Weatherfield is a dangerous place to live. And an even more dangerous place to die. Natural causes isn't a phrase found on the death certificate of residents.

Those famous cobbles are running with blood, thanks to the likes of Katy, the wench with the wrench who clobbered her dad, and serial killer Richard Hillman's bludgeoning of Maxine Peacock.

Deaths, preferably prolonged and often violent, are important focal points for soaps, along with births and marriages. So actor Johnny Briggs, who leaves the Street after three decades as knicker factory boss Mike Baldwin next week, should thank his lucky stars that producers are allowing him a more peaceful death - if you count the onset of Alzheimer's, followed by pneumonia and topped off with a heart attack as peaceful. At least no-one bashes him over the head with an iron bar.

The triple whammy of illnesses guarantee him a tearful finale as he dies in the arms of arch rival Ken Barlow. Whether it will result in bumper ratings remains to be seen.

The Street's black book of death doesn't make for pretty reading. Ever since Martha Longhurst slumped dead over her milk stout in the snug of the Rovers Return in 1964, producers have shown little mercy in sending people to the soap cemetery in the sky.

Confused and dying Mike might be excused for mistaking Ken Barlow for the Grim Reaper. People do appear to die around the Street's elder statesman. First wife Valerie was electrocuted by a faulty hairdryer. Second wife Janet died of an overdose and another lady friend, Babs Fanshaw, died of a heart attack on a night out with Ken. He sure knows how to show a woman a good time.

People close to him suffer too. Ex-wife Deirdre's Moroccan husband Samir was mugged and died from a fractured skull. He lives on in a strange way as one of his kidneys was given to Deirdre's daughter Tracy. Her father and Deirdre's first husband Ray Langton returned to the Street after half-a-century away specifically to die (of stomach cancer).

The Barlow family is a dead loss on the road. Ken's mother Ida was run over by a bus. His brother David and his son Darren were killed in a car crash in Australia. Daughter Susan died after her car ran off the road. Only Ken's father Frank died of old age, after he escaped Ken's curse by moving to Cheshire.

Gail Tilsley/Platt/Hillman runs Ken a close second as an angel of death. First husband Brian was stabbed to death outside a disco on the day she demanded a divorce (again). Second husband Martin was lucky - he dressed up as a chicken and ran off with a female football mascot dressed up as a fox.

Then there was Richard Hillman, alias Tricky Dicky the Weatherfield serial killer. He tried to drive Gail and her children to a watery grave in the Weatherfield canal. They emerged wet but alive as he was zipped up in a body bag.

A watery end was planned by demented, taxi driver Don Brennan for both him and wife Alma. That failed so he drove a car into the viaduct and was killed in the explosion.

Mike Baldwin, of course, likes a good cigar and a bad woman. Alma Sedgewick was one of them. She died from cervical cancer, given a touching farewell rather than a road accident. Some worried that the suddenness of her demise was medically implausible.

The list of circumstances in which Street folk died makes for horrific reading - crushed to death, pushed downstairs, burnt to death, shot in a wages snatch, stabbed to death, dead of a brain tumour and, most remarkable of all, frozen to death in the Fresco supermarket deep freeze.

If the writers can link a road accident to a death so much the better. Judy Mallett pegged out pegging out the washing from a blood clot following injuries sustained in a car crash.

Dithering Derek Wilton had a heart attack in the wake of a road rage incident, while Harry Hewitt was crushed to death when a van collapsed on him after the jack slipped.

The vehicle belonged to Len Fairclough, who suffered one of the most ignominious demises of all - the off-screen death with an almost-casual mention that a character has died. Len was killed in a car crash well away from the glare of the cameras.

Animals aren't exempt from soap culls. Theresa the turkey, accidentally run over by Les Battersby, is among the most famous. But let us spare a thought for two budgies, Harriet (the shock of moving from Rosamund Street to Coronation Street caused her to fall off her perch) and Mavis and Derek's Harry (died from natural causes).

The fate of one of the Street's original and best-known residents remains a mystery. What did become of sharp-tongued, hairnet-wearing Ena Sharples? She went off to live in St Anne's in 1980 and was never heard of again. If she's still there, she'll be 107 in November.

* Coronation Street: ITV1, Sunday, 7.30pm; Monday, 7.30pm and 8.30pm; Wednesday and Friday, 7.30pm.

* Farewell Mike, featuring Mike Baldwin's most memorable moments, is on ITV1 on Friday at 8pm.