The feisty Carla Connor has lived on the street for almost twenty years, but just how much do you know about the queen of the cobbles? Avery takes a deep dive into her history.
Carla Connor made her first appearance on the street on the 1st December 2006 in episode 6437. She was the last of the newly introduced Connor family that included her husband, Paul Connor, her brother-in-law, Liam Connor, her sister-in-law, Michelle Connor, and Michelle’s son and Carla’s nephew, Ryan Connor. When the Connors were introduced, Coronation Street originally implied in 2006 and 2007 that Carla, Paul, Liam and Michelle hadn’t grown up together. However, that was later changed, and it was confirmed that Carla and the Connor family grew up in different parts of the same estate, the Brightwell Estate, in the Manchester area.
Carla was born on the 3rd of January 1975, to Sharon Donovan and an unknown father. Carla didn’t become aware of her paternity until 2015, but she was conceived as a result of a one-night stand between her mother, Sharon, and Johnny Connor. At the time, Johnny Connor also lived on the Brightwell Estate with his wife, Louisa, but in the nicer part of the estate.
Johnny Connor is related to Liam, Paul and Michelle through their father’s side of the family. Their father, Barry Connor, and Johnny Connor have the same great-grandparent and their grandfathers, Patrick and James, were siblings (if seeing a family tree would help you visualise their connections, click here to drop to the bottom of the page). This makes them second cousins (and Carla a second cousin once removed from her first husband, Paul, but she was not aware of that). Barry, Helen and Johnny all moved to Manchester together, away from Dublin in Ireland, where they were originally from.
Throughout the show, Carla and her brother, Rob, both reference that their mother slept around a lot. Even Johnny, aware of Sharon’s reputation, took a DNA test to ensure that he was Carla’s father before he informed her of the fact. Sharon’s reputation as the “village bike”, in Carla’s own words, meant that four years later, in 1979, Sharon gave birth to Robert Donovan, Carla’s younger brother. Rob’s father remains unknown to this day.
It is implied that soon after Rob was born, Sharon entered into a relationship with and later married George, who became a stepfather to Carla and Rob, however, the show never makes clear when this happened. It is also implied that, despite being married, both Sharon and George continued to sleep around. George was abusive and beat both Carla and Rob. Carla describes George as a “bad-tempered old git” and both she and Rob said that as children they had to stay “out of his way or they would’ve got a slap”.
However, this mistreatment was only at the hands of their stepfather. Sharon and, likely, George were drug dealers, alcoholics, and there was no steady income into the house. Carla alluded to the criminal and dangerous activity as a child in 2014 when she said, “the stuff I used to see George get up to, it was just-” before trailing off and never finishing the sentence. She and Rob also described having to hide drugs at points throughout their childhood.
The family dynamic meant there was very little food in the house, and Carla describes having to beg for food from the neighbours regularly. One of the more specific incidents that Carla describes is when Sharon left them with George for a week while she went away. Sharon had left George some money to take care of the children, however, he had run off with it, and they had to beg and go hungry most of the week. Johnny also described Carla regularly sneaking into the pub as a kid and “pinching” the pickled onions of his Ploughman’s (a type of sandwich). Carla stated in response and in defence of her not liking pickled onions, “that if you’re hungry enough, you’ll eat anything”.
The irresponsibility with and lack of money were not the only things that impacted Carla’s childhood in terms of neglect. Her childhood was also greatly defined by her mother’s alcoholism. Carla and Rob both described being left on the bench outside the pub, no matter the weather, with just a packet of crisps to eat until very late into the night. The lack of money is also seen in the favourite foods that she and Rob spoke about enjoying as children, including alphabet spaghetti and other cheap foods easily accessed from tins. Furthermore, Carla’s favourite dessert, Angel Delight, was something else that could be found cheaply in stores. As an adult, Carla now enjoys finer and more expensive foods such as sushi, which could be a manifestation and an overcompensation of her childhood trauma surrounding food and money.
Throughout their childhood, Carla took care of her brother as a parent and made sure that he was fed. This dynamic continued throughout their relationship, with Carla treating Rob as a child and feeling as though she had a deeper responsibility towards him than just an older sibling. She gives him multiple chances from the moment he joins the street in 2012, which he likely doesn’t deserve.
These extra chances are something that defines Carla’s personality throughout her entire life. Rob describes her during the hostage situation as overly caring and sensitive to a fault. She puts everyone else before herself and tries to save everyone she can. He recalls her saving animals, insects and bees, including wasps, saying that she hated to see things suffer, even things she didn’t like. As a result of this caring and sensitive nature, Carla puts on a hard shell to protect herself. This defines her entire story on Coronation Street, often known as a mean bossy bitch.
