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Vic Coles (again)

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Vic Coles: boy or girl?

Girl

[ 7 ]

Boy

91%

[ 78 ]

Total Votes : 85

#1: Vic Coles (again) Author: Mia, Location: London

Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 7:35 pm
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I'm reading the latest FOCS magazine, and someone has written a fairly long article explaining why they think Vic Coles is a girl. I always assumed he was male for the following reasons 1) Vic wasn't very common as a shortening for Victoria until fairly recently (though am happy to be proved wrong if you have anecdotes) and 2) I don't think EBD would ever write that a female character had 'an unsavoury reputation' because it's far too harsh a thing to write about a teenage girl and implies things that aren't nice.

Anyway, it seemed like it was crying out for a definitive poll! Very Happy

#2: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 8:25 pm
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I agree! I always assumed Vic Coles was a boy until last year when I read a comment somewhere about whether he/she was a boy or a girl!

I know that most CS girls didn't hang around with boys other than brothers/sons of family friends, but the whole point about Joan was that she wasn't what a CS girl was meant to be like. Plus I've never met a Victoria of Joan's generation who calls herself Vic rather than Victoria/Vicky/sometimes Toria. And the comments about Vic having a bad reputation, plus the fact that he/she's a bit older than Joan, do seem to make him/her sound more like a boy than a girl.

Just re-reading this and wondering what exactly EBD meant by "certain things she and Vic Coles had said and done during their walk" Shocked

#3: Author: tiffinata, Location: melbourne, australia

Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 9:01 pm
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Probably EBD, wise in her generation, was hinting they held hands, pinched apples or (shock) kissed rather than anything more heavy.

#4: Author: JayB, Location: SE England

Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 9:10 pm
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I first read this probably when I was about the age EBD was aiming at, and I always assumed then that Vic was a boy. It still makes sense to me now as part of Joan's character that Vic would be a boy - Joan is older in her outlook than CS girls her age, she talks about boys.

#5: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 9:14 pm
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It never occurred to me that Vic could be a girl until someone else brought it up!

#6: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 9:36 pm
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I've got this horrid tendency to 'see' the characters. I do it with people I know by phone and email as well - like most of you Confused

It's always a shock when reality intervenes.

My Vic Coles was a Teddy boy with drainpipe trousers, a shoe string tie and slicked back heavily brylcreemed black hair - definitely a little too long and he kept a comb in his top pocket which he took out at intervals - in fact whenever he saw his reflection in a shop window or a car window and combed it back with an exaggerated gesture. He thought he was really cool and he only went out with poor Joan for a laugh, or possibly a bet.

She was not 'cool' but a tarted up homely lass who had been let loose with the perm and the make up. She wore clothes a little to old for her and also rather tighter than they should have been - she was not slim by any means. Poor Joan was a misfit everywhere.

#7: Author: Squirrel, Location: St-Andrews or Dunfermline

Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 10:36 pm
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Surely the way it was written implys it's a boy. I mean, why else would the other girls need to get their info on the situation from Joan otherwise. If Vic was female they would come across the girl anyway. And if Vic was an 'unsavoury' girl there would be even more discouragement in the friendships that the other girls wanted to have with Joan?

It's also backed up by the way that Joan talks about 'boys'. She needs to have had *some* kind of experience, and unless Vic is a fellow friend who introduced her to the boys (not sure on that, only just thought about it as a possibility) where has she got it from? Her family, possibly, but it sounded more like her herself than stuff she learned from her sister!

#8: Author: leahbelle, Location: Kilmarnock

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 1:47 pm
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I still assume that Vic Coles was a boy. I just don't think EBD would have described a girl in the way she describes Vic.

#9: Author: Fatima, Location: Sunny Qatar

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 5:07 pm
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It never occurred to me that Vic would be a girl; I've always thought of him as a boy.

#10: Author: dorian, Location: Dublin

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 9:05 pm
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Until the question was brought up on the Girlsown list a year or two ago, I had always assumed Vic was a girl. A girl a year or two older than Joan, and definitely "common". Probably out at work already while other girls her age might still be at school.

I still have this mental image of Joan and Vic standing outside the chipper, eyeing up the boys on the other side of the road (who are eyeing them up), the boys and girls calling remarks across the road to each other, and Joan and Vic giggling a lot and eventually going off for "a walk" with a couple of the boys.

The arguments for Vic being a boy are very convincing, but my mental processes insist stubbornly that Vic is a girl.

#11: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 10:14 pm
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patmac wrote:

I've got this horrid tendency to 'see' the characters. I do it with people I know by phone and email as well - like most of you Confused

I'd seen him as a teddy boy too Pat!

#12: Author: tiffinata, Location: melbourne, australia

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 10:47 pm
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makes 3 of us!

#13: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 11:59 pm
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I see him as a boy.

#14: Author: Kate, Location: Ireland

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 12:05 am
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I've always seen him as a boy from the way she talks about him. Joan is supposed to be the bad girl, I think it would be diluting it somewhat to have someone else be "badder".

