Corrie’s Des Barnes first wife Steph now – huge TV roles and new career as writer

Des and Steph on their wedding day (Image: Granada TV)

As well as starring in Scott & Bailey, a former Coronation Street wife has writing credits on the drama, as she does with other hit shows such as This Life – and she’s an award winning playwright.

Once upon a time, way back in 1990 she was married to Coronation Street’s bookmaker Des Barnes, played by Philip Middlemiss, or at least her character Stephanie Jones was. Des and Steph first appeared in Weatherfield as newlyweds but their union didn’t last long and after a couple of years the quarrelling couple split when she left him for architect Simon Beatty (Peter Gowen).

Since her last appearance in Corrie in 1995 actress Amelia Bullmore, 60, has gone on to have huge success in her personal career. She moved to London in the same year from Manchester, where she had studied drama at university. Three years after leaving the ITV soap she starred in the first series of BBC comedy Big Train with Simon Pegg. She was also cast as Sonja, the Ukrainian girlfriend of Alan Partridge in I’m Alan Partridge.

Drama fans will recognise her from crime series Scott & Bailey and in 2016 she played jealous mistress Vicky Fleming in the second series of BAFTA Award winning Happy Valley. Her small screen roles are vast and the long list of hit shows she’s appeared in include Dalziel and Pascoe, The IT Crowd, Shameless, Lewis and Gentleman Jack. Most recently she played Sylvia, the mother of Detective Ember Manning (Jenna Coleman) in BBC crime drama The Jetty.

But as well as acting, Amelia is a renowned writer who took up the skill professionally in 1994 and which she continues to turn her hand to today. She wrote scripts for the BBC’s Sherlock, This Life and Scott & Bailey, which she also starred in as DCI Gill Murray and for which she won the Writer’s Guild of Great Britain Award for Best Television Drama Series and Best Supporting Stress for her role. Other credits include BBC2’s sketch show Big Train, short film series Black Cab and crime drama Traces.

Amelia’s love for theatre has seen her star in many successful plays such as Arthur Miller’s All My Sons and Crucible and Alan Ayckbourn’s The Norman Conquests. She is also a successful playwright herself. Her first play Mammals had an extended run which went national and was staged in Los Angeles in 2009. It was short-listed for the What’s On Stage Best New Comedy award and co-won the Susan Smith Blackburn Award.

In Happy Valley as mistress Vicky Fleming ( Image: BBC/Red Productions/Ben Blackall)

In 2013, Amelia made waves with her production, Di and Viv and Rose. The play focuses on the lifelong friendship of three women, spanning over three decades. It was first staged at Hampstead Theatre in 2013 and was later transferred to the West End in early 2015, running at the Vaudeville Theatre before closing in March. Her talents don’t stop there though. Amelia, who shares two daughters with Scottish actor husband Paul Higgins, has also worked in and written for radio, including BBC Radio 4’s Craven and County Lines.