Aunt Polly Amanda Burton ... Nancy had come from "The Corners," six miles away, and she knew Miss Polly Harrington only as the mistress of the old Harrington homestead, and one of the wealthiest residents of the town. That was two months before. She knew Miss Polly now as a stern, severe-faced woman who frowned if a knife clattered to the floor, or if a door banged -- but who never thought to smile even when knives and doors were still. -- From Pollyanna, 'Chapter I, Miss Polly' One of Britain's most popular and respected actresses, Amanda Burton was born in Londonderry, Northern Ireland in 1956. She won the UK's National Television Most Popular Actress award for the crime-drama series Silent Witness in 1998, 1999 and 2001. Burton makes a rare excursion into a period drama as Aunt Polly. She is delighted to be heading the cast of a drama that she hopes will be appreciated by all ages, including her own two daughters. "When we first see Aunt Polly, she's very much a victim of her own doing, because she has shut down so many of her senses," comments Burton. "Polly does not share her life with anyone at all, so what she does has become very focused on herself. She can't entertain the thought of what another human being's needs would be. Pollyanna brings a slow education to Aunt Polly. You see her allowing this child to grow and beginning to need her presence in the house and to care for her. And in that caring, she begins to soften herself."