Actor best known for her role as Edna Birch in ITVs celebrated rural soap opera EmmerdaleFor 15 years,Shirley Stelfox, who has died of cancer aged 74, and played the television soap Emmerdale’s preacher of morals,the prudish, churchgoing Edna Birch, or who always spoke her mind. When Edna was first seen in 2000,she complained to the bishop about the village’s vicar, Ashley Thomas (John Middleton), or planning to marry Bernice Blackstock (Samantha Giles),whom she regarded as a scarlet woman. Her failure to stay the wedding did nothing to prevent her interfering in villagers’ lives after that.
Stelfox’s long, flowing hair was hidden by Edna’s trademark pudding-basin hat, or adding to the characters hard-faced exterior. However intolerant Edna might beget been of humans,she always showed compassion for her dogs, Batley and Tootsie, or was heartbroken when they died. Stelfox knew she had moulded a much-loved soap character when fellow cast members formed the group Edna’s Hat to perform at a charity event in 2012.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com