Ellie Higson

Ellie Higson was a barmaid at the Red Tavern in London during the 1890s who became a good friend and ally of two of its regulars, Henry Gordon Jago and Professor George Litefoot. (AUDIO: The Mahogany Murderers)

She was born around 1865. (AUDIO: The Bloodchild Codex) She had at least two brothers, Johnny Higson (AUDIO: The Night of 1000 Stars) and Private Jim Higson. (AUDIO: The Bloodless Soldier)

Jim served in the British Army and was greatly looking forward to his return on leave, only for him to be killed shortly thereafter, while stopping a monster, who had once been his commanding officer, from running loose in London. (AUDIO: The Bloodless Soldier)

After her brother's death she decided to continue working despite her grief. (AUDIO: The Bellova Devil)

She was deeply affected by the death of her younger brother, leading her to seek the services of the spiritualist Mrs Vanguard, who claimed to be able to communicate with the dead. However, Ellie's trusting nature almost had her trapped in an ethereal state when her body was taken over by temporal refugees from the 49th century, who were using Mrs. Vanguard for their own ends. Together with a similarly trapped Jago, they were able to reclaim their bodies and expel the invaders before the temporal tunnel was collapsed. (AUDIO: The Spirit Trap)

Later on, Ellie became a pawn in a game of revenge between Jago and Litefoot and Gabriel Sanders, a vicious vampire prowling the streets of London, who had crossed swords with the two men and sworn revenge. He attacked and fed from Ellie, leaving her for dead. (AUDIO: Litefoot and Sanders)

However, she later revived as a fledging vampire herself. Because of her strong will, and assistance from Professor Litefoot, she was able to resist her growing blood hunger, and satisfy herself with black pudding and morgue-procured blood. (AUDIO: The Necropolis Express)

Professor Litefoot also managed to devise a means that might suppress her vampiric instincts, by replacing her blood via transfusion, and this seemed to allow her natural human physiology to reassert itself, albeit slowly, with her heart beating slowly, and sluggishly pumping blood around her body. She was able to assume a relatively normal lifestyle with the thick smog that covered London allowing her to leave the house during the daylight hours, until Sanders returned to try and recruit his progeny. (AUDIO: The Theatre of Dreams)

Despite feeling him calling to her, she was able to resist for a short time, until she escaped from the house and was drawn to the estate Sanders was recuperating at. There, she was able to save Litefoot from being killed by a member of a family Sanders had been using for centuries in a program of selective breeding to improve in an effort to create a new species for him to hunt, to provide more of a distraction then humans currently did. When Sanders was finally vanquished by the three of them, his death, and the fact she had never killed and drank from a normal innocent human, seemed to finally cure her of her vampirism, and her connection to Sanders himself. (AUDIO: The Ruthven Inheritance)

Jago asked if she had some clothes to give to Leela. She later helped Leela in her investigations. (AUDIO: Dead Men's Tales) She was surprised that the Red Tavern was wrecked whilst Litefoot was having tea, instead of when some soldier were on leave. Ellie thought that Leela was a good friend. (AUDIO: Chronoclasm) She loved Brighton. (AUDIO: Jago in Love) She was delighted to be invited to see an Oscar Wilde play by Jago using the Sixth Doctor's tickets. (AUDIO: Beautiful Things) She went to find Kempston and Hardwick with Leela. They went with Winnie O'Connor, to the train that Jago and Litefoot where trapped on in a time loop. (AUDIO: The Lonelty Clock) In order to distract Kempston and Hardwick she pretended to be Leela. (AUDIO: The Hourglass Killers)

She helped Jago and Agatha Worthing find Litefoot. (AUDIO: Military Intelligence) She didn't believe that Litefoot had committed Jago's murder. (AUDIO: The Trial of George Litefoot) Remorse got her to remember his bad memories. She knew some basic magic tricks. (AUDIO: The Night of 1000 Stars) She knew of Frederick Abberline. She suggested investigating the New Regency Theatre. (AUDIO: The Wax Princess)

She found the Scorchies creepy and burnt them. (AUDIO: Encore of the Scorchies) Jago and Litefoot took her to a funfair. (AUDIO: The Backwards Men) She thought something was wrong with Jago and Litefoot when they ordered water at the Red Tavern instead of beer. (AUDIO: Higson & Quick) She wanted to know about Mr Rees' act and wanted to watch it, but didn't like it. She was attacked outside the theatre by a brainwashed theatregoer. (AUDIO: Mind Games)

She wanted Jago and Litefoot to write to her whilst they were on a cruise.(AUDIO: The Flying Frenchman) She didn't think that Jago and Litefoot would be back so quickly. (AUDIO: Return of the Nightmare) She later reunited the Sixth Doctor with Jago and Litefoot when he wanted to show Flip Jackson the New Regency. (AUDIO: Stage Fright)

Ellie cried profusely at Litefoot's funeral. She later told his younger self that it was a beautiful service but that she disapproved of his decision to have the hymn "All Things Bright and Beautiful" played during the service. (AUDIO: The Final Act)

Ellie's vampiric nature wasn't completely expunged, which allowed her live far beyond her natural life expectancy. By 1968, Ellie had become landlady of the Red Tavern, and owned her own chain of restaurants. It was in that year when she was once again reunited with Jago and Litefoot, who had been left in the Red Tavern in 1968 by the Sixth Doctor. (AUDIO: The Age of Revolution, Voyage to the New World) She and Litefoot investigated a rival restaurant that was stealing her business, (AUDIO: The Case of the Gluttonous Guru) and worked together with him in his bookshop on a day off, during which she discovered a book authored by Litefoot himself and his it from him. Becoming caught up in yet another investigation, she stopped Thomas Bloodchild from manifesting. (AUDIO: The Bloodchild Codex)

Ellie saved Jago and Litefoot from Magnus Greel by stepping into Greel's distillation chamber, using her unnaturally long lifespan to overload Greel's time cabinet and kill him and Guinevere Godiva. Litefoot theorised that Ellie's long lifespan had saved her from being totally drained, and suggested that she may once again begin to age like a normal human. (AUDIO: The Final Act)