THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY: BAYNES & BAINES

Here's another theory of relateeveety, thanks to the adaptation of "Wisteria Lodge" with Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes. (I caught it on one of the local PBS stations the other day.)

Sherlock Holmes thought he was going to contend with a police detective who would get in his way. But instead he encountered Inspector Baynes - a countryside detective in Surrey who more than measured up to Holmes' own methods (Holmes being used to bumblers like Lestrade).

Here's how he's described in Wikipedia:

Inspector Baynes of the Surrey force appears in the two-part series "The Adventure Of Wisteria Lodge", named (i) "The singular experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles", and (ii) "The Tiger of San Pedro". He is the only uniformed police officer to have matched Sherlock Holmes in investigative skills. In this story, the reader finds that even though both these people work in different lines, finally both of them are there when the dreaded criminal meets his end. Baynes had misled even Holmes as he used a method similar to one that Holmes often used when Baynes arrested the wrong man and gave inaccurate information to the press in order to lull the true criminal into a false sense of security. Holmes congratulated this Inspector, and believed that he would have many more chances in Scotland Yard.

It's going to be the Toobworld contention that his grandson was Jeremy Baines a student at a school for boys in 1913. Jeremy's body was taken over by an alien life-force - as seen in the 'Doctor Who' two-parter, "The Family Of Blood" and "Human Nature".

Freddie Jones portrayed Inspector Baynes, and Harry Lloyd played the part of young Master Baines.

In 1913, Jeremy Baines was a school boy attending Farringham School for Boys in Norfolk. As the Doctor Who Wiki pointed out, he "had a nasty personality, bullied people and was racist" - and yet still was considered the proper lad to become the school prefect, in charge of the other boys.

According to Dr. Watson, "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge" should have taken place in 1892. But that was obviously faulty research on his part, as Holmes had not yet returned from his "Great Hiatus". William S. Baring Gould places the tale in 1890, while other Holmesian chronologists look at 1895 as the date. The Toobworld timeline would be happy with either entry.

And as portrayed on television by Freddie Jones, Inspector Baynes would have been about 61 years of age when he investigated the murder of Mr. Garcia. At that age, in that window of opportunity in the timeline, there was plenty of time for a son of Baynes to father a male heir; one who would grow up to become the prefect of Farringham School by 1913.

But as mentioned earlier, Jeremy Baines was a bully and just nasty all around. Unless forced to do so otherwise, he was the type to only pay lip service to the conventions of society - and that could have included honoring his own family. Changing one's name is not uncommon, and especially back then when people weren't all trapped by numbers in computer databases. And I could see Jeremy changing his surname from "Baynes" to a more anglicized "Baines" as an act of rebellion against his father as well as his grandfather.

Had he lived, Jeremy Baines might have grown up to survive the "war to end all wars" and go on to either a career as a writer or ruthless capitalist... or find himself leading a life of crime.

But "The Family Of Blood" arrived and needed human forms to blend in with the rest of human society in Norfolk. And so they killed Baines and "Son of Mine" inhabited the body. When the Gallifreyan Time Lord known as the Doctor defeated the Family of Blood, he left "Son of Mine", still in the body of Jeremy Baines, frozen in Time and disguised as a scarecrow out in a field. (For the safety of the planet, I'm fairly certain the Doctor couldn't leave him there for long - encroaching development might have taken over that field by the 1950s.....)

A sad ending for one so young, but perhaps in the long run a lot of people's lives were spared any potential dangers from crossing the path of Jeremy Baines.

And by that time in 1913, I would think that Inspector Baynes had passed away and so would never have to bear the heartbreak of how his grandson had turned out......

BCnU!


PS:
We can make one other theoretical connection to that "Human Nature" story of 'Doctor Who', based on its location in the Norfolk area. Since this claim doesn't contradict anything to be found either in that two-part episode or in the series 'Kingdom' starring Stephen Fry, we're going to state that the Farringham School for Boys was not too far from the town of Market Shipborough.....