At the start of her conversation with Hetty Prout, Ada mentions Norman Evans. Norman Evans is best remembered for "Over the Garden Wall", in which he played Fanny Fairbottom, a toothless hatchet-faced Lancastrian housewife gossiping over a garden wall. The one-sided conversations would embrace local gossip, including scandal about the neighbours and personal medical complaints, including silently mouthing words deemed too rude to be spoken out loud, and accompanied with a range of facial contortions and glances round for supposed eavesdroppers.