Forum:Where are the two Human Natures set?

Can anyone tell me what county the two Farringhams from PROSE: Human Nature and TV: Human Nature/The Family of Blood are in?

While it seems as conclusive as can be without buying the long-out-of-print and sixteen-year-old book that the one in the novel is set in Norfolk, I'm getting contradictory points on the wiki about the TV version.

Farringham (which only speaks from a TV point of view) tells me that the TV version is in Herefordshire, as does Herefordshire itself, while Farringham School for Boys (a television-exclusive subject) says it's in Norfolk as does Norfolk, which is on the other side of the country. I've not read the New Adventure book, but I don't recall anywhere in the Human Nature or The Family of Blood episodes stating the county name. Was I just not paying attention? Tybort 00:22, July 14, 2011 (UTC)
 * Except you can't assume that at all. The school could just have the name Farringham, without it necessarily being in Farringham.   Or it might be that, in the DWU, Farringham isn't in Herefordshire. All we know is Farringham.  Nothing more. Like you, I'm almost positive the episode doesn't indicate the county at all, so we really can't either.


 * The book definitely says the town is Farringham (p. 15) is within cycling distance of Shellhamptom (p. 170 — but I'm pretty sure Shellhampton is totally fictitious) and that it was within an unnamed country that had fire brigades (p.247).   But the county is not specifically named.  That said, I suppose Norfolk is implied as the county, because the lads who go off to the Great War are said to be in the "Ninth Batallion of the Norfolk Regiment", and there are many references of "the Norolks" as a way to describe those ex-soldiers, such as, "The Norfolks who'd fought in the Great War had a yearly reunion in the city (by which the author means Norwich)."  I'd say there probably is enough in the book to make the common sense reading that, at least inasmuch as the book version is concerned, to make the book's Farringham be in Norfolk.  Of course, the book isn't set at Farringham School for Boys at all, so there's no way to really transfer info from the book to cover really anything geographic about the episode.  00:39:11 Fri 15 Jul 2011


 * As I said, I have no easy access to the book and am only assuming based on information off the wiki itself. Though my primary question remains: where did the "Herefordshire" bit come from? It doesn't seem to be based on anything at all in the DWU canon, as I don't recall a county name (or, as CzechOut stated, town name outside of that of the name of the school) in the series 3 story. The Farringham page (and any related links pertaining to Human Nature/The Family of Blood) probably need a complete do-over then. Tybort 23:12, July 15, 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh see I thought it came from the fact that Farringham was a real place in Herefordshire. But it's not even that, is it?  It's just random stuff inserted into the article, I guess.  Course I'm saying this without watching the episodes again.  Maybe it does say it somewhere.  23:04:34 Sat 16 Jul 2011


 * Alright, I've looked at these episodes again. I really can't see anything that links them to Herefordshire.  The newspaper at the beginning is nothing more than "Ledger".  The village dance posters don't have a location on them.  There are no crests of Herefordshire anywhere.  The regiment Tim serves in is never identified, like it is in the book.  I don't get where this is coming from.  04:43:08 Sun 17 Jul 2011


 * I did want to give the original editor who introduced that information a chance to explain their assertion. So I've written to Doomlurker.  However, he or she hasn't edited here since last year.  Hopefully, they're still editing on Wikia, and they'll get the bat-signal.  04:54:17 Sun 17 Jul 2011


 * The information that I included in the article came straight from the BBC Books Doctor Who Encyclopaedia by Gary Russell. As a reference it states episodes 3.8/3.9. The Encyclopaedia provides information that isn't stated in the episode but it is presumably fact. - Doomlurker 19:15, July 17, 2011 (UTC)
 * Clears things up immensely. Still, REF: Doctor Who: The Encyclopedia should be credited for stuff not in the episode. It claims Human Nature/The Family of Blood as the source is all; it's not that the source is bad, just that the source given didn't state the fact. -- Tybort 22:49, July 17, 2011 (UTC)

So, now that's been cleared up, should we disambiguate the Farringham School Farringham and the Hulton Farringham? -- Tybort 23:09, July 17, 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm not so sure it's totally cleared up. I would argue that's behind the scenes information, since it comes from a reference work rather than a narrative source.  At best we can include such information in a behind the scenes section.  Farringham School for Boys isn't in Farringham.  And Farrignham isn't in Herefordshire.  Rather, Garry Russell says that they are.  Big difference.  And yes, I know you'll find examples where some reference works have been cited in the in-universe sections articles, but that's been done by people who haven't properly understood how reference works are to be used on the wiki.  Seriously, we can't do this thing of using reference works for narrative elements, because reference works about Doctor Who are often, frankly, horribly inaccurate in this franchise.  If we were to cite reference works, Polly Wright would be Polly Lopez (REF: The Universal Databank), Oswald Danes would be Oswald Jones (DWM 427), and we'd be at a real loss to explain which of the various cutaway schematics of Daleks was "correct". (various Dalek annuals and other reference works)  We'd also have to take The Doctor Who Technical Manual as an important work that, for instance, gives us a totally true and accurate schematic of K9 and the sonic screwdriver.  All these reference works, are of course, fine to cite in behind-the-scenes sections.  But we must resist the urge to use them in our in-universe sections, because they are largely just the opinions of particular authors, writing to a commercial deadline.  They aren't actually reference works in the sense of being scholarly — or even, in the case of anything written by JNT, careful — investigations of Doctor Who fiction.    01:47:43 Mon 18 Jul 2011 01:47, July 18, 2011 (UTC)

Okay, let's see if I can summarise what we've got so far:
 * PROSE: Human Nature is set in Farringham, which is implicitly in Norfolk or near Norwich due to the Hulton College's students fighting in a regiment called the "Norolks".
 * TV: Human Nature/The Family of Blood is set at a school called Farringham, with nothing on-screen to state its location more specific than 1913 England.
 * REF: Doctor Who: The Encyclopedia says the Farringham School for Boys in Human Nature/The Family of Blood is in Herefordshire, but reference materials are of disputed canon and only belong in behind the scenes sections (or a note in italics).
 * Common sense (at least to me) says whatever the name may be, the town where Farringham School For Boys is is a separate town to Hulton College's Farringham, but nothing explicitly says this in canon.

Is this right? -- Tybort 14:56, July 18, 2011 (UTC)