| Mrs Alma Cackle | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Magical Status |
Witch |
|
Gender |
Female |
|
Hair Colour |
Brown |
|
Eye colour |
|
|
Family |
|
|
Occupation |
Headmistress of Cackle's Academy |
|
Actress |
Gillian Waugh (2017 TV Series) |
Mrs Alma Cackle is the mother of Ada and Agatha Cackle. She was headmistress of Cackle's Academy before Ada was.
Story
2017 series
In The Mists of Time, Mildred and Ethel accidentally go back in time, and meet Ada and Agatha as schoolgirls, and their mother Alma as headmistress. Agatha and Amelia try to take their mother's power and run the Academy themselves, however Mildred and the Miss Cackle from the present talk them out of it. It turns out Agatha is the eldest (by 13 minutes), not Ada as they believed, meaning that Agatha was supposed to inherit the Academy. Their mother told Ada that she lied about which twin was older as she wanted Ada to have the school, because Agatha would never run it according to the proper values.
Agatha ends up getting expelled and sent to Wormwood's Academy (where wicked witches are sent) while Ada becomes head girl. They apparently attempted to run the school together, but it was a disaster.
In the 2017 series, a key aspect of the Witches Code is that, in magical families with multiple children, the eldest child is the only one who inherits from their parents. In the course of the series, Mildred becomes the first person- before even Miss Cackle herself- to learn that Ada Cackle is actually the younger of the Cackle siblings, but their mother, Alma, concealed the truth as she recognized that Agatha would be a poor choice of headmistress. This deception is exposed to Agatha by Ethel in the penultimate episode of the series, but in "The Worst Headmistress", the Great Wizard learns of the secret and makes it clear that he himself will alter the Code to favour Ada in this instance, as he agrees with their mother's decision to bend the rules to allow Ada to take over the Academy.
In the 1986 film, Miss Cackle's mother is mentioned: “There was a time, when I was a girl, when witches were persecuted, reviled, and burned at the stake. (turns to look at a portrait on the wall) It was Madlevana Cackle, my mother, who had the courage to fight for the formal education of witches.”