Carla describes herself as leaving school young, likely around the age of 13. She used to sell counterfeit handbags outside the school and worked in a shoe shop as a teenager to bring in money. She didn’t get any GCSEs or A-Levels, despite clearly being an intelligent woman, something that she displays throughout the show. It is implied that as a teenager, Carla had a singular goal to get out of the Brightwell Estate and away from her mother and the heavy trauma that she associates with the area. A couple of times, it is also implied that Carla was smoking and drinking from a young age to cope with the stress of the time. Carla and her family members are all aware that she began dating Paul as a method to escape the estate. His family were more comfortable than hers money-wise, and he had already started to develop his businesses.
It is unknown when exactly Paul and Carla started dating, as she was significantly younger than him. Carla was born in 1975 whereas Paul was born in 1969, giving them a 6-year age gap. It is implied that both Liam and Michelle were closer to Carla in terms of age and friendship during childhood. Liam was born on the 25th of February 1974, and Michelle was born on the 21st of April 1976. However, it is known that Carla and Paul had started dating by Liam’s 21st birthday party, which would’ve been in February 1995 when Carla was 20 and Paul was 26.
However, it is also suggested that they were in a serious relationship in 1993, when Carla was 18 and Paul was 24. Unbeknownst to Carla, in December 1993, Sharon had made Johnny’s wife, Louisa, aware of her and Johnny’s affair. Louisa ran out of the house upon being told and onto the road without looking. As a result, she was struck by a car and lost her life. Johnny, in fear that the truth would be revealed to his two children, Aidan and Kate, who were 10 and 4 at the time, attempted to persuade Barry and Helen to move to Ireland in the hope that Paul would move with them and take Carla with him. None of the children moved with Barry and Helen when they returned to Ireland, and it is implied that Carla kept Paul in Manchester, something that Barry and Helen resented.
In 2008, Carla and Liam discuss his 21st and Carla describes herself as thinking at the time “if it don’t work out with Paul, his brother’s alright”. The song playing while they danced was Drugs Don’t Work by the Verve (although if you do the maths, the song wasn’t out at the time of Liam’s 21st, but sometimes you have to accept that the writers sometimes get little things wrong). The song is something that Carla still listened to in 2008, and from the scene it can be inferred that Carla believed Liam to be the nicer of the two brothers and that she loved him. However, it’s suggested that she did not see him as a secure option. Meanwhile, Liam was in love with her, thought she was beautiful, and held a torch for Carla for the entirety of her and Paul’s relationship.
Carla and Paul were married four years later on the 26th of January 1999. It is implied in the show that Paul cheated on Carla with prostitutes for most of their relationship, and that Carla was somewhat aware of the lack of faithfulness. However, Carla was reliant on Paul and his money. He changed her life for the better, and she only sporadically returned to visit her mother, leaving Rob to deal with her. Something that he continues to resent her for. Carla would send Sharon expensive gifts out of guilt, but they were locked away as she feared they would be stolen.
The Connor family saw Carla as a gold digger, and she did not have a good relationship with Barry and Helen, her father and mother-in-law, in particular. In reality, they were not wrong. Paul and Carla’s relationship was represented as very transactional, with Carla relying on Paul for money and Paul enjoying Carla as a trophy wife, buying her designer clothes and bags as she requested.
As an adult, Carla looks back on her childhood with resentment. When she learnt that Johnny was her true father, she expressed anger towards him, as she felt she had missed out on a good life and had been abandoned in the trauma and devastation of her childhood. Her anger was also based on how she spent most of her childhood starving and with very little money. Johnny defends himself, stating that he would sporadically and occasionally send Sharon money for Carla’s care; however, Carla still maintains anger at Johnny as she feels he should’ve known that her mother wasn’t able to be responsible with the money that he sent.
Her childhood is something that she blames her mother for, and there is never a point where Carla gets closure in that relationship or reaches a point of being able to forgive her mother. As adults, Carla and Rob viewed their mother as a sick person and a burden that they needed to take care of. Carla left this job largely to Rob. She had to grow up fast, take care of herself and her brother at an age when she should’ve had someone else taking care of her, and by the time that she escaped that world, it seemed that she resented caretaking and had burnt herself out.
One thing from her childhood that seems ever present in her adulthood is her comfort with crime, likely due to her lifelong exposure to criminal activity through both her mother and George. Liam and Paul were also edging on the lesser side of morality and the wrong side of the law. The attitude very prevalent amongst the Connors is avoiding police consequences for their actions despite knowing they were wrong. Carla’s comfort with criminality no doubt stems from a childhood around crime. She was lucky, though, as for Rob, this led to a life of crime and prison sentences, something that Carla managed to avoid through her marriage to Paul.
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