The fan world is in crisis when Michael Grade axes Doctor Who, meetings with Sylvester McCoy, Dudley Simpson and Julia Smith – and a showdown with John Nathan-Turner.
“I’ve said this before but I mean it – the next season will be my last” – Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner (interviewed by David Saunders and Patrick Mulkern, 1985)
1985
Just our luck! My pal Richard Marson and I were suddenly gaining a privileged window into the world of Doctor Who and working professionally for publications that covered the series, just as it was facing the axe. This unsettled period with Colin Baker in the lead has its fans, and why not? There are many aspects I’m fond of too. But I soon gathered that Who wasn’t highly regarded within the BBC. Radio Times relegated its coverage to the juvenile Back Pages and had little truck with the show after the 20th anniversary splash. I was at RT from 1984 to 1988; I observed the disdain, many colleagues believing my appreciation of Who misguided and quaint. All this forms the backdrop to my lack of surprise when the cancellation was announced. But this would come a little later in 1985.
The programme was often criticised for developing a pantomime air with gaudy sets and stunt comedy casting. This was producer John Nathan-Turner’s milieu and forte. He insisted on dressing Colin’s Doctor like a “totally tasteless” clown, with a big perm, while lead writer Eric Saward gave him a tart mercurial persona. Like showrunners past and future, JN-T had fashioned a Doctor not unlike himself.
A camp showman, JN-T had a zeal for producing pantos for real and obliged his cast to participate. So it was that 1985 saw a Doctor Who version of Cinderella in Southampton. On 12th January, I drove DWAS co-ordinator David Saunders down there, where we hooked up with Richard and his sister Deb, Gary Russell and Bill Baggs (a nice creative guy who lived in that area). It was actually tremendous fun, with hilarious slapstick and spirited performances from Colin as Buttons, Nicola Bryant as Cinders, Anthony Ainley as Baron Hardup, Mary Tamm as the Prince and Jacqueline Pearce as the Fairy Godmother. I usually loathe pantos but almost felt like joining in. Cinders did go to the ball for JN-T. A triumphant start to the year.
That January, Revelation of the Daleks, a jet-black comedy by Eric Saward, was in production at TV Centre. I trotted along to watch the camera rehearsals/recordings and it was clearly more impressive than a lot of Colin’s episodes we’d seen being made until then. Most were yet to air on BBC1. It’s the only time I remember getting a souvenir from the set. Just after Alexei Sayle as the DJ had blown up some Daleks (in safely controlled explosions – pffffft! pffffft!), the shattered detritus of their tops lay on the floor. One of the FX guys handed me a Dalek eye stalk, but my delight turned to dismay. It was so flimsy (a balsa wood rod with a polystyrene ball for the eye and a sticky label for the iris). No one would believe this was a real prop and not some pathetic fan-made effort. A few months later I chucked it out. I wish I’d kept it now. An amusing memento.
On 1st February, I met Richard, Deb and Gordon Blows at the Centre. I made a note in my diary that the viewing gallery was “very hot, busy and stuffy” as we watched many scenes in Davros’s laboratory and the catacombs of Tranquil Repose. It was the final recording day of Season 22 and, subsequently, I wondered if perhaps that would be the last ever day of Doctor Who in production.
I was at my desk at Radio Times on Tuesday 26th February 1985 when David Saunders phoned me in a shrill panic. He’d just heard that Doctor Who had been cancelled by BBC1 controller Michael Grade. I took the news calmly and without shock. In TV terms, on BBC1 we were halfway between episodes two and three of The Two Doctors, a ropy endeavour, and I knew from what I’d seen in production that a nadir was hurtling towards us with the transmission of Timelash. I spoke to my friend Jan Vincent-Rudzki, who had founded DWAS in 1976, and he was as blasé and unsurprised as I was. And the following day it was all over the press with uberfan Ian Levine expressing outrage and smashing a TV set for the tabloids.
A DWAS crisis meeting was called for Sunday 3rd March at Jan’s house in south London. I picked up David from Harlesden and Ian from Acton and a couple of others and drove them across town, with Ian yelling all the way and hectoring me about my choice of route. He distracted me so much I went through a red light, which gave Ian a conniption – and finally silenced him.
