Ethel Skinner

Ethel Skinner is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders'', played by Gretchen Franklin. Ethel also features in a 1988 ''EastEnders'' special episode, entitled "CivvyStreet", set on Albert Square during World War II, in which she is played by Alison Bettles.

Ethel is an ''EastEnders'' original character and in the early years she can always be found wandering the neighbourhood with her adored pug Willy. She and Dot Cotton (June Brown) are lifelong friends, and although they wind each other up, they are completely dependent on each other. Ethel trusts Dot so much that she even asks her to help her die in 2000 after she is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Storylines

Backstory

Ethel Skinner is one of the original characters that appears in the first episode of ''EastEnders'' in 1985 and her early history is depicted in the 1986 authorised novel ''The Flower of Albert Square'', which directly contradicts the later ''EastEnders'' flashback episode, "CivvyStreet". In the novel, Ethel grows up with her family in Beckton, which is bombed during the war, killing her parents and leading her to live with her uncle and aunt in Hackney. She later meets William (Ian Brimble) and moves to Albert Square after the war, after he proposes. However, in the television episode, Ethel is said to have lived in Albert Square for most of her life, remaining there through the war and witnessing the death of her entire family, who are killed by a doodlebug. This tragic event sends a young Ethel into shock and subsequently she develops eccentric behaviour. She begins dressing outrageously, wearing garish make-up, flirting with anyone in trousers, and knocking back gin, traits that lasts well into her old-age. In a 1986 episode of ''EastEnders'', Ethel says she had an argument with her father during the war and left home, saying she would never return as long as he was there; she returned the next day and both her parents had been killed by a doodlebug.

Ethel never recovers from William's death and names her pug dog after him, Willy. Ethel has surviving extended family, including her husband's nephew Eddie Skinner, who appeared at her funeral, staying in Walford for a few months afterwards. Eddie also has a daughter called Kerry Skinner.

1985–1997

Ethel had never had children, a fact that she regretted in her old-age and so Willy became her surrogate child, and she loves him dearly. Willy goes everywhere that Ethel goes and so she is devastated when he is kidnapped in 1986. She searches for him everywhere and even holds a seance to see if she can contact him, but Willy is nowhere to be found. Detective Roy Quick (Douglas Fielding) works on the case and eventually finds Willy in the possession of Mr Pavasars (Sydney Arnold), an old Latvian refugee, who has renamed him Rasputin. Willy is returned to an overjoyed Ethel, although she has to pay the man in order to get him to relinquish ownership. Ethel has been a lifelong friend of Lou Beale (Anna Wing) and Dot Cotton (June Brown) and the trio remain close in their old-age. They can often be found reminiscing or gossiping in The Queen Victoria public house, where Ethel also regularly thrills the punters with her repartee, her version of the cancan, or her plain sense of fun. Out of the three Ethel is the most light-hearted and she is never frightened to stand up to the over-bearing Lou and interfering Dot. She has her run-ins with both over the years, and yet their friendship endures right to the last.

Ethel lives above Doctor Legg's (Leonard Fenton ( John Altman). Ethel is never afraid to stand up to Nick, even kneeing him in the groin once when he attempts to mug her. She also correctly figures out that Nick is trying to poison Dot to get her money, and she refuses to back down, despite Dot falling out with her because of her accusations. Following several falls and a broken hip, Ethel is persuaded to move out of her residence above the surgery and into sheltered housing in 1988. Although she is strongly opposed to this initially, she eventually comes to enjoy her new home, though she would continue to show up in Albert Square regularly.

Ethel has several romances with senior bachelors on Albert Square. Her ex-boyfriend from the war years, Ernie Mears (Ken Wynne), returns to Albert Square in 1985 and proposes to her. However, the offer is conditional. Ernie is allergic to dogs and Willy, Ethel's constant companion for the past 9 years, would have to go. Ethel seriously considers Ernie's offer but gently declines. In 1988 she finds romance again with a friend of Dr. Legg's, Benny Bloom (Arnold Yarrow). Dot loathes Benny and does everything she can to talk Ethel out of dating him. Ethel and Benny discuss marriage, which Ethel agrees to, mainly to spite Dot, who calls her a silly fool for wanting to remarry at her time of life. However, after discovering pets aren't allowed in the manor where Benny lives, the engagement was called off, once again because of Willy. A few months later Ethel hears news that Benny has died and has left her £2000, although his daughter tries to contest the will for a while.

