First starting on the serial in 1974, she had a recurring role as a factory worker until her husband, Jack, (played by Bill Tarmey) first appeared in 1979.

Initially in an un-credited role of a prison officer, in 1975 she played the character of Bedelia Conroy, a public house licensee and witness in a deception trial.

[4] Following a diagnosis of emphysema in March 2004, on 22 July 2007, Granada Television (makers of Coronation Street) announced that Vera Duckworth was to be written out, at Dawn's request, before Christmas, because of further complications with the condition.

[2] On 8 November 2010, she made a brief one-off return to the soap for the final scenes of her on-screen husband, Jack, who died in the same chair as Vera.

[8] Dawn won the British Soap Award for Outstanding Achievement at the 2008 ceremony for her decades-long portrayal of her fictional character Vera Duckworth.

[9] At the age of 18, Dawn married Walter Bradley in Leeds in 1957 and the couple had a son, Graham, but the marriage collapsed when she turned 21.

Dawn, who had stopped smoking in 2002, had previously said her emphysema had taken such a toll on her that she had nearly collapsed during her appointment as an MBE at Buckingham Palace in 2000.