I made a record of all who attended (DWAS executives current and former, and admin assistants): Jan, Ian, David, Steve Payne, Jeremy Bentham, John McElroy, Gordon Roxburgh, David and Rosemary Howe, Dominic May, Paul Zeus, Paul Tams, John Connors, Richard (representing Doctor Who Magazine) and Gary Levy (editor of the fanzine Doctor Who Bulletin) – the “elite” of British fandom. I didn’t count myself among them (still in my teens, I was just tagging along with chums and acting as Saunders and Levine’s chauffeur), but how I wish now I’d taped the hours of vituperation and bonkers plans of retaliation. It was a hugely enjoyable spectacle with Ian on volcanic form. I wrote in my diary: “I wouldn’t have missed a gathering of these great egos for anything. We didn’t really achieve anything credibly sensible, although letters were drafted to DWAS members and Bill Cotton (the BBC’s managing director of television).”
The press furore and backlash from viewers were staggering and Grade’s cancellation was rapidly commuted to “postponement”. It was desperately wounding for JN-T, who sank from glory as provider of the 20th anniversary to about as welcome as a turkey salesman on Boxing Day. He insisted that the BBC edict had always been a “delay in production” and that the series would be back after 18 months – bigger and better.
In the aftermath, David Saunders negotiated for DWAS the first full interview with JN-T, so on 13th March 1985 he and I were granted an audience in his production office on Shepherd’s Bush Green. John looked guarded and chastened but glad to have a sympathetic audience. He filled a huge bowl with cigarette ends during our discourse. He looked down his nose at me and feigned doubt that we’d ever met before. We had several times and he knew it, so his stance was undermined when his partner Gary Downie burst in and embraced me like an old friend, squawking “Oh, it’s the Watford Gap boy!”
It was lunchtime. Booze o’clock. And they couldn’t wait to get to the pub across the road. They invited David and me to join them and we had a riotous time. The wine flowed and so did juicy anecdotes. Gary was spectacularly indiscreet and JN-T’s mood soon lifted. That’s my happiest memory of these two colourful characters. So showbiz 1980s.
Another vivid encounter with Gary Downie was at a small-scale convention in Ealing. He rocked up in torn denim shorts and a saggy sports vest and had beaded, bleached hair; as an ex-dancer in his mid 40s, he just about carried off this younger man’s look. Collaring me in a hallway, he covered his mouth conspiratorially like someone from Dangerous Liaisons, and whispered, “Any talent?” Then, eying someone afar, “Ooh, he’s quite doable.” Gary and John called fans “barkers”, hence the term “doable barker” crystallised in my mind.
Mid-March brought a snowy whirlwind weekend in Durham, where Richard was in his first year at uni and already putting on a show: directing Raffles. Deb Marson, Dominic, Gary Russell and I all traipsed up there on a National Express coach. Then on 30th March some of our group entered “Shadow World”. This was one of the earliest Doctor Who audio plays, which one day would lead to the alternative universe of Big Finish. Nicholas Briggs (later of Dalek fame) played the Doctor, Richard (also directing) and Deb were his companions and I was cast in a small part. Bill Baggs produced and John Ainsworth played the villain. We recorded it in John and Gary’s flat in Balham. All done in one afternoon, but I found the process excruciating. Relieved it was in the can, we all settled down at teatime to watch part two of Revelation of the Daleks on BBC1. Quite possibly the last ever episode of Doctor Who.
It was an eventful period. The next weekend saw the latest huge convention, DWASocial 5 at the Novotel in Hammersmith. I was drafted in to set up the foyer and stage, and attend a stultifying executive-level meeting. My reward was a seat at dinner on the Friday night in a private dining room at the Novotel with David and Keith Barnfather, Ian Levine presiding and broadcasting, but also some real Doctor Who talent.
Sitting opposite was Carole Ann Ford, the original Unearthly Child, who was polite and tolerant of the zealous outbursts; and Adrienne Hill, who’d played the short-lived 1960s companion Katarina and only just been dug out from obscurity for the Who parade, much to her bemusement and Ian’s ecstasy. To my right sat Michael Craze and his wife. He had been such a gifted actor, so handsome two decades earlier as companion Ben; in 1985, he looked somewhat pickled, but was gracious, charming and a giggler. What an honour it was to sit next to him for a couple of hours.
