Chesney Brown and his wife Gemma are facing more hard times in Coronation Street. It was as year that the pair tied the knot in one of Weatherfield’s biggest weddings, with the bride sporting a huge orange dress decked out with fairy lights.

Despite the couple – whose romance has been a series of ups and downs- being cash-strapped, with the help of the likes of Gemma’s twin brother Paul Foreman and his son Joseph’s grandmother Linda, the pair managed to pull off the day of their dreams.

Linda has since paid for Joseph to attend a private school but their finances are still proving difficult with Chesney discovering that his eldest son has made out he runs a successful catering empire to his new mate’s posh mum.

Prior to that, Dee Dee Bailey informed Gemma that her landlord could be fined for failing to carry out essential repairs to No.5’s boiler if she reported him. She set about sending him a strongly-worded text but when her landlord arrived with a plumber to fix the boiler, only to then serves them an eviction notice, leaving the couple, who have five children between them, heartbroken.

Viewers have watched Chesney – and Sam Aston, the actor who plays him – grow up on screen, with it now 21 years since his first appearance on the cobbles. Sam was just 10-years-old when he was cast in the ITV soap as the son of Cilla Battersby-Brown and the half-brother of Fiz Stape – and the character was named after 90s popstar Chesney Hawkes.

Over the years, Sam’s character has been involved in a whole host of storylines – from being held hostage to becoming a dad of quads, to now being a doting husband to Gemma and dad to Joseph and the quads.

And, while Sam may have joined Corrie in 2003, it wasn’t his first acting role. The actor, now 31, made his television debut at the age of five, as an extra in Eddie Mountain – after joining the Carol Godby Theatre Workshop in Bury. He also appeared in Where the Heart Is and The Bill before joining the ITV soap. And, just a year into his time on the cobbles, Sam picked up Best Newcomer at the National Television Awards.

While Chesney is currently living with his new wife, their four children, his son Joseph and his mother-in-law Bernie, Sam is no stranger to big families himself, with three older brothers and five older sisters.

“Because I grew up in a big family, I’ve always been used to the chaos. I’ve got five sisters and three brothers so I’m used to a lot of people being around in the house, children and all sorts,” he recently told the Manchester Evening News.

“But with work, it’s all well-structured because when we have scenes where the quads are in, we have got the chaperone, Karen, who is lovely, we’ve got the parents who come on set and they’ll only bring them on when we do a take, so as crazy as it sounds, it’s not as bedlam, I don’t think, as it could be when you initially think [about] four babies on set.”

One of Sam’s sisters, Emily, even appeared in Corrie as Becky Palmer from 1996 to 1997, while his brother Joseph was the second actor to play Tommy Duckworth back in 2000. His other brother Thomas is also an actor and has appeared in episodes of Casualty and The Bill.

Away from his work life, Sam is married to yoga teacher and birth doula, Briony. The pair said ‘I do’ in a stunning Cheshire ceremony in May 2019. The romantic nuptials were held on Stock Farm just on the edge of Tatton Park and Sam said he was’the luckiest man alive’.

Sam took to one knee and proposed in summer 2017 in front of over 250 people at the annual charity golf dinner that he hosts with co-stars Alan and Andy Whyment at the Worsley Park Marriott Hotel in Salford. The couple have known each other since they were young and started chatting on MSN as smitten teenagers. “Briony and I met when I was about 15 or 16,” Sam previously told the Mirror. “We got together, but we were very young.”

Sam ended up ending the relationship, but the pair found a way back to each other years later. He added to the publication: “Three or four years later we were both helping out at the same drama workshop. Carol Godby’s acting school, which is where I started as a youngster.

“I was teaching and Briony was in the room next door. I think she might have given me a funny look when I first walked in, but we soon got past that and straight away we got talking. We went for a meal that night at a country pub and that was it. We’ve been together ever since.”

After tying the knot, the couple have gone on to welcome three children. Sam’s son Sonny James arrived six weeks early on August 11, 2020, just over a year after the couple married while daughter Daisy Josephine arrived in May 2022. Briony told OK! Magazine of their daughter’s name: “She’s Daisy Josephine. Josephine is a nod to Sam’s brother Joe and my grandad Joe. Daisy is also the French name for Marguerite and my mum’s mum is called Margaret, so it was a way to have both grandparents in there.”

Sam and Briony with Sonny and Daisy before third baby Hazel’s arrival (Image: Briony Aston Instagram)
Then in May, Sam announced the arrival of his third child with his wife Briony. The couple confirmed the arrival of their baby girl alongside pictures of the bundle of joy’s arrival.

“Welcome to the world…Hazel Marie Aston. 07.05.24 8lbs 15oz,” they wrote alongside pictures from Hazel’s arrival, including Briony’s water birth in a large pool. Another sweet photo showed older siblings Sonny and Daisy holding a candle towards the umbilical cord and placenta as they welcomed their newest sibling into the world.

Sam and Briony announced they were expecting their third child back in November but described the news as ‘bittersweet’ as they revealed they were expecting twins before they lost one of the babies to ‘Vanishing Twin Syndrome’.

Speaking to OK! Magazine at the time, Briony said: “We were excited and thankful, because we always wanted a baby that was healthy. Then we started thinking, ‘We could have had two… Will the living twin always wonder, ‘What if? and will they feel lonely?’ We found ourselves questioning what could have been, while feeling grateful for what we’ve got.”

The news came after Briony and Sam endured two tragic miscarriages within four months of each other. And while being pregnant is wonderful news for the pair, However, the pair still share a sense of loss.

Briony explained that their sad loss of one of their babies was the result of ‘Vanishing Twin Syndrome’, a condition in which one of the babies stops growing and the mother’s body then absorbs the embryo and tissue. The midwife discovered Briony had been expecting non-identical twins – developing in two separate amniotic sacs with their own placentas- after locating the lost twin’s remaining amniotic sac during the scan.

“If we hadn’t had the early scan, I wouldn’t even have known,” she added: “But it does explain why I was so sick and tired this time around compared to my other pregnancies.”