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Katherine "Kathy" Costello Wainright (née Nightingale) was the sister of Larry Nightingale and a friend of Sally Sparrow. She was born circa 1985.

Biography[]

Early life[]

Kathy Nightingale was born in Lancashire in the 1980s, (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac [+]Steve Tribe, BBC Books (2008).) more specifically circa 1985. (PROSE: The Very Real Mystery of Wester Drumlins [+]Into the Unknown (2021).) Her birthday was 29 January. (GAME: The Lonely Assassins [+]Amelia Chung, Priya Kulasagaran, Rebecca Hee and Gavin Collinson, Maze Theory (2021).)

Her brother, Larry, considered her to be "the smart one". Both of their parents passed away, after which Larry rarely contacted her, unless he needed a place to stay. He would later express regret that he hadn't spoken to her more. (GAME: The Lonely Assassins [+]Amelia Chung, Priya Kulasagaran, Rebecca Hee and Gavin Collinson, Maze Theory (2021).)

Encounter with the Weeping Angels[]

In the 2000s,[nb 1] she visited Wester Drumlins with Sally to investigate the premises. There she was sent back in time to Hull on 5 December 1920 by a Weeping Angel after being distracted by a mysterious man trying to give Sally a letter. Stranded, she started a new life and married Ben Wainwright. (TV: Blink [+]Steven Moffat, adapted from What I Did on My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow (Steven Moffat), Doctor Who series 3 (BBC One, 2007).)

Life in the past[]

Old Kathy (Blink)

An elderly Kathy with her grandchildren. (TV: Blink [+]Steven Moffat, adapted from What I Did on My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow (Steven Moffat), Doctor Who series 3 (BBC One, 2007).)

They had two sons, Matthew and Joseph, and a daughter which she named Sally after her friend. (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac [+]Steve Tribe, BBC Books (2008).)

Her husband died of influenza in 1962, and Kathy grew old among her children and grandchildren. (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac [+]Steve Tribe, BBC Books (2008).)

In 1969, the Tenth Doctor, working from information given to him by Sally Sparrow, contacted Kathy and enlisted her aid in sending a message to Sally in the 2000s, although it was another eighteen years before she did so.

She died in 1987, shortly after writing a letter that her grandson, Malcolm Wainright, delivered to Sally Sparrow in the 2000s.

Legacy[]

Viewing Kathy's tombstone in the 2000s, Sally saw that the birthdate on it would have made Kathy eighteen in 1920. This led Sally to jokingly call her friend a "lying cow", indicating that Kathy lied about her age when she re-established her life in the 1920s.

The Weeping Angel consumed the potential energy from the time Kathy Nightingale would have spent in the present. (TV: Blink [+]Steven Moffat, adapted from What I Did on My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow (Steven Moffat), Doctor Who series 3 (BBC One, 2007).)

Despite his sister's disappearance, Larry Nightingale kept Kathy as a contact in his mobile phone. On her birthday in 2021 he texted her number in her memory, but Graham replied. By this time, Kathy's number had been sold by her provider. (GAME: The Lonely Assassins [+]Amelia Chung, Priya Kulasagaran, Rebecca Hee and Gavin Collinson, Maze Theory (2021).)

Personality[]

A number of years after Kathy's disappearance, Larry stated to Sally that "Kathy would be livid if she knew you've spent all this time grovelling". This was part of the reason why he was able to move on. He told her that his sister "[could] get quite scary". (GAME: The Lonely Assassins [+]Amelia Chung, Priya Kulasagaran, Rebecca Hee and Gavin Collinson, Maze Theory (2021).)

Footnotes[]

  1. While Blink itself uncontroversially sets its main setting in 2007 and "twenty minutes to Red Hatching" a year later in 2008—as Kathy Nightingale's letter describes taking "one breath in 2007 and the next in 1920", and the Tenth Doctor's side of his conversation with Sally Sparrow in 1969 happens 38 years before Sally says hers—these are contradicted by heavily conflicting dates in the Redacted audio series later on regarding both Kathy's disappearance and the Red Hatching. In Angels, Abby McPhail identifies 2008 as the year of Kathy's disappearance, which suggests 2009 as the year of the Red Hatching. In Salvation, the Thirteenth Doctor recognises the Red Hatching as the cause of death of Andy Proctor, who was last seen by his daughter Cleo "nearly 20 years" before 2022 according to Recruits. Blink itself then contradicts Redacted by having Sally state that Kathy was a "lying cow" for telling her future husband she was 17 (which she would actually have been, being born in 1985, if Blink was set in 2002).
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