 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.This is the first death in the history of "Coronation Street".May Hardman returns from hospital to No.13 and worries what the neighbours will say about her nervous breakdown.