They were all good value at the event the next day, joined by radiant and glamorous Jacqueline Hill (1960s companion Barbara) in her one and only convention. She looked far too sophisticated for this sort of do. 1960s producer John Wiles was there, along with writers William Emms and Donald Cotton, who found catharsis in venting vinegary spleen about William Hartnell’s behaviour and attitudes 20 years earlier. This was the first, very public evisceration of a Who legend.
I produced the final edition of my fanzine Experiential Grid, this time with a cover shot of Jason Connery, topless in Vengeance on Varos, which I guessed would sell well among a sector of fandom. I wasn’t mistaken.
But more importantly for me, Richard was kindly encouraging me to start writing for the official, BBC-licensed Doctor Who Magazine. Success seemed unlikely but he had put in a word for me. He covered many of the main features and star interviews while Gary Russell was writing a lot too, so I was uncertain what I could contribute. I submitted some sketchy list-y efforts about villains, which to my amazement were accepted (starting in DWM issue 104). Then I became a little bolder.
I’d amassed so many bootleg audios and videos by then from all eras of Who (few were commercially available), and one aspect that always impressed me was the diversity and brilliance of Dudley Simpson’s incidental music. I wanted to meet him. I wanted to talk to him. He accepted my invitation to come to Marvel Comics HQ, a funky set of offices in an alley behind Whiteley’s department store in Bayswater. The great man turned up on 19th April 1985, dapper in a tweedy blazer, a petite slim figure, neat moustache, charm personified. Here was a proper musician who had played for Margot Fonteyn, enjoyed success in Australia and the UK, and created the sound of Doctor Who from 1964 till 1980 when JN-T dispensed with his services. He was still sore about that.
Richard joined us in the Marvel boardroom as I played dozens of cassette and video clips. Dudley sat there – leaning forward, ears pricked, fingers waving and tapping – thrilled as he heard his striking compositions for the first time in years. Commenting as we went along. That was a truly wonderful afternoon, and I still see it as my proper DWM debut. I had a sweet follow-up letter from Dudley and the interview/article was published in DWM’s 1985 Winter Special.
With Who on hiatus, the rest of the year was a merry-go-round of social events with another trip to Blackpool, birthdays (my 20th, Richard’s 19th), and I rarely missed the monthly Fitzroy gathering. It was usually a pleasure but partly an obligation because I’d instigated the move from the Tun. Richard was long-distance at Durham but we spent hours on the phone, him hogging the one telephone in his halls of residence. He conducted much of his DWM business from there.
I was fully occupied with my day job as a billings clerk at Radio Times, a relentless weekly slog but with funny and supportive workmates, while I was steadily becoming more involved at DWM. I loved the three people who brought it together every month: new editor Sheila Cranna (a flame-haired Scot), her deputy Penny Holme who was quite refined, and art editor Steve Cook, cool on a stick. They were the last team on DWM who were not fans of Who and didn’t really get what all the fuss was about. A healthy mix.
On 6th December, Sheila invited me to a brainstorm lunch at Pizza Express in Bayswater. The first of several. Drinks and a couple of pizzas came to £6.20! Yes, it was that long ago. Vivacious, talented, quick-to-laughter, Sheila will always be my favourite DWM editor, even though I’ve worked for many fine successors. She liked my ideas for interview subjects and a new strand called Nostalgia. As it suggests, this was a look back on the true classics, inviting readers to provide their own fond recollections.
1985 was a tumultuous year and shuddered to a close with a New Year party at Deb Marson’s flat in Bromley. Jan and Richard were there, as were John Ainsworth, Gary Russell, David Richardson and Craig Hinton (who died young in 2006). All would make names for themselves in various Doctor Who spheres in the decades to come.
1986
Alan Sugar came into my life in 1986. Or rather, I was flush enough to splash out on my first Amstrad word processor. After years of commandeering my mum’s Olympus typewriter and correcting with Tipp-Ex, it was a godsend for a fledgling writer with its copying, editing and saving facilities, even though the green text on a black background became eye-straining after a couple of hours.
