Long before the wizards and witches of Hogwarts were ever dreamed up, there was Miss Eglantine Price, played by the late Angela Lansbury in Disney’s 1971 classic Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Miss Price is an apprentice witch on a mission to aid the British war effort during the second world war, from the small English village of Pepperinge Eye.
There she is forced to take in siblings Carrie (Cindy O’Callaghan), Charlie (Ian Weighill) and Paul Rawlins (Roy Snart), who are among the many children evacuated from London to the countryside. Miss Price makes plain she is a woman of rules, even if they’re strange ones. There are no sausages and mash to be seen; Miss Price serves a nourishing supper of frightful things like stewed nettles and elm bark, at 6pm sharp.
