#vee's obsessions

[vee-obsessions]

Bridgeburn 2: Searching for Nancy Baty

There aren't many dates in The Bridgeburn Days, but there are enough pointers for me to be able to narrow Nancy Baty down.

Quite early on we get the first date - "1923, when Kitty was eight and Matron came". That would put Nancy's birth in 1915, making her a year older than my grandmother.

Off to the General Register Office I went. Baty can't be a common surname, I thought, and I was right; there were only 43 female Baty babies born either side of 1915. One of them was indeed a Nancy.

Name: BATY, NANCY     Mother's maiden surname: MC LAUGHLAN GRO Reference: 1915  J Quarter in SOUTH SHIELDS

There were no Nancies as a middle name, nor were there any names that looked like they might have become Nancy. So this was probably my girl. Just to be on the safe side, I also checked the 1939 Register. If Nancy was born in 1915, she would have been well out of the children's home and in service by 1939. We're told in the book that she goes to a place 'near London'. And sure enough, there she is.

Baty, Nancy. 23 May 1915, domestic servant. There are six people in the house including Nancy, who is the last one listed. The house is '49 King's End' in Ruislip-Northwood. Two of the other entries are closed, meaning they were born less than 100 years ago and the system doesn't know whether they're still alive.

So I was pretty sure this is the correct Nancy Baty, and that 'The Bridgeburn Days' was indeed autobiographical since its author was a servant just like Kitty in the books. Next - hunting down Bridgeburn itself.

[dirtgrubber]

“They’re… what are they doing? Is that Alastor, holding flowers?”

another banger of a chapter from “Of Saints and Sinners” by the amazing @morningstarwrites

[onesidedradiostatic]

do you think vox has one of these with velvette too

probably as a soft copy posted online with a caption instead of a physical photo though. just to complete the unholy trinity of it being a requirement to take a photo with vox if you're associated with him

[shadowsketches]

🦈Shark week!!!🦈

[hocooart]

Small Staticmoth Date (or maybe not)

I've been really into the idea that Vox obsesses over his sharks almost as much as he does over Alastor - to the chagrin of the other Vees.

[immabitqueer]

I just know Vox would piss himself in anger if he saw how bothered Alastor gets with Lucifer. Alastor barley gives Vox the time of day. He treats him at best as a minor annoyance, and at worst another petty drama for Alastor to get entertainment from. Oh, but with Lucifer? Lucy gets genuine malicious cussing and a song that doesn't end with Alastor as the clear winner, hell, a song that's a real back and forth argument rather than in Stayed Gone what were mostly Mean Girls style insults from Alastor. Alastor and Lucifer get in each other's face and push each other around. Vox would be sobbing desperately on the floor in the fetal position for 1/4 of that type of attention from Alastor.

[neo--queen--serenity]

Do you think Valentino & Vox have an unspoken understanding about their unhinged fixations on Angel and Alastor, respectively? Like the two of them appear to have SOME kind of relationship together (perhaps with Velvette, perhaps not), but they always appear to look the other way when one of them is losing their shit over the random dude they’re obsessed with.

[veevil]

That one relationship dynamic meme but these two dorks

[potionorchard]

Business as usual with these two~

[enixamyram]

So, I heard Viv wants to do a spin off of the Vees and while I have no interest in seeing any more of Valentino than I have to, I very much want to see more of her!!!

[vee-obsessions]

There was a little girl

When I was young, I had a book called 'The Bridgeburn Days', by Lucy Sinclair. It was about a little girl growing up in 'Bridgeburn', a children's home in an unnamed town in the North of England, in the 1920s and 1930s. This is what the cover of the book, published in 1956, looked like:

The little girl's name was Kitty Barrowell, and the book followed her life from her earliest memories growing up there through to her return visit to Bridgeburn after having gone 'into service' in London, which was what all the girls at Bridgeburn were trained up for (the boys were trained for farm work).

Although the protagonist is named Kitty, the book is sharply and starkly autobiographical, and it's clear that Lucy Sinclair herself was the little girl who grew up in Bridgeburn. I can't tell you why I found it such a gripping tale, but I did. I was moved by Kitty's longing for something outside domestic drudgery, her anger at the cruelty of the big girls to the little ones, her bewilderment about the unfairness of a world where some children were born crippled because their fathers beat their pregnant mothers while others lived a pampered life.

I often wondered as a child what became of the intelligent, shy, imaginative 'Kitty'. Did Lucy Sinclair write other books? Did she stay in service? Was she happy?

As an adult I tried to answer these questions, but I hit a dead end wherever I went. The Bridgeburn Days seems to have made little impression on the literary world, although it received good reviews. It's been largely forgotten except for being quoted in some academic texts focused on the historical experiences of children in care. And Lucy Sinclair seems likewise to have made little or no impression on the world. Googling her gave me nothing. Maybe 'Lucy Sinclair', as well as 'Kitty Barrowell', was a pseudonym.

I also searched for Lucy in genealogy websites and newspaper archives, again with no success. Then I thought to look up her published. Gollancz. They still exist but are now mainly a SF and fantasy publisher, according to Wikipedia. But one other thing Wikipedia gave me was the fact that the Victor Gollancz Ltd archives are housed at the Modern Records Office, University of Warwick.

With little or no expectation it would come to anything, I did a search on the Modern Records Office's website, to see if there was anything that might point me in the right direction. And there was.

In the details of a contract ledger held in the Gollancz archives was a date and a name.

'The Bridgeburn days' by Lucy Sinclair (Nancy Baty), 12 Mar 1956.

Lucy Sinclair was in fact Nancy Baty.

Maybe I could find out more, with a name.

[roseydesuuu]

A little bit spoiler I guess?

If the latest chapter instead of Alastor came to rescue Dolly, it was the cursed cat Alastor?

It would be like

Vox [with his screen littered of scratches and some of his wires were plucked brutally]: “WHERE THE FUCK IS THIS CAT COMING FROM? AND WHY IT HAS THE SAME FUCKIN FACE WITH THAT OUTDATED RADIO?”

The cursed cat Alastor: standing on top of Vox’s screen with static sounds and deadly stare coming from him.

Dolly walking limp with Alastor’s shadow supporting her to the scene:

“Darling? Oh it’s a lovely cat with my husband appearance!”

The cat stop with the static sounds, jump off Vox’s face and run to Dolly’s side, cuddling with her legs

Vox: “…”

Valentino and Velvette also appeared with scratches all over their faces and tattered clothes:

“You know what? Fuck you Vox”

[unnecessarilysalty]

maybe writing letters wasn’t the best idea (part 1)

[wiihtigo]

non canon to casey official lore but what if she did get that son of a bitch

[valoale]

WIP

Harry claims he hit his head on duty (he did not). In other words he constantly finds reasons to go to the hospital just to see Dr. Malfoy only to ask him out

#if you wanna see your favourite neurosurgeon you gotta do what you gotta do

My little surgeon AU is growing and I can't help it, so, firefighter (& EMT) Harry, anyone? prev & prev

[ljubitelj-sonca]

The other guitar girlfriend to @vse-kar-vem‘s guitar girlfriend!!