emotional goodbye as he leaves for the second time in a year
Coronation Street’s Peter Ash has said another goodbye to his friends from the ITV soap after briefly reprising his soap role.
Peter left Corrie back in September after his character Paul Foreman died following a motor neurone disease diagnosis.
Since then, Paul’s friends and family have tried to move forward, but husband Billy Mayhew (Daniel Brocklebank) has spiralled the most after his death.
Last Friday, Billy got drunk at the pub, where the space launch of Paul’s ashes was being livestreamed. He made a scene in front of the whole place by declaring the event a farce and confessing to kissing Todd Grimshaw (Gareth Pierce) after Paul’s funeral.
Billy took himself out of the pub and ended up behind the factory. In his drunken state, Billy hallucinated Paul, who did his best to encourage Billy not to give up.
However Billy was pretty adamant that he wanted to succumb to the cold and be with Paul again.
Paul insisted that he didn’t want that, and also made it clear that he forgave him for kissing Todd. He pointed out that this was Billy’s chance to say his goodbyes, after missing out on the opportunity when Paul was in hospital.
However, Billy pointed out that he didn’t want to have to say goodbye, and instead drifted off to sleep.
Elsewhere, Bernie Winter (Jane Hazlegrove) woke up from a dream about Paul. This, and a message from Todd, spurred her to go back out looking for Billy, and she was certain she knew where he would be.
It didn’t take her long to find him and rally the family to get him home safe and warmed up.
Following the brief return of Paul, Peter took to social media platform X to share a behind the scenes snap of him, Jane and Daniel.
He wrote alongside: ‘It was so lovely to be back on the cobbles of Coronation Street one FINAL time!
‘This brings my total episodes of Corrie to a neat 600! It’s been the time of my life! Love you, Jane Hazlegrove & @Dan_Brocklebank.’
At the end of Paul’s final episode, Billy and Bernie shared their stories of their encounters with Paul, with Billy revealing that he no longer wanted to die.
As it started raining, the pair headed outside to say a final goodbye to Paul, and celebrate him being at peace.