Globe columnist Peter Grant's tribute to the late, great Jean Alexander

WHY wasn't Jean Alexander made a dame in her lifetime?

I have interviewed showbiz dames Barbara Windsor, Joan Collins and Helen Mirren all have contributed to their chosen fields of entertainment.

But so did the much-loved Liverpudlian who died three days after her 90th birthday.

Picture by Toby Melville/PA

She was Alexander the Great - celebrated by all who watched her and knew her - privately and professionally.

Jean, born in 1926, was a former library assistant and repertory theatre player, who made the character of Hilda Ogden pure soap gold - long before someone created the term 'national treasure.'

She had fleshed out the likeable character from day one.

Jean Hodgkinson, who was in Coronation Street for 23 years and also appeared in Last of the Summer Wine as curiosity shop owner Auntie Wainwright.

Picture by Toby Melville/PA

Ironically, she was always funnier as Hilda in the Weatherfield-based soap than she was in the latter sit-com which she left in 2010.

But her acting talents covered all emotions such was the demands of Corrie - her moving scene when her beloved Stan died moved me and millions of others to tears.

It raised the bar of soap opera acting.

She also appeared in the box office hit Scandal.

I met and enjoyed Jean's company on many occasions.

In my role as a television editor - locally and nationally - I would respect her privacy.

Interviewing her was special because she didn't seek fame. Respect, yes.

She took her popularity in her stride - she really was the semi-detached star next door.

Picture: PA

Every time I rang her at home she was a joy to talk to.

How many household names could be found in the phone book?

Jean who never married was always just ''pottering around the garden'' of her Southport home.

In the 1990s when I was a judge for the BBC Radio Merseyside Scouseology Awards, Jean was honoured for her lifetime contribution to culture alongside such names as Paul O'Grady and Patricia Routledge.

People queued to chat to this softly-spoken, intelligent very funny woman.

When she attended the ceremony she was elegance personified.

She asked if I minded if she smoked. We sat and talked drinking wine and laughing.

(William Conran/PA)

Her voice was far removed from Hilda's famous whine but she had that same friendly face and twinkle.

I asked her where she would put her award adorned with a Liver Bird?

''On the mantlepiece, chuck,'' she laughed. "It's important.''

She told me her ''much put-upon, warm-hearted'' character was based on real women she knew. Those wartime ladies who had their hair in curlers but with nowhere to go.

That was the great thing about Jean she had the common touch and never forgot her roots.

That night she received a standing ovation and she was genuinely moved.

We ordered her a taxi home and she said to me in Hilda's voice: ''Ooh I feel like one one of those proper film stars at the Oscars.''

She has left a legacy more lasting than most Hollywood actresses.

I have covered all the TV soap operas over the decades and without doubt BAFTA and Royal Television Society award-winning Jean Alexander playing the wonderful Hilda took the genre to a new level.

A working class soap superstar.

In my eyes she will always be Dame Jean of the Cobble Streets of Corrie.