EMILY and Norris could be leading a revolution. The two elderly Coronation Street characters share a house. One owns it and the other’s the lodger. But they’re both trailblazers. For flat and house sharing is booming among the over 50s.

Blame it on house prices, extortionate rents, mid-life divorces and rubbish pensions, but whatever the reason, sharing a house with a comparative stranger, once the preserve of the young, skint and sociable is now galloping up the age range. Flat shares among the over 50s has soared by 300 per cent in the last five years. Mostly it’s not a choice, but born of necessity, especially in London.

But is the idea really so new? Not that long ago many an elderly singleton would take in paying guests or lodgers. Living on one’s own is a fairly recent phenomenon. Previous generations were more likely to live in their parents’ home or in lodgings until they married. Students lived in digs with landladies rather than swish halls of residence. Unmarried or widowed middle aged women set up house together to share costs. They didn’t have as much privacy or independence. But at least they had company.

And that’s the other thing. Loneliness is said to be the curse of our times. Being lonely can be as bad as an illness for old people. It can have mental, emotional and physical repercussions on all ages. Coronation Street’s Norris, for instance, is coping badly while Emily is on an extended trip to South America…

House-sharing for grown ups has got to be better than when we were in our in our teens and twenties. Presumably the over 50s have learned to respect each others’ privacy and possessions and don’t nick the last of the milk or that bottle of Prosecco chilling in the fridge. Or play Guns and Roses at full volume at 4.0am.

Living in someone else’s house or sharing your own, solves the immediate problem of not enough money for a home of one’s own. But in time it will solve another problem too. Almost a third of people over 65 live alone. Many are blissfully content that way. But plenty aren’t. If they’re lonely to start with, it’s only going to get worse. Sharing a home with someone means at least there’s someone to talk to, if only to bicker about the bathroom. Maybe that increase in house-sharing is really a good news story after all.

Just ask Norris.

TRULY we live in interesting times. Politics in the last few weeks has been more like soap opera than real life. Tragedy, treachery, triumph. Best of all, it’s got people talking. When the shell-shocked Brexit campaigners woke up to realise that their votes really had made a difference and we equally shell-shocked Remainers were sunk in gloom, everything changed.

Then Boris and Gove. Corbyn and Angela Eagle. Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom. Every news bulletin seemed to bring another shock. In shops and banks and queues now, the talk is nearly always of politics. The weather, football, even Wimbledon, hardly got a look-in. Who’d have thought it?

Somehow, we seem to be re-making the link between Westminster and the rest of us. Whenever the next election might be, my bet is that the voter turnout will hit a new high as people get more involved. That has to be worth talking about.

And let’s not forget J Cox. It’s barely a month since the young MP was murdered in her constituency but after all that’s happened since, it’s easy to forget.

We mustn’t.

AFTER the mother of all gaffes, Andrea Leadsom said she had “apologised personally” to Theresa May in a text.

Look, even in these digital days, if you “apologise personally” you write a letter, send a card, make a phone call and talk to someone. Maybe send some flowers. A text won’t hack it. A text takes no effort. A text is barely an apology – and it’s certainly not personal.

SAMANTHA Cameron thought she’d have all summer to move out from Number Ten – a little light sorting out here and there, a few bin bags a week, sort of thing. Instead she’s had to do the lot in 24 hours. No wonder it took 330 boxes and a lot of help. But I bet there’s an odd bit of Lego still lurking somewhere. And I bet the Mays find it when they’re walking round barefoot.

WE’D read so much about Andy Murray’s disciplined approach to training – the relentless practice, the work outs, the nutrition regime, those ice baths – that it all got quite scary.

Then he was pictured after his famous victory, tottering away from the post Wimbledon celebrations, 3.30am, extremely bleary eyed. Very reassuring. The man is human after all.

Senior Son and his family had a few days break on the Cumbrian coast. A good time was had by all – sandcastles, train rides, picnics, disco, farm visit. So I asked the three year old what was the best bit.

“A seagull did a great big poo on our car!” she said in delight.

And to think you never see that in the tourist brochures.