In August 1989, Ethel meets a new love interest named Reggie Thompson (John Rutland). He invites her to go on a coach trip to Clacton for a dancing competition. Ethel is so excited that she shows Reggie a saucy nightie she has bought for the trip. When Dot, Marge Green (Pat Coombs) and Mo Butcher (Edna Doré) find out about the trip, they decide to go as well. Reggie arranges dancing partners for them and the ladies practise hard at the community centre for months before the trip. But upon arriving on holiday, Ethel grows disappointed in Reggie when he starts to show interest in another woman named Gladys. On the night of the dancing competition, Ethel finds that Reggie has run off with Gladys and she has no partner in the grand ballroom except for her 'little Willy'. In 1992, Ethel's adored pug Willy succumbs to old-age and she has to make the heart-breaking decision to put him down. Regulars at The Queen Victoria pub raise money to buy Ethel a new dog, but she refuses to accept it, saying Willy is irreplaceable. By the mid 1990s Ethel is seen much less frequently. She is seen occasionally however, usually when a big event is occurring or to celebrate Christmas and New Year with her old friends on the Square. After 1997 Ethel is not seen in Walford for three years, although she is mentioned often, particularly by Dot, who will often visit her off-screen in her sheltered housing.

2000

In June 2000, a somewhat frailer Ethel resumes her visits to Albert Square, usually arriving at Pauline Fowler's (Wendy Richard) house. Despite being restricted to a wheelchair, Ethel remains cheerful, bickering with Dot and teasing Pauline about her relationship with Jeff Healy (Leslie Schofield). She stays with Pauline for a brief while in July to get over the death of a friend at the retirement home, at which time Dot becomes Ethel's primary caregiver, a task which often leaves Dot exhausted.

After a couple of weeks, Ethel shocks Dot by revealing that she is suffering from terminal cancer and is not going to live much longer, and that she has come home to the square to die, but instead of waiting to die in agony, she wants to choose her final moments so she can die with dignity.

Ethel has been storing her morphine tablets for many weeks and it is her plan to take an overdose before the pain becomes too unbearable. However, before being able to execute her plan, she becomes too weak and is unable to administer the drugs without Dot's assistance. Dot is devastated and initially refuses to help Ethel, as to help another take their own life goes completely against her strict Christian principles. Dot spends many agonising weeks wrestling with her conscience, but she eventually agrees to grant her old friend's final wish. On the night of her 85th birthday (it was actually her 86th, but she'd always lied about her age), after a celebratory party at The Vic, Ethel decides that this was to be her last night. After blowing out the candles of her birthday cake and bidding Dot an emotional farewell, Ethel takes the pills, aided by Dot, and dies peacefully in her sleep. When Dot herself dies 22 years later, she is buried next to Ethel, reuniting the pair for eternity.

Creation and development

Ethel Skinner was the second out of the original twenty-three characters invented by the creators of ''EastEnders'', Tony Holland and Julia Smith (the first to be created was Lou Beale). Ethel was based on an elderly woman that Smith had encountered in a pub in Hackney. She had bright ginger hair, a face plied with make-up, she laughed a lot and was obviously "the life and soul of the party". She also had a little dog, Willie, who she dressed in a red ribbon, tied in a neat bow on its head. Smith felt that a character like this would be an excellent inclusion to the show. Ethel's original character outline as written by Smith and Holland appeared in an abridged form in their book, '' EastEnders: The Inside Story''.

:"Most of her money goes on food for her dog, Willie, a Yorkie, and booze for herself. She has a hopeless memory for actual facts but can tell endless stories about pre-war London, her childhood, and, above all, the war. She does miss the friendliness of the old East-end... She has false teeth and red hair: those are the two things you most notice about her - then the dog... Her greatest joy is telling fortunes, cards, tea-cups and palm-reading. "I've got the gift she says... Born in 1920, in Camden Town... left home, aged 16, to work for a posh Hackney family, as a general undermaid... Ethel came home one day to find her street destroyed by a doodlebug. Her parents had been in the house... Ethel met William, a docker, and they married when Ethel was 25... Ethel and William had no children... As a youngster, Ethel would have been a page three girl, a real pin-up." (page 52)

Gretchen Franklin was the first actress that Smith and Holland had in mind for the role. An experienced actress with a long career in show-business, Franklin was considered to be ideal casting, so she was offered the part.

Ethel became a popular and well-loved character from very early on in the series. Ethel was a gossip who did not always get her facts right, and this was often used for comic effect, as was her use of malapropisms. She became famous for owning a pug named Willy. Ethel's famous lines being either, "Where's my Willy?" or, in a double entendre, "Has anyone seen my little Willy". It was originally intended for Ethel's dog to be a Yorkshire Terrier

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