Mrs Overall: Lets all have a nice macaroon, shall we? ( misquoted from Acorn Antiques (Victoria Wood/BBC)
The days had grown longer, and unusually for Cardiff, hotter, so Ianto had shed the suit jacket and waist coat and rolled his shirt sleeves to his elbows. Currently he is half in, half out of the janitorial supply cupboard, wrangling an old mop and galvanised metal bucket into submission.
His shirt is wet, the bucket and mop had been very recalcitrant when he tried to empty it into the sluice. He is beginning to have dark thoughts about alien control, or maybe poltergeist activity, when he finally gets the door to shut.
He turns, straightens his tie and takes a step towards Jack who is leaning nonchalantly against the doorway into the sluice. Jack opens his mouth to speak when the cupboard door behind Ianto swings open, butting him in the back. Jack flinches as the mop handle hits Ianto on the head, and the galvanised bucket falls to the floor, smacking him in the back of the knees, echoing like a cracked bell against the tiled floor.
Bravely Jack hides his mirth and assists Ianto to stand. "You OK?" Ianto does not deign a verbal reply, but his look would burn holes through a grade three containment unit.
"Ya know Betty never had much of a problem with that bucket and she was only 4 foot eight."
It is the end of the day and Jack and Ianto are sat sipping coffee on their favourite roof. The sun is sinking over the bay, and Ianto is finally feeling cooler in the evening breeze.
"I don't want to know what you and Betty got up to in the sluice, Jack."
Jack shivers at the thought. "She would have had my guts for garters if I so much as hinted at flirting, she was quite a gal. She once subdued a weevil with nothing more than a mop and a feather duster."
"Wow, brave," Ianto thinks for a moment, "I don't remember seeing a Betty in the field agent files."
Jack smirked, "you wouldn't. She was just a' Lady Who Does'."
Ianto turns a quizzical eye on Jack "Does what?"
"You, know, she 'did' for people."
"An assassin?"
"NO. She 'did' for people, a char, a cleaner. She 'did' for Torchwood. I tell you, we all quivered in our boots when Betty told us off for walking across her wet floors."
"And yet you still do it today"
"Ah, but your punishments are fun"
A few days later Ianto runs to earth a picture of Betty. He understands exactly why Jack would be afraid. Next time he washes the kitchen floor, the mop is left diagonally across the entrance, an enlarged picture of Betty hanging from it. It is the first time it dries unmarked by the passage of dirty boots and heels. He has also replaced the toilet duck gel discs with old fashioned solid fresheners, from the supply he had found in the sluice. The smell very reminiscent of school lavatories across the world.
Curiously Ianto never has trouble with the mop and bucket again, and the toilets have stopped overflowing. Perhaps he has appeased the spirit of Betty and through her the spirits of all "Ladies who do".
Please do not type 'ladies who do' into google images unless you are over 18 and or have strong stomach. Yes you will find the film, but the first pic was very scary indeed!Search for Mrs Overall instead and have a giggle.