I set to work on my new commissions agreed with DWM. With Richard concentrating on the stars of Who, I decided to mine a more obscure vein and so tracked down the director Hugh David. He lived in a fancy white manse just outside Windsor, and on 3rd February greeted me in his driveway, quite unfazed by the sight of a 20-year-old turning up in a rusty Fiat, brandishing a ghetto-blaster to record the interview. Hugh’s career covered Z Cars and The Pallisers, and back in the 60s two Patrick Troughton stories, The Highlanders and Fury from the Deep (one of my earliest Who memories). All ten episodes completely missing from the BBC archive. He was great value, recounting both productions in such vivid detail he was almost re-enacting sequences in his front room for me.
Hugh had been an actor (starring in his own ITV show, Knight Errant, in the early 1960s), and the Doctor Who history books had to be rewritten when he told me he’d been one of the first choices to play the original Doctor in 1963. He’d attended a meeting where producer Rex Tucker and drama boss Sydney Newman floated the title “Doctor Who?” and scrawled it on a scrap of paper. My eyes nearly popped out when Hugh crossed to a drawer and produced envelopes of telesnaps for all four episodes of The Highlanders. Something like 260 images taken off air from this long-lost story. I had a task convincing Sheila that a selection must be printed in DWM. She wasn’t sure of their appeal. Hugh came into Marvel to have his portrait taken by Steve Cook and phoned to say he’d enjoyed the experience. (I was shocked to hear of his sudden death the following year aged only 62.)
That same month I was also interviewing Jason Connery for Starburst (published by my friend Steve Payne). He was about to start in Robin of Sherwood, a high-quality ITV series I admit I far preferred to mid-80s Doctor Who. Jason was no Larry Olivier but dripping with good looks, and turned up that day in motorcycle gear. As he pulled off his helmet and his golden locks flowed, he received a lot of attention in the Knightsbridge hotel lobby where we were having tea. I asked him about his Doctor Who experience and he said he’d loved running around TV Centre firing a ray gun. “It was like being five again. I ended up going ‘Pow! Pow’” I’d printed off one of Don Smith’s Radio Times photos and Jason autographed it – asking for copies.
That spring I launched the Nostalgia strand for DWM. To freshen up the illustration in the magazine, I suggested bringing in some of my bootleg VHS tapes and for Steve to take off-screen stills as I played them. This turned into a full-on afternoon as Sheila and Penny joined Steve and me to watch some ancient episodes, eg the first Dalek story, the surviving first episode of The Web of Fear and The Daemons. It was largely new to the DWM crew. Making allowances for creakier production values, they were all impressed by the storytelling and dramatic conviction.
I’d long been intrigued by the short-lived 1965 companion Katarina, ever since DWAS historian Jeremy Bentham told me about her in 1977. I’d met the actress Adrienne Hill briefly at the Novotel convention in 1985, so she was the next person I invited to Marvel HQ. On 11th April, I greeted her in reception and took her to a meeting room where Steve Cook had set up a photo session. She flinched, said she had a hangover from the night before, but agreed to her portrait being taken. She gave interesting copy and revealed she’d filmed her death scene first, bouncing on a trampoline to simulate floating lifelessly in space. I made a note that she was “quite nice, very theatrical”.
No Doctor Who had been in production for a while, so Richard and I contented ourselves going to BBC Elstree to wander round the Albert Square backlot and studio sets of EastEnders: nosing around Den and Angie’s Queen Vic, Pauline Fowler’s front room and the caff.
Then, on 24th April 1986, the Time Lord was back in studio at Television Centre and I went to look at the subway and tunnel sets for the first section of The Trial of a Time Lord. As we watched the recording, it was immediately apparent that JN-T’s “bigger and better” promise had not come to pass. Pretty much the same garish codswallop was coming down the line.
