Mike Baldwin & Linda Sykes
Mike is a Cockney barrow-boy made good who made his money in the garment trade and currently runs Underworld, with a factory in Coronation Street making underwear. He moved up to Weatherfield in 1976 and never went back.

Divorced from his former wife Alma in 1999, Mike has set up house with Linda Sykes - a spitfire, half his age who is also currently sleeping with Mike's son, Mark.

Ken Barlow & Deidre Rachid
Possibly the street's most unlikely resident. Born at No3, Ken has spent virtually all his life living at a total of 8 addresses in the one street. The first resident to go to University, he's been a teacher, personnel officer, sales executive, Community Development Officer, taxi driver, journalist, and teacher again. He's had three wives, three children and over 20 lovers. He's currently unemployed (though sometimes working as a supply teacher), living at No1 with his third ex-wife, Deirdre Rachid.

Lonely, middle-aged, bespectacled Deirdre has led a varied but not an easy life. First appearing as a teenaged secretary and currently working for ex-lover Mike Baldwin at Underworld, she has been a shop assistant, travel agent, caretaker and local councillor. Mother of Tracy, who lives in London and daughter of Blanche. She has had 3 husbands - Ray Langton, Tracy's father, Ken Barlow, who remains her friend and lastly the brutally murdered Samir Rachid, 19 years her junior. Deirdre seems to attract undesirables, many lovers have included dodgy businessmen and con artists, most recently the actions of Jon Lindsay put her in jail. She continues the quest for true happiness.

Vikram Desai
Work shy Vikram who dropped out of Accountacy at University , took over from Nita behind the Corner Shop counter just after she left for Freshco's, but is now testing his entrepreneurial talents by becoming partners with Steve McDonald in a taxi service. Little did he know when they embarked on this project that Steve unwittingly drew a criminal element into their partnership in the form of Jez - the drug-dealing loan shark. Jez loaned Steve money to buy into the taxi firm, and now won't let Steve pay him back, thereby claiming part-ownership of the business, and using it to make some pretty shady deliveries.

Alma Halliwell
Alma was formerly married to Jim Sedgewick, owner of Jim's Café (which later became Roy's Rolls), which she ran in partnership with Gail Platt. Wooed by both Ken Barlow and Mike Baldwin, she surprised everyone with a sudden fit of violent jealousy of one of Mike's dalliances, and was rewarded by landing the little creep, whom she thankfully no longer has to put up with. Currently working her way up through the ranks at Freshco, she appears to have abandoned her former small catering business - and now Mike, leaving him and Linda to co-habit in unwedded bliss. Friend of Hayley Patterson and Audrey Roberts, highly suspicious of her husband's close friendship with his ex-lover and co-worker Deirdre Rachid - though that's pretty much taken a back seat to the affair with Linda. Although Alma has occasional flashes of independence, she is not so much the wind beneath Mike's wings, as the doormat beneath his feet.

Steve McDonald
Steve has always been black to his less goodlooking twin Andy's white: smartass rather than smart. He loves the highlife and to impress the ladies. After stealing car radios as a schoolboy, he progressed to dealing in stolen booze (and subsequently pending two years in prison), and now if there's a dodgy deal going, Steve is likely to be at the heart of it.

He married Alec Gilroy's rich granddaughter Vicky for her money, but at their divorce she wrested most of it back off him. He nearly killed Rita Sullivan with an inept gas fire installation. Steve carried a big torch for hairdresser Fiona Middleton, as did his Dad, and they came to blows over her. Father and son now keep uneasy company, the more moderate members of their family (Andy, Liz) having found happiness far away from Weatherfield. He has conquests rather than friends.