The script originally included a storyline featuring Anne Reid as the principal of the school that Karen's (Emma Thompson) children attend. Viewable here on POPSUGAR, the clip shows the headmistress coming home to her partner, Geraldine (at the time, same-sex marriage wouldn't have been legal in the UK, per The Sun). Though bedridden and clearly ill, Geraldine jokes with her partner about having "fancy" sausages with leeks and apples, and laughs heartily at an anecdote about a student whose Christmas wish was to see people's farts ("Bravo! That's my Christmas wish, too!").
But it's clear that the couple's time together is limited; Anne's face tells a story as she holds Geraldine close in bed that night. Later, we see Karen making a speech before the school Christmas pageant, praising the headmistress's bravery in coming to the show "in light of her recent loss. Geraldine was a wonderful and wicked woman, and sorrow is particularly hard at Christmas."
Director Richard Curtis lamented that he was "really sorry" to lose the scene, in an interview in the DVD bonus footage. "The idea was meant to be that you just casually meet this very stern headmistress, but later on in the film we suddenly fell in with her and you realize that, no matter how unlikely it seems, any character you come across in life has their own complicated tale of love."
Perhaps he should have kept this scene in and cut out the whole dweeby-guy-meets-American-supermodels bit.
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