Outside of Who, I was enjoying my job at Radio Times and promoted to “programme assistant”, a halfway house between billings clerk and sub-editor. On 3rd May, I finally left home. I’d been commuting to London for two years, socialising there even longer and was itching for full independence. I bid a tearful farewell to my family and my Nan and Pampa and moved into a flatshare with a complete stranger in Southfields, SW19. Steve Payne drove over and helped me settle in. Not long after, I held my 21st birthday party in my new pad with an awkward mix of Who pals and friends from RT. By some margin, the worst party I’ve ever been to.
The summer skipped along with trips to watch The Trial of a Time Lord. Oddly, some of the sets from the first three segments (especially the trial room) looked impressive in the studio but were so starkly lit on camera that the whole enterprise fell flat. JN-T was always talking about “the show” or “my show” and didn’t mind if sets were floodlit, making Doctor Who more like light entertainment than moody sci-fi. Guest star Brian Blessed was highly amusing on set, I caught a glimpse of Nicola Bryant with her bald head (for Peri’s death scene), and then weeks later we were onto the Vervoid story with Bonnie Langford and the striking Honor Blackman.
I was pleased with the 1986 Summer Special of DWM. It was the first professional publication I put a proper stamp on. Its theme was the “historical” or history-based stories of Doctor Who, not necessarily the most popular sub-genre but one I found interesting. I tire of puff-and-guff interviews and familiar re-treads and want something new, no matter how obscure, and that’s what I felt my pieces on Hugh David and Adrienne Hill offered. The special also presented a startling selection of Hugh’s telesnaps for The Highlanders, dozens of rare images, as many as Sheila felt DWM could afford.
On 17th August, Richard accompanied me on a drive all over London tracking down and photographing notable Who filming locations for a mooted article in DWM. We took in Shad Thames (Resurrection of the Daleks, 1984), which was already undergoing renovation, and the steps by St Paul’s Cathedral used in The Invasion (1968).
On 20th August, I was finally given a writing assignment for Radio Times. Interview Bonnie Langford. I wasn’t especially looking forward to it because she’d already had a bad press before any episode was on air and I’d seen her larger-than-life turn as new companion Mel in studio, but meeting her in person, I was enchanted. Bonnie was spending the entire day at Danceworks near Bond Street. “This is me at my mad time,” she confided, still fizzing from a day of workouts, ballet and jazz dance classes, getting herself fit for a UK tour of Peter Pan (in which she was playing Peter). I wrote up a lengthy, DWM-style article, which the RT features desk blanched at. My friend Anne Jowett, a features sub-editor, kindly filleted it down to something digestible for the Back Pages.
Radio Times was then and still is an education, an institution and a wonderful place to work. I loved our ramshackle offices in Marylebone, and back in the 80s the area was nowhere near as swish as it is today. The magazine was staffed by such characters – pernickety old stalwarts and youngsters who enjoyed a good laugh while attending to arcane detail. I’d never had such a close-knit team of colleagues. We even went on holidays together. In October 1986, two years into my first stint at Radio Times, I was finally promoted to the status of a full-time sub-editor on the TV listings desk.
1987
Work was drying up at DWM but Sheila remained keen for me to contribute. Even though my interest in Who was waning significantly, I suggested more behind-the-scenes features showing the work of the BBC’s admirable design departments. Her eyes lit up and my ideas fed into a series of articles and the projected summer special of 1987. I interviewed all the visual fx guys for the Trial season (Mike Kelt, Peter Wragg and Kevin Molloy) at their base in Acton and in 1987 I had the joy of meeting costume designer June Hudson in her office at TV Centre. What a graceful, talented lady. She remains a friend to this day.
My fascination for BBC1 soap EastEnders (excellent in its early days) inevitably led me to interview Julia Smith for DWM. On 11th February, I drove to BBC Elstree and, with jangling nerves, was invited into her lair, a smart, high-up office. Julia had a formidable reputation and was known as “the Godmother”, ruling EastEnders with a rod of iron, having co-created it with Tony Holland. Back in the 1960s she’d directed two neglected Who serials, The Smugglers and The Underwater Menace. That was my entrée and whenever I veered onto other topics, she barked, “I thought we were here to talk about Doctor Who!”