#15: Author: Mia, Location: London

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 12:12 am
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Had a random thought about this on the train home tonight. If Vic were a girl, then why on earth wouldn't Joan and Rosamund and Vic and the other one - Kathleen? - all hang around together? The idea that it is just exclusively Joan and Vic makes me think he's a bloke. I don't see the point of having another bad girl character either. I didn't really agree with the theory in the article that EBD didn't ever mention boys/didn't know boys, etc. Joan is atypical.

Patmac - that's a wonderful image. I love it.

#16: Author: JayB, Location: SE England

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 11:15 am
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Mia wrote:

I didn't really agree with the theory in the article that EBD didn't ever mention boys/didn't know boys, etc.

EBD gives us the Bettany boys, the Maynard boys and the Richardson boys, and there are boys in some of her non-Chalet books, so I don't think that argument holds up. It could be said that she didn't know boys like Vic, but then she probably didn't know girls like Joan.

And I don't think we ever actually 'see' Vic, do we? Isn't it just Joan thinking about him? So EBD wasn't writing about a boy - she was writing about a girl thinking about a boy.

#17: Author: KB, Location: Melbourne, Australia

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 11:19 pm
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This is what we know about Vic from the hardback edition:

Quote:

Joan was vexed. She tossed: her head. "Oh, very well, then. I was going to tell you all about the larks Vic Coles and I got up to. last evening, but if you're so high and mighty, it won't interest you. We went to the pictures and then we bought some fish and chips and went for a walk and—but you won't want to hear. We didn't half enjoy ourselves. Laugh! I could have died! But it's O.K. by me, young Ros. Keep your silly secrets if that's how you feel. There's Kath Stevens! I'm off to tell her. She ain't a stuck-up bit of goods, sucking up to the Rector's wife and all! No; nor her Mum ain't fussing after her all the time. I don't know who you think you are, putting on all them airs. Your Mum was only a servant and mine was a young lady in a shop. But keep yourself to yourself if that's the way you feel. I couldn't care less!"
With this final diatribe, she suddenly shot off across the road; but one ear was open for the call she confidently expected from Rosamund. If it came, she might go back to the other girl and after getting the whole story of the message from her, she might condescend to hint at certain things she and Vic Coles had said and done during their walk. That ud make the kid open her eyes. Vic certainly was a hot one!

It's the last line that has always made me think Vic was a boy. It's a very strange way to describe a girl!

And further on there's this:

Quote:

[Mr Lilley's] wife had stopped him because the Bakers were next-door neighbours and it didn't do to be at outs with such 'folk. But she, too, had done what she could to keep the friendship to school hours and Rosamund found a good many obstacles put in the way of her going off with Joan. But of late, especially since Joan had been going about with young Vic Coles who, at seventeen had an unsavoury reputation, Mr. Lilley had been saying that if nothing else would do, they had better try to get another house. Have his girl go on as Joan Baker did, he would not!

#18: Author: Mel, Location: UP NORTH

Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 12:52 pm
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Thanks KB that settles it - he must be a boy!

#19: Author: Steph, Location: Buried under a pile of books

Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 10:48 am
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Funny, I'd always thought of Vic Coles as a girl, but reading those extracts and listening to what others think, I agree it's more likely to be a boy now. Especially with the comments about what was said and done between them-both seem to be most unsavoury characters!

#20: Author: Katherine, Location: London, UK

Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 10:54 am
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Hmm. There’s a lot of typical EBD tiptoeing round the edges there. I reckon that Vic is probably a boy but it’s all implied. I wonder if that was deliberate for her more innocent readers. They might assume a girl, hence the name.
Then again, knowing EBD’s fondness for giving girls boys’ names. . .

#21: Author: Lexi, Location: Liverpool

Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 12:06 pm
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Well I must be an innocent reader then Embarassed

I always assumed Vic was a girl. Don't think it ever occured to me to think otherwise.

#22: Author: Mrs Redboots, Location: London, UK

Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 5:58 pm
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tiffinata wrote:

makes 3 of us!

Four, actually!

#23: Author: Changnoi, Location: Milwaukee, USA

Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 7:18 pm
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I always assumed Vic was a girl, until I saw that there was actually a debate over it. Now I realize that probably her being a boy makes more sense, but I just can't make it fit in my head.

I always saw Vic Coles as a seventeen-year-old girl who had already left school and maybe had a job during the day in a shop (like Joan's mother), and had the reputation of flirting, wearing tons of makeup, permed hair, just like Joan but a bit more experienced. I assumed they sort of wandered around the way girls do at malls today and tried to pick up men. "The things Vic Coles had said and done" might be a particularly brazen bit of flirtation and telling Joan about sexual experiences. The reason that they all couldn't hang out with Vic at the same time was because Vic was older, wanted to bestow her "friendship" like a gift--sort of the way Joan does--and wanted to engender jealousy in the other girls who might look up to her.

Although I have no anecdotes to support Vic as a nickname for Victoria in the 1950s, it does go with EBD's desire to make absolutely everything a boy's name (see: Len, Ted, Joey).

