Mycroft is ostensibly a mid-level civil servant in ACD - probably the equivalent of a Third or First Secretary in Foreign Affairs (easiest comparison for me to defer to, because the Irish system works the same way and I have family in there).
In a direct comparison with ACD's time, he'd be a senior civil servant but not a Permanent Secretary or anything so high.
In ACD again, he draws £400 a year - mid-level executive, in other words. Allowing for a private income (and the Holmes brothers appear to have a small one), he has a very comfortable lifestyle, living in rooms in St James's and spending his evenings in the Diogenes Club. He's got the equivalent lifestyle of a man on about £60k-£100k a year, who could no longer afford rooms in St James's, but could afford a small flat in Pimlico or suitable central area with a cleaner because he lives alone and is not extravagant.
Of course, you *can* give him the garden in central London - Mycroft is just the sort of man to have a first-floor flat in a nice conversion in Pimlico or Earls Court (not South Ken, too expensive, too flash) that comes with a key to the communal gardens in the private square.
However, ACD also has Sherlock say of Mycroft ""Occasionally he is the British government [...] the most indispensable man in the country."
He also digresses on Mycroft's job - and I cannot disagree with Wikipedia that Mycroft is, in fact, a human computer.
I did like the updating of Mycroft in the BBC, even though he couldn't possibly exist. But then, the original Mycroft couldn't possibly have existed either. His powers are more MI5 than MI6, but the bits he lets slip about work suggest that he's halfway between MI6 and the Foreign Office.
If I were writing fic and had to actually pinpoint a department for him, I'd put him in the Treasury. Although, to be really evil, I'd put him in the Department for Administrative Affairs...
It's all a matter of finding a suitable hook to hang it all on. It's never going to work completely for anyone who knows anything about the Civil Service (but it would be impossible to do so in this canon), but all you need is the right bit of plausibility.
no subject
Mycroft is ostensibly a mid-level civil servant in ACD - probably the equivalent of a Third or First Secretary in Foreign Affairs (easiest comparison for me to defer to, because the Irish system works the same way and I have family in there).
In a direct comparison with ACD's time, he'd be a senior civil servant but not a Permanent Secretary or anything so high.
In ACD again, he draws £400 a year - mid-level executive, in other words. Allowing for a private income (and the Holmes brothers appear to have a small one), he has a very comfortable lifestyle, living in rooms in St James's and spending his evenings in the Diogenes Club. He's got the equivalent lifestyle of a man on about £60k-£100k a year, who could no longer afford rooms in St James's, but could afford a small flat in Pimlico or suitable central area with a cleaner because he lives alone and is not extravagant.
Of course, you *can* give him the garden in central London - Mycroft is just the sort of man to have a first-floor flat in a nice conversion in Pimlico or Earls Court (not South Ken, too expensive, too flash) that comes with a key to the communal gardens in the private square.
However, ACD also has Sherlock say of Mycroft ""Occasionally he is the British government [...] the most indispensable man in the country."
He also digresses on Mycroft's job - and I cannot disagree with Wikipedia that Mycroft is, in fact, a human computer.
I did like the updating of Mycroft in the BBC, even though he couldn't possibly exist. But then, the original Mycroft couldn't possibly have existed either. His powers are more MI5 than MI6, but the bits he lets slip about work suggest that he's halfway between MI6 and the Foreign Office.
If I were writing fic and had to actually pinpoint a department for him, I'd put him in the Treasury. Although, to be really evil, I'd put him in the Department for Administrative Affairs...
It's all a matter of finding a suitable hook to hang it all on. It's never going to work completely for anyone who knows anything about the Civil Service (but it would be impossible to do so in this canon), but all you need is the right bit of plausibility.