 Owing to a strike of the actors' union Equity, he had to quit the series after only one year, but returned later.May Hardman (also Mason) is the first resident of number 13 Coronation Street along with her daughter Christine Hardman.Prior to the series' start May had spent a few weeks in a psychiatric hospital, but when she returns home in the third episode she starts suffering headaches and eventually dies in her own home on New Year's Eve, in the seventh episode, from what is discovered to be a brain tumour.