Vicky 🖤
The most generous, warm, principled, intelligent, passionate, creative, and empathetic colleague and friend you could hope to have. So many of us wouldn’t be who we are without her. I hope she knows how many lives she touched.
Sarah Stokes
27th January 2025
The text of what I said yesterday at Vicky's service:
"Saturday November 23rd, 2013. I find myself at Alphabetti Theatre in Newcastle. I was there to see a play written by my friend Louise. While I was delighted to celebrate Louise’s achievement, I decline plans to celebrate later that evening, because I had an important date to keep - a cinema screening of the 50th anniversity episode of Doctor Who. As I take my seat at the theatre, I’m introduced to a lady with a New Zealand accent. She wears a big hat, a colourful scarf, and offers me a jelly baby - basically cosplaying as the Tom Baker Doctor. It takes time to build friendships. To find out if they are your frequency, your vibe. But from the moment I met Vicky, I was smitten.
There were a million things that I admired about Vicky. Her intelligence, her curiosity, her hunger for learning. I used to refer to her as ‘the walking internet’ because of the way she knew everything about everything.
During this past year, myself, Louise, and Vicky, joined forces to play the New York Times crossword against each other online, with a leaderboard displaying who had completed it the fastest. Many a morning, after struggling through the puzzle, I would be feeling pretty chuffed to have completed it in 4 and a half minutes. I would then check the leader board to see that Vicky had completed it in 45 seconds.
Vicky wanted to make your life better, to make your life be the best that it could be. One of the first times Vicky and I spent time together just ourselves, was during a trip to the Edinburgh fringe. I had signed up to be part of a choir, performing at the fringe in front of a ticketed audience. I had also aquired free tickets to some other shows, which Vicky, being the big lover of culture, happily took. As it was the first time just us, I was nervous about the 90 minute train journey from Newcastle to Edinburgh, wondering if we would have enough to say to each other. I needn’t have worried. By the time we arrived in Edinburgh Waverley, not only had Vicky renewed my confidence in my artistic endeavours, she had signed me up to two separate newsletters with the New York Times, and recommended me a biography of the writer Virginia Woolf.
I’ll miss her thoughts and suggestions. When I would panic message Vicky in July to discuss what we should get for Louise’s birthday, she would inevitably respond with some amazing idea that I in no way would have thought of by myself. In one of the first conversations that Louise and I had following Vicky’s passing, I had to admit that her quality of presents may descrease in future without Vicky’s input. ‘Don’t worry,’ reassured Louise, ‘so will yours’.
What brings comfort to me, and I’m sure to so many others, is how Vicky will live on in the written word. Through her blogs, her newsletters, and her week notes. We bonded over our love of film - myself, Louise and Vicky, forming on an online film club during lockdown, where each week we would take turns to choose a film, watch it at the same time in our respective homes, and message each other our thoughts throughout.
She lives on in the film website Letterboxd, where can you find her ratings and reviews of many films. There was so many films that she loved, but I’ve really appreciated reading her more critical reviews, a few of which I’ll quote to you now:
“Rumour has it - Bad. The girls are neurotic (aside from the wonderful Shirley MacLaine) and the plot ranging from ew (sleeping with someone you thought was your father?) to blerugh (the cheesy music and the close ups) 1 star”
“Cats” - a pointless movie of a stage show that was lucky to exist in the first place.and this is from someone with fond movies of the stage show. 2 stars”
“Little Nicky - What the hell was this? 2 stars”
I’ll end on a positive one. Just before Christmas, Vicky awarded ‘The Bishops Wife’ the festive classic starring David Niven and Cary Grant, 4 and a 1/2 stars. Sadly what caused that film to be missing that final half 1/2 star in the Vicky rating system, will always have to remain a mystery. But I loved what Vicky said about it: “They don't make it like this any more, in so so so many ways.”
And that sentiment sums you up perfectly, Vicky. They won’t make anyone else like you - in so so so many ways.
Mhairi Ledgerwood
24th January 2025
I crossed paths with Vicky a few times working in the public sector. She was so passionate about design, particularly design for the public good or any kind of design that in some way was to the benefit of others.
The way Vicky practiced design was why she impacted myself and so many of her colleagues and peers. She shared her learnings, failures and successes for us all to learn from and refer back to. She would send links to useful things, reply to comments and support people who had questions or needed advice.
One my last conversations with Vicky was about a piece of work we were doing for the NHS. She made what I did better but in a way that helped me to learn and not feel like what I had done was inferior. That is the act of somebody who is caring and kind above everything else.
So glad I got to know her a little and work with her briefly. My thoughts are with her closest friends and family.
Paul Smith
24th January 2025