Vera Duckworth leaving the Street

A veteran actress in top soap Coronation Street is to leave due to ill health, it emerged tonight.

Liz Dawn, who has played bolshy Vera Duckworth for the past 34 years, will exit the ITV show before Christmas.

The 68-year-old suffers from the chronic lung disease emphysema and told Granada executives she was too sick to continue acting.

Speaking to the News of the World, she said her time on the show was “the best time of my life”.

Producers would not reveal how Dawn would be written out of her £200,000 role.