Edna Welthorpe (Mrs.)...(yawn)...again

As anyone with just a little literary knowledge knows, 'Edna Welthorpe (Mrs.)' is a spoof character created by playwright Joe Orton. Orton created Edna Welthorpe, an elderly 'outraged of' whom he would later revive to stir controversy over his plays. Orton coined the term as an allusion to Terence Rattigan's "Aunt Edna", Rattigan's archetypal playgoer.

Given that Orton has been dead for many years, it might seem surprising that his Edna should make an appearance in the correspondence columns of this week's St Ives Times & Echo as the author of a letter in support of yellow lines. Or, unsurprising, since Edna made an appearance in the same paper many years ago in an enterprise that rather spectacularly backfired on the writer then hiding behind Edna's skirts.

Possibly that writer is not this week's Edna and is outraged at the very suggestion he might be. If he is not Edna, then of course The St Ivean will prominently correct that outrageous suggestion.

More serious is the worry that the editor of the Times & Echo knows nothing of Edna's provenance and is once again the victim of a deception.

Even more worrying is the possibility that the editor does know and is complicit. Because adjacent to the 'Edna' letter is a stern warning to letter writers to the paper
that the author's full name and address should be included when letters are submitted for publication. Or, in this case, is the editor happy for his readers to be made fools of?

None of this would perhaps matter if the Edna letter redeemed its duplicity by being amusing. But it isn't even remotely funny. And it is that, surely, which makes this inept plagiarism an outrageous insult to the memory and to the art of Joe Orton.