Edna the Inebriate Woman

Jeremy Sandford

• Publisher: Marion Boyars
• Year: 1976
• ISBN:
  9780714522104
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Edna the Inebriate Woman was written when Jeremy Sandford, whose documentary Cathy Come Home had focused public attention on the plight of homeless families, decided to study the equally grave problems faced by Britain's thousands of single homeless people. The author follows Edna on her continuous journey through town and country and shows us at first hand the shortcomings and sheer absurdities of a society whose response to Edna's predicament is insensitive, inappropriate and expensive. Sandford's own anger and impatience with our reluctance to help those who wander through the twilight world at the bottom of society is infectious.

EDNA THE INEBRIATE WOMAN

screenplay

A Road. Night

Out of the darkness, out of the night, a frayed decrepit fragile old figure emerges.

First she is a speck lit up fitfully by the headlamps of passing cars. Then she gets closer and we see her solitary trudge. Under one arm she has a polythene parcel. She passes us and continues.

Common Lodging House. Kitchen. Night

Tatty room with two or three gas stoves in it.

EDNA a curious bundle of rags, is leaping up and down on the floor of the kitchen, a bizarre figure, trying to stamp on beetles.

She stops to turn on the gas for a cup of tea, then returns to her occupation.

PROPRIETOR. Out you go Edna now, you know you can’t stay here—we’re closed. Haven’t I told you that?

EDNA. Sorry. Sorry. I was just trying to rid it of the beetle. After so many beetle …

PROPRIETOR. Never mind the beetle. Anyway, they won’t harm you no more. You’re going. Remember?

EDNA. I was just trying to stamp out the beetle.

PROPRIETOR. Why?

EDNA. Cos I don’t like them.

PROPRIETOR. They won’t worry you. You’re going. Edna, (hustling her) Remember? G-O-I-N-G spells going.

EDNA. Goodbye. Goodbye beetle.

EDNA leaves.

On the Road. Night

EDNA walking. She mutters.

EDNA. After so many. After so many beetle.

A tree is lit up fitfully by the headlamps of a passing car.

EDNA. Life … I call it a study in dry rot. Flitter. Flitter.

As she trudges we hear

OFFICIAL VOICE. Some of the inmates of the lodging house took it badly. Two of them even went out and threw a brick through a window.

EDNA. But I didn’t do it. Oh no, I didn’t do it. No. Flitter. Flitter

In a Ruined Building in the Country. Night

EDNA sitting by a very small fire.

She explains to an OLD TRAMP

EDNA. It’s me legs, see, it’s me legs. Yes, it’s me legs play me up. In the summer, in the summer things are much better. It’s the while we have all this cold, that’s the trouble, that’s when me legs go numb with an awful lot of pain … Well, like today, there was a little bit of sun, I went and sat in the sun and I felt a great improvement. As long as it don’t get too hot. But it don’t do that thi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• CREDITS
• EDNA THE INEBRIATE WOMAN
• THE STORY BROUGHT UP TO DATE
• SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
• ORGANISATIONS AND PRESSURE GROUPS
• By the Same Author
• Copyright