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Miss Amelia Cackle, the headmistress, is a very amiable and gentle lady - unless you insist on making fun of her behind her back or nick her beloved cheesecake. Despite her addiction to cream buns, she is familiar with hills - even steep ones - and agile, yet not overactive. Her way of running the school is sitting at her desk and beaming at people with problems. Usually she leaves the yelling and reprimanding bit to her deputy head and best friend, Miss Hardbroom, Mildred´s terrifying formmistress and potion teacher.
Miss Cackle herself rather fancies the hapless heroine Mildred and now and then gives her a peptalk to cheer her up.
She manages to appear well tempered most of the time, even if she has to face catastrophes (which she freqently has to do) and to sort out all the disagreements between staff and pupils quite neatly - usually by buttering everyone up and manipulating people by means of overwhelming kindness till she gets her own way (though, she often has to give in to Miss Hardbroom´s arguments). |
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Click here for informations about and pics of Clare Coulter, who plays Miss Cackle. |
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Miss Constance Hardbroom is the deputy head of Cackle´s - and it shows. The real power behind the throne, it is her who mostly succeeds in imposing her will on everybody by means of frowning, shouting or simply talking a blue streak till everyone gives in to her. She has a notable record for nipping any opposition in the bud and also for turning rebellious pupils into frogs (though there´s no proof of the latter).
Unlike Miss Cackle, who´s more on the plump and short side, Miss Hardbroom is tall, stiff, thin and scary and strongly rejects any “indulgence of the flesh” - such as consuming candy or cake (Why, a cracker, half a grape or a string bean now and then are certainly sufficient! Not to mention the odd cuppa now and then.) or catching naps (though she claims to sleep six hours on weekends). She keeps herself going on the base of wideawake potion - and is always around when you don´t expect her to.
Miss Hardbroom took a particular disliking to Mildred at first sight - which used to be quite mutual. However, getting acquainted with each other and actually saving each other´s life now and then, both grudgingly had to learn (though not to admit) that each of them has her strong points - which results in a kind of love-hate relationship. Still, Miss Hardbroom relishes in yelling at Mildred and her friends and approving smiles are very thin on the ground with her.
HB, as the pupils call her for short, also hosts a strong contempt for every creature of the male sex which includes important wizards or even Hallow, the chair of the board of governors as well as useless boys (including Charlie Blossom and all wizard apprentices. Guess whether her pupils can get easily aquainted with boys?) Her brief relationship with famous DJ Icy Stevens was a remarkable exception and ended as soon as he put his hand on her arm...
When annoyed - which rarely she isn´t - HB has a habit of vanishing into thin air - and she can sneak around invisibly and spy on her pupils who always get caught when they are in mischief.
Her attitude towards the other staff members, Miss Bat and Miss Drill, can mostly be rated as *hostile* - they both annoy her frequently by either uttering half-baked theories about peace and harmony or by voicing uncalled for opinions about the psychic condition of the modern teen. She surely has no time for that... |
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Click here to see informations about and pics of Kate Duchene who plays Miss Hardbroom. |
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Being the senior member of staff as she likes to point out, Miss Bat is convinced that she deserves more respect than Miss Hardbroom or sometimes even Miss Cackle or Miss Drill are willing to grant her.
Miss Bat is a rather original elderly lady with frizzy hair and tiny glasses. She is very enthusiastic about composing *opera magna* for the school choir, fancies mongolian undertone chanting and sour yak milk, fresh fruit salad and unorthodox methods of teaching.
Her safe haven at the academy is the staffroom cupboard to which she often retreats to sulk (mostly after close encounters with irate Miss Hardbroom. There are not many things about which the pair of them see eye to eye...) Sometimes Miss Bat even appears to spend the whole summer holidays in that cupboard to emerge from it - cobwebcovered - when the new term starts.
Miss Bat plays the school organ - loudly - and also all sorts of *instruments* which won´t be usually regarded as instruments - heartless staff members tend to call her musical attempts an *awful cacophony*. In a nutshell, her ideas of music clash badly with those of her colleagues.
While Miss Bat and Miss Hardbroom are always on the warpath, Miss Bat sometimes teams with Miss Drill as both disagree strongly with the deputy head´s down to earth oldfashioned notions about running a school - yet this alliance is only of a temporary nature... |
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Click here for information about and pictures of Una Stubbs, who plays Miss Bat. |
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Miss Lavinia Crotchet is kind of a sidekick of Miss Bat´s. When the latter moves to Mongolia (hopefully not for retirement?), Miss Crotchet takes her place. Less original and also less agressive than Miss Bat, she blends in nicely - too nicely in fact.
No more huffs, no more fits of artistic temper, no more staffroom cupboard door slamming. Miss Crotchet resigns herself to the pleasures of tarot, sensible remarks and attempts of spreading peace and harmony. She doesn´t kick up a single fight, not even with Miss Hardbroom - she doesn´t disagree with anyone - and even if she did, her voice would be too low to be noticed.
Once or twice, during the Christmas pageant performance and the Hair experiment, we notice that this woman could have had potential - if only she had had more lines... |
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The only non-witch on the staff, Miss Drill is mostly having a hard time of it. She teaches P.E. (which seems to be regarded the most useless subject on the schedule by teachers and pupils alike) and tries to escape from this yoke by attending special courses during the holidays. This leads to her setting up a drama class in school or dragging her pupils out to a camping trip accompanied by Miss Hardbroom - to face the many dangers of “the great outdoors”.
There she meets the Canadian boyscout chief Serge Dubois who gradually advances to becoming her boyfriend. Same as Miss Bat with her staffroom cupboard, Miss Drill has a retreat of her own: she frequently threatens to quit her job to work at Serge´s adventure camp overseas. (All that Miss Hardbroom can bring herself to do about this is to refrain from sighing “If only!” in too audible a manner..)
Miss Drill secretly envies her colleagues because of their magical talents, though she hotly denies it - accordingly she is overjoyed when Mildred and her lot mix up a secret potion which provides Imogen with witchy skills - and she´s not all too willing to part with them at first...
A firm believer into the conveniences of modern life, Miss Drill finds it hard to settle down within the medieval surroundings of the academy - and her newfangled ideas about how to run a boarding school lead to endless fights with the staunch traditionalist Miss Hardbroom.
To oppose that mortal enemy of hers, Miss Drill sometimes joins forces with Miss Bat - but after befriending each other during Mildred´s first term of school, they become rivals later on. |
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