Vanessa, also known as Nessa, was the maternal aunt of Tegan Jovanka, (PROSE: Qualia) who affectionately called her "Auntie". (TV: Logopolis)
Biography
Tegan was sent by her father to live with Vanessa when she was a teenager after she ran away from her mother's in Sydney. (PROSE: The King of Terror)
She told Tegan to stop being an air stewardess if it should stop being fun. (TV: Resurrection of the Daleks) She kept Japanese knotweed in her garden. (AUDIO: Aquitaine)
Vanessa was driving Tegan to Heathrow Airport on 28 February 1981 when the car got a flat tyre, and she pulled over onto a lay-by on the Barnet Bypass. Whilst Tegan went for help, Vanessa was killed by the Tremas Master with his Tissue Compression Eliminator after she entered the Master's TARDIS, thinking it was an actual police box.
Her shrunken corpse, along with that of PC Donald Seagrave, was discovered in the car by a detective inspector and two uniformed police officers. (TV: Logopolis)
C19 created a cover story about a traffic accident for how Vanessa died and for Tegan's disappearance: Vanessa's death was caused by another car, and Tegan had gone missing for twenty-four hours after sustaining a head injury.
Tegan blamed herself for her aunt's death, confessing to her father that Vanessa wanted to go to Heathrow via a different route — but Tegan had insisted on taking the Barnet Bypass. (PROSE: The Adventures Before: "Little Did She Know")
Legacy
Joy Jovanka found it difficult to cope after Vanessa died. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties)
The presence of a photograph of Vanessa in her cabin on Striker's yacht alerted Tegan that her hosts had been reading her mind and using that information to make her cabin more homely and comfortable, a clue to their true nature as Eternals. (TV: Enlightenment)
When confronting Tegan decades later, the Spy Master taunted her about his killing Vanessa. (TV: The Power of the Doctor)
Personality
Vanessa had several phrases that she often said, including not to trust a man with a beard as he had something to hide, (PROSE: Gudok) "once a wrong 'un, always a wrong 'un" (AUDIO: Cobwebs) and to keep one's mouth shut if they had nothing nice to say. (AUDIO: Psychodrome) She was also fond of saying "bog off". (AUDIO: Heroes of Sontar)