Corrie's Sue Cleaver on what really happens behind the scenes - from knock-out punch to straddling

Sue Cleaver has spent nearly 25 years as Coronation Street’s straight-talking Eileen Grimshaw.

After making her name in TV hits such as a Band of Gold and Dinnerladies, she joined the Weatherfield soap in 2000 and quickly became a favourite amongst viewers and the cast, including onscreen son Ryan Thomas and cheeky pal Simon Gregson.

Now in Day Two of the the Mirror ’s exclusive serialisation of her new memoir A Work in Progress, Sue, 61, reveals some of the antics and dramas away from the Corrie cameras - and how they are often just as entertaining as the action that viewers see on screen.

'Some of my best lunchtime snoozes have been on a well-known character’s bed'

When the cast got together for the 21st birthday celebrations of actor Ryan Thomas, Sue planned to have just a couple of drinks and then head home.

The two were close – Ryan played her screen son Jason for 16 years – but knowing she had an early start on the cobbles the next day Sue had vowed to be sensible. Until....she ended up sneaking into the studios drunk.

“I ended up partying much harder than I intended to – despite knowing I had a very early start,” Sue confesses.

“Someone said to me: ‘Sue, don’t go home, this is what we do.’ It made total sense to me to head straight from the party to the studios nearby and sneak into my dressing room and sleep until my make-up call.

“Thankfully, no one was any the wiser and I definitely wasn’t the only person to do this over the years.

“I admit too that some of my best lunchtime snoozes have been on a well-known character’s bed!

“I don’t do that so much now, but sometimes if we’re filming in the Grimshaws and it’s lunchtime, I’ll just stay there and have a kip on the sofa.”

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'I dropped like a stone when co-star punched me for real'

After a quarter of a century on the cobbles, Sue’s been through a lot, but nothing could have quite prepared her for the day that she was knocked out for real, after being punched in the face when a screen fight failed to go according to plan.

The accident happened in 2012 as Sue filmed inside Eileen’s kitchen, with Judy Holt, who played Lesley, the wife of Eileen’s firefighter boyfriend Paul Kershaw.

Sue recalls: “We had a stunt advisor and had spent some time practising our manoeuvres but unfortunately during a take Judy got a bit carried away and an upward punch made contact with my face.

“I don’t remember anything else but apparently I dropped like a stone, out cold.”

Sue was rushed to hospital for a scan before receiving the all-clear to return to work. She adds: “They used the sound of the real punch, so it wasn’t all for nothing!”

Helen sat astride me and I said: 'What a stupid way to pay the mortgage'

While Sue and actress Helen Worth are close friends, their characters Eileen Grimshaw and Gail Platt have long-been arch enemies and the cobbles has witnessed many a fight between the duo.

The most famous in 2004 saw Gail, who leaves at the end of this year, straddling Eileen on the cobbles clad in a blue dressing gown.

“We had to wear kneepads and elbow pads – it was quite physical. It took hours and hours to film,” Sue recalls.

“At one point I was lying on the cobbles which were soaking wet and she sat astride me and we looked at each other and I said: ‘What a f*****g stupid way to pay the mortgage.’ We both got the giggles.

“I’ll miss Helen when she leaves. I’m just hoping there’ll be another Eileen and Gail fight before she goes!”

'I swiped food from the Corner Shop when I couldn’t be bothered to shop for dinner'

When she was filming late on the cobbles and had run out of food at home, Sue would occasionally nip into the Coronation Street corner shop.

The mum-of-one confesses: “There was the odd occasion (only the very odd one, mind) when the Corner Shop on set would be the place to stop by if we’d been filming late and I knew there was nothing at home for dinner.

“A jar of Bolognese sauce only a month out of date, was worth the risk. To be fair, it never killed me.

“Nor did the fact that back in the day we used to smoke in the Rovers. Forget health and safety! The haze of smoke only added to the ambiance of a real boozer!

“We had Bass shandy on tap, although at one point it had been an actual beer, which was probably stopped for obvious reasons.

“Often during the summer, we will encounter a swarm of fruit flies attracted by the sweetness of the shandy. It’s not uncommon to see the bar staff swiping a tea towel with gusto around the pumps.”

'Simon Gregson and I wrote each other shocking secret notes'

Cobbles joker Simon Gregson (Steve McDonald) regularly made Sue laugh during filming by scribbling rude messages and drawings in a book on the set, that Eileen would often leaf through during a scene.

She recalls: “It was a secret book on the set that was supposed to be part of the set dressing.

“For years we would write shocking notes in it to one another – there was everything imaginable in there – lots of pictures and little messages to make each other laugh.

“I would often come across a ridiculous picture of myself ‘by Simon aged 7’ while I was mid-sentence during a take and inevitably end up corpsing and having to do a re-take.

“We had to stop doing it, the times are different now, but we reminisce about it a lot.”

'My son banned me from his parents’ evening because I was on TV!'

When Sue’s son Elliott was little, he begged her not to go to school parents’ evenings because of her Cobbles’ fame.

“He didn’t want people to see me,” Sue recalls. “His hormones were all over the place and the last thing he needed was his mother sticking out like a sore thumb. I knew I had to go with it, even if it did sometimes hurt my feelings.”

Elliott is now 28, but Sue admits that despite their closeness he may not get round to reading her new memoir.

“I said to him: ‘listen love, if you can’t be arsed reading it, I’ll get you the audio book, or I’ll just mark up the pages where you’re mentioned’,” she says.

“He’s really proud of me, but he’s got a healthy attitude to my career. I’m just his mum. He never watched Corrie because The Simpsons were on.”

• A Work In Progress by Sue Cleaver is published in hardback by Bloomsbury Publishing on Thursday Sept 26, £20