We were provided with a set of pictures and asked to choose one and then write a character sketch to bring the person alive. I chose a picture of what looked like a cleaning lady. I decided that her name was Edna...

I actually wrote three character sketches to try and define Edna. Firstly I wrote two short thumbnail pieces which used almost exactly the same words to present her as two utterly different people. This was an attempt to show just how important word choice really is in the reader's appreciation of the character. Then I wrote a longer piece which attempted to put Edna into a wider perspective. Again, I made her a completely different person from the lady in the thumbnail pieces.

Everyone at the office dreaded having to work overtime because if they stayed too late they might meet Edna the cleaning lady. One and all, they were terrified of her. She always wore a headscarf wrapped around formidable curlers that could have put a permanent wave in the girders of the Eiffel Tower. Her body was encased in a pinafore embroidered with flowers that all appeared to have suffered an overdose of Round-Up. Years of brandishing industrial strength vacuum cleaners had given her the thighs and biceps of a stevedore. Phyllis in Accounts Receivable reckoned that, in an emergency, Edna could kickstart a jumbo jet.

Once, at the office Christmas party, somebody had accidentally smeared some pink icing on the boardroom table. "Edna will make you lick that up tomorrow," predicted Phyllis with gloomy glee, "and it will have set as hard as a rock."

Tonight everyone was head down at their desk struggling to balance the books for the month end report which was due first thing tomorrow. Suddenly the door slammed open and crashed against the wall. There stood Edna, pulling a vivid yellow pair of rubber gloves over her hands. She snapped the rubber and flexed her fingers suggestively.

"Eh, up me ducks!" said Edna, surveying them all with a glacial, Medusa-like glare. "Who wants to be done first?"

Everyone at the office quite enjoyed having to work overtime because if they stayed late enough they might meet Edna the cleaning lady. One and all, they adored her. Sometimes they brought her cakes. She always wore a headscarf wrapped around formidable curlers which she claimed gave her lucky hair when she took them out to go to bingo.

Her body was encased in a pinafore embroidered with flowers that all appeared to be growing happily in the best quality compost. Years of brandishing industrial strength vacuum cleaners had given her the thighs and biceps of a stevedore. Phyllis in Accounts Receivable reckoned that she had once seen Edna lift an entire desk with one hand while she vacuumed underneath it with the other. Everybody was very impressed.

Once, at the office Christmas party, someone had written "Merry Christmas, Edna. We Love You" in pink icing on the boardroom table. Of course Edna had to clean it the next day, when the icing had set rock hard. But she didn't seem to mind. Phyllis said that Edna had a smile on her face as she scrubbed.

Tonight everyone was head down at their desk struggling to balance the books for the month end report which was due first thing tomorrow. Suddenly the door slammed open and crashed against the wall. There stood Edna, pulling a vivid yellow pair of rubber gloves over her hands. She snapped the rubber and flexed her fingers suggestively.

"Eh, up me ducks!" said Edna, surveying them all with a lascivious smile. "Who wants to be done first?"

Mrs Siddall, Edna to her friends, lives in a terraced house in a small Yorkshire village. She knows her place and she is happy in it. Every day she gets up, dresses herself in a wrap-around pinafore, which she refers to as a pinny, and ties a scarf around the curlers in her hair. The curlers only ever come out on Saturday, just before Edna goes to the Bingo.

Once she is dressed to her satisfaction, Edna goes to the kitchen to make breakfast for her husband William. Then she packs his lunch and sends him off to work at the pit. Edna, a house proud lady as well as a creature of habit, always admonishes him, "Now think on our Billy, don't come 'ome tonight in tha muck!". William nods agreement and makes a mental note to wash himself all over before coming home at the end of his shift.

Once he is gone, Edna sets about the daily chores. On Monday she washes the clothes, swirling them round in a dolly tub and then ringing out the excess water by feeding them through a hand-cranked mangle. All this exercise has given her the thighs and biceps of a stevedore. If she set her mind to it, she could plough a field as well as any shire horse.

Edna's mangle has two uses – not only does she dry the washing with it, she also, in the appropriate season, feeds sticks of rhubarb from William's allotment through it, collecting the juice in a vast bucket. Over the weeks to come she will carefully ferment this into a scarily potent wine...

When the washing is as dry as the mangle can get it, Edna takes the clothes outside to peg them out on the line. She always enjoys doing this because she can gossip over the fence with her neighbour Cynthia, who is pegging out her own washing. "Well!" Edna always says when Cynthia relays a particularly juicy bit of scandal, "Well! I'll go to the foot of our stairs!"

While they chat, both women keep an anxious eye on the sky, watching for any sign of rain. If they think that rain might come, they cut short their gossip, take the clothes inside and drape them over a clothes horse by the fire to finish drying. In Yorkshire, every raindrop coagulates around a grain of soot. As it falls from the sky it leaves black stripes on the washing so that everything has to be washed again. Not only does this make more work, if the rain comes too late in the day Edna will have to do the washing tomorrow, and she does not approve of doing that. Edna feels that people who wash clothes on Tuesday are strangely eccentric, and she regards them with deep suspicion. Everybody knows that Tuesdays are for getting down on your hands and knees and scrubbing the front step.

On Wednesday Edna goes shopping. She buys vegetables and fruit from the greengrocer and she buys meat from Mr Morton, the butcher. "'ello love," says Mr Morton, "what can I do you for today?"

"I'll 'ave a pound of sausages and two lamb chops, Mr Morton," says Edna. "And 'alf a pound of beef dripping." Edna and Mr Morton were in the same class together at school, but Edna always calls him Mr Morton, and he always calls her love, or sometimes lass. Edna feels it is important to observe the proprieties.

On Thursday Edna gets out her mop and bucket and washes all the floors. Then she dusts in all the rooms. She is always careful to lift every ornament and dust beneath it. She has a lot of ornaments. Many of them are cheap souvenirs from holidays in Bridlington, but she has some nice pieces that she inherited from her parents and grandparents. She is particularly fond of a rather ugly toby jug which has a lascivious wink. She always dusts it very carefully. Sometimes she talks to it. "Ey up, Toby, lad," she says. "'Ow's tha doin?" But Toby never replies.

Friday is a special day. That is when William gets paid. He comes home from his shift and he gives Edna his pay packet. Edna counts the money carefully and then gives William his allowance. Probably he'll spend it all in the pub tonight, but Edna doesn't mind. She knows that he needs time with his friends, and she has Bingo to look forward to tomorrow night.

William goes upstairs to get changed for the pub. "Shall I wear my new trousers, mother?" he asks.

Edna is shocked. "Nay, lad," she says firmly. "Nay. Them trousers is for best. Tha cannot wear them."

These are the weeks of Edna's life. They come and they go, and she greatly enjoys their predictability.

But although she does not know it yet, change will eventually come to Edna. William will die young, his lungs congested from too many years of breathing coal dust in the pit. Eventually Edna will overcome this great sorrow. After a suitable period of mourning, she will find that she is being courted by Mr Binns who owns a quarry and who is a rich man. She will marry him and move to the big house. Mr Binns will employ a cleaning woman who comes every Friday, and Edna, unable to prevent herself, will spend the whole of Thursday washing the floors and dusting the ornaments, making the house spick and span, ready for the cleaning lady tomorrow. This will make Edna very happy.