Linda Baldwin

Linda Baldwin

Full name: Linda Baldwin (née Sykes) Parents: Ray Sykes and Evelyn Sykes Born: 1972 or 1975 (!) Siblings:

1. Jimmy Sykes 2.    3. Ryan Sykes 4. Dean Sykes (b: 1983; d: 12th October, 2000)

Married: Mike Baldwin (10th September, 2000) Children:

Played by: Jacqueline Chadwick Appeared: 14th October, 1998 - 5th September, 2001

Taken on as a machinist at Mike Baldwin's Underworld factory in 1998, she made Hayley Cropper's life hell when Hayley revealed to a shocked workforce that she was transsexual. Though the other girls eventually accepted Hayley's past, Linda took much much longer and continued to view her with contempt. She built on this reputation as a hard case and was rarely seen in the Rovers without her trademark roll-up cigarettes and pint of bitter in her hand.

After Mike had split with his wife, Alma, following the blackmail attempt, she saw an opportunity and made her move. She successfully seduced Mike and, to her own amazement, found herself becoming very fond of the man old enough to be her father. The affair was spotted one day by Hayley, leaving the factory late, and Linda confronted Hayley about what she'd seen. Hayley kept quiet for a while, but once her good friend Alma had discovered that Mike was seeing another woman., Hayley went to see Alma and told her it was Linda. The secret eventually came out and Linda and Mike went public, to many people's amusement, and Alma's disgust. They actually became a very happy couple and Linda soon moved into Mike's flat. He also promoted her from machinist to sales rep, and she started to bring big orders into Underworld.

Mark Redman re-entered Mike's life also, in November 1999, and was delighted to make Mark a partner in the business, along with Linda, but Mark and Linda started an on/off secret affair at the Millennium, which caused both parties great heartache. Mark eventually had to leave, leaving Mike baffled as to why. Mike proposed to Linda and asked Mark to be best man.

In September 2000, Mike and Linda got married in a big plush wedding at a country house. Later the same day, Mike found out about Mark and Linda's affair and threw Mark out of his life forever, eventually forgiving Linda.

After an armed seige at Freshco's in October, where Mike was held hostage, she was horrified to discover that one of the gunmen was her own brother, Dean, and he had been shot and killed on the scene by the police.