Clare Machin was a posh economics student who Mark Redman met at a party when he had starting living with his father Mike Baldwin in Weatherfield. Mark was also attracted at the time to Linda Sykes, his father's gold-digging fiancée and Linda, although she wouldn't admit it to herself, reciprocated those feelings. This meant that she felt jealous of Clare and was not impressed by her stories of her time at boarding school, even if Mike was. Clare was initially credited as "Claire Machin".