Dead and never called her mother, in fact,” misquoted Sloan, who had once seen the Berebury Amateur Dramatic Society play East Lynne, and never forgo… - Catherine Aird

Really,’ she exclaimed, stumping into the kitchen and plonking herself down on the nearest chair, ‘this place is getting worse than Nightmare Abbey. Whatever next?’

A grammatical purist might have wondered why Miss Bentley hadn't said ‘whoever’ rather than ‘whatever’ but the former headteacher belonged to the Superintendent Leeyes school of taking bad news as a personal affront rather than as an occasion for sympathy for the victim.

We know hardly anything about anything.

If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.