The only other qualm I would have about Vic as a boy is whether EBD would even want her readers to speculate about the vulgar things one might say or do with a boy.

As for the "Vic Coles is a hot one" comment, it's not in the paperback, I don't think, which is the source of my exegesis Smile

. Also, if I must be stubborn about it, I feel like "a hot one" here is used as someone who does unusual, unexpected, and possibly bad things, sort of in the sense of "a live wire" or, "a hot car" (car that was stolen, is illicit.)

Chang

#24: Author: Hannah-Lou, Location: Glasgow

Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 3:31 pm
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I totally agree Chang, but my first impressions were formed from the paperback too. I just assumed that Vic had got up to all sorts with boys, and was telling Joan all about it and egging her on to behave in the same way. As for why they couldn't all hang around together if Vic was a girl - Rosamund's and presumably Kath-Stevens-or-whatever-her-name-was's parents had forbidden it. Although I think from the text in the hardback that it sounds more like s/he was a boy, I think that makes it a bit too graphic for EBD! Shocked

#25: Author: Clare, Location: Liverpool

Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 11:42 am
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Off topic, but forgive me...

I dreamt about this thread last night! It was kind of a Jerry Springer style show where people were arguing whether Vic was male or female, and then at the cruical moment when Vic was asked to come out on stage my alarm clock went off!

Just thought I'd share that one...

#26: Author: Mia, Location: London

Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 3:55 pm
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Oh I love it! *takes the Jerry Springer role* Very Happy

#27: Author: Elle, Location: Peterborough

Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 7:16 pm
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I always assumed the Vic was a boy. I have an Uncle Vic, so there really was no doubt in my mind that he was a boy.

#28: Author: Woofter, Location: Location? What's a location?

Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 11:03 am
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I've never really thought that much about it. I'm afraid Beckys drabble has convinced me that he's definitely a boy!

#29: Author: Phil, Location: London UK

Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 8:53 pm
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I always thought Vic was a boy until I read the stuff on the CBB. And anyway girls don't have "unsavoury reputations" do they? (Naive and innocent Phil speaking Smile

)

#30: Author: Loryat,

Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 4:51 pm
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I've always assumed Vic was a boy.

#31: Author: DramaPrefect,

Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 10:27 pm
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Katherine wrote:

Hmm. There’s a lot of typical EBD tiptoeing round the edges there. I reckon that Vic is probably a boy but it’s all implied. I wonder if that was deliberate for her more innocent readers. They might assume a girl, hence the name.

That's pretty much what I think. I think Vic was a boy but EBD didn't want to be too controversial Very Happy

#32: Author: Elbee, Location: Surrey

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 7:29 am
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It never occurred to me that Vic might not be a boy. I got a shock when I read a comment about it in the FOCS magazine a few years ago!

#33: Author: aitchemelle, Location: West Sussex

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 9:40 am
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Elbee wrote:

It never occurred to me that Vic might not be a boy. I got a shock when I read a comment about it in the FOCS magazine a few years ago!

me too!

#34: Author: Tiffany, Location: Is this a duck I see behind me?

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 6:04 pm
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A sudden thought: EBD has a history of calling girls by boys' names (Robin, Len, Tom, Dickie) so perhaps Vic is a girl...

#35: Author: Sandra, Location: Oxfordshire

Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 9:31 pm
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I alwyas assumed that Vic was a girl. Whether that was growing up on the paperbacks or being sweet and innocent (?) when I first read the book (it was one of my first CS books) I'm not sure. The first time I thought that Vic may have been a boy was when I read the hardback version or the first time last year. I'm still not sure that I believe that EBD would write about anyone, even Joan, with a boy though.

#36: Author: Mrs Redboots, Location: London, UK

Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 5:37 pm
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Except that one of the things Mary-Lou objected to about Joan was that she talked about "boyfriends" the whole time. Mary-Lou commented that they did have boy friends, but not in the sense Joan meant.

Which made me think Vic was the boyfriend in question!

#37: Author: Tamzin, Location: Edinburgh

Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 7:18 pm
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I always thought Vic was a boy although I couldn't say why - it just never occurred to me that a girl was a possibility.

Why then did I click on "Girl" when I was voting for "Boy" on the poll just now? Sometime I wonder whether my brain has some sort of weird "nitwit" DNA which makes me do stupid things without even realsing that I'm doing them?

#38: Author: Aussiemouse, Location: Tasmania, Australia, but soon to be Shoreham-by-Sea, England!

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 11:19 am
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I always thought Vic was a boy. It never occured to me to think of Vic as a girl. But I suppose it could be an abbreviation, like Len, and Con and Tom, that you would think of as boys names too. The name Vic Coles always remindes me of Cole's funny picture book, where he talks of his son Vic Cole and has a song about him.

#39: Author: Squirrel, Location: St-Andrews or Dunfermline

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:05 pm
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I spose that the thing is, it could be a short for either Victor or Victoria - perhaps EBD *did* mean to make it obscure - so that if younger girls were that bit more innocent they could imagine it was a girl, but older ones were perfectly free to think of Vic as a boy if they liked...

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