Bidgway Way
| Bidgway Way
Pegton [84, 58]
Basic Info:
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Description
A smart street of uniform terraced homes. Their ironwork and paintwork, once pristine, is now peeling and faded, with bloodstains and splashes marring the windows and doorsteps.
History
Bidgway Way was a quiet street where everyone minded their own business. An area predominantly of middle-class, professional people, it prided itself on orderliness and quiet at all costs.
It was therefore the street with the most bye-laws of any street in Malton, including bans on all forms of amplified music (only pianissimo classical music or soft singing was permitted: no radios, loudspeakers or electric guitars); parties of more than six persons were strictly prohibited; smoking was permitted only in a single designated smoking zone in each house; and domestic arguments were limited to 60dB, with a strict ban on throwing household crockery. Breaking any of these bye-laws could result in summary eviction by the Tenants' Association and its Strassenkorps of security guards.
Despite these strictures, the street was the home of local wit and raconteur Alastair McWhitty, who lived at 'La Porte Verte' for thirteen years, during which he wrote his magnum opus, Usyless. This 4300-page work in 7 volumes recounts his recollections of wandering Malton for the previous twenty years, man and boy, having got lost on a school trip at the age of five and not knowing how to get home. McWhitty once claimed that if Malton were destroyed by an apocalypse, the entire city could be rebuilt by following the detailed descriptions in his book.
The book was published over several years, to mixed reviews: a few voices heralded it as a work of genius, but most were baffled by its symbolism, convoluted plot (such as it is) and obscene humour. A further barrier to mass acclaim was that the entire work was written in Pegtonian. Furthermore, the meandering last volume, Amma Let Yous Finish Noo (published posthumously), is entirely without punctuation.
During his lifetime, McWhitty was well-known for his acerbic wit and scurrilous humour, but he was broken-hearted by the failure of his "wee book" to achieve critical recognition. Blind since his late 30s, a result of a bizarre fountain-pen accident, he died at the age of 43 of lead poisoning. McWhitty was buried in his beloved home, inside the lead-lined room where he had spent so many hours writing. The house has since become a shrine for literary junkies, actual junkies, and critics.
Within weeks of his death, his impenetrable book was the #1 bestseller. It has since sold millions of copies and has been critically acclaimed as the 20th century's literary masterpiece.