She wouldn’t be drawn on the events of Walford, but she had lots to say about working on Who and how intractable Hartnell had been towards the end of his tenure and how she’d helped Troughton find his feet as the lead. She was crabby but steadily thawed, and when her sharp memory failed, she scurried across her office to consult scrapbooks of cuttings from Radio Times. This was her record of her BBC career, with billings and cast lists for each programme to jog her memory. It was endearing. She happily talked about The Railway Children, the 1968 BBC1 serial she’d directed, which I remembered from childhood.
My interviews with June and Julia were among the stronger elements in what became DWM’s 1987 Autumn Special. Although it had a lacklustre cover, I was chuffed because it was the only edition I wrote entirely myself, cover to cover. It included most aspects of design and production. I spoke to Oliver Elmes, a sweet guy who’d designed the new logo and title sequence for Sylvester McCoy’s debut; and I had a brief chat with Ray Cusick. The original Dalek designer was lugubrious, spent much time moaning about London Transport and inefficiencies at the BBC, but generously let Marvel use many of his on-set pictures from 1960s Who, several in colour. Free of charge.
Rolling back slightly, Easter 1987 saw the birth of a new Doctor after Colin had been disgracefully given the elbow and replaced by Sylvester McCoy. At DWM and RT we were rarely notified when Doctor Who was back in production. On a quiet Easter Monday, I took my flatmates to TV Centre to show them round the studios. “Strange Matter” (not “Dr Who”) was chalked on the board in the threshold to TC8, so it was with some surprise that I opened the door and we found ourselves facing the back of the TARDIS control room. The next shock came as Kate O’Mara barrelled towards us, “disguised” in a Bonnie Langford fright-wig and with a face like thunder, making her way off set. I caught my first glimpse of McCoy as the seventh Doctor on his first day in studio. In his new outfit. Looking like a fogeyish teacher on a geography field trip, instantly more Doctorly than his predecessor.
A few weeks later (on a DWM assignment) I was trailing Geoff Powell, the Bafta-winning set designer working on Strange Matter. Truck-driver gruff and chain-smoking, he invited me to a planning meeting, to the set construction workshop, then to the next studio recording. All this was sanctioned by the Doctor Who “front office”, yet on the day – 4th May 1987 – JN-T spotted me on a monitor in the TC1 production gallery. He came hurtling down the staircase, screeched to a halt, beetroot-red, and whinnied: “What are YOU doing in MY studio?” We were standing either side of a doorway to the Rani’s base with a hand-held cameraman and an unmasked Tetrap between us. Absurd!
I knew John was paranoid about fan “spies” but we’d known each other for three years – I’d bought him a pint on more than one occasion – so I resented his condescending and proprietorial manner. Besides, as BBC staff I was at liberty to go wherever I pleased. I reminded him that he’d okayed my visit. “I see-e-e-e,” he drawled, deflated. Then the eyes narrowed: “Well, as long as you don’t annoyyyy any of MY actors” – and off he flounced.
Sylvester strolled over, smiling, and somewhat swamped in Colin’s nasty old costume. Shorter than me, he draped his arm over my shoulder and invited me up to the production box for a break to watch the recording. Such a sweet-natured man. He even signed a postcard: “Great doing the programme with you.” I didn’t meet Bonnie again that day but gossiped with Wanda Ventham (gorgeous in her golden alien make-up) on the studio perimeter, gazing at Kate O’Mara strutting her stuff magnificently as the villainous Rani. Strange Matter was eventually renamed Time and the Rani and is loathed by most fans. I am inordinately fond of it because of my insight into its making, but also because the episodes themselves are very funny.
In general, though, I was disenchanted with Doctor Who. I watched Sylvester’s second story Paradise Towers in studio and was appalled by its shoddiness and the hamming of Richard Briers. Another guest actor in that one, Clive Merrison, had phoned DWM and requested an interview. Unusual to say the least, but he’d charmed Sheila and she was keen to pursue it. Neither Richard nor I wanted to, but she cajoled us and suggested we do it together. We did so on 12th June, back in a green room at the BBC’s Acton “Hilton” rehearsal rooms. No disrespect to Merrison, who was pleasant, but neither of us were motivated to write it up and eventually the commission, such as it was, was forgotten.
Little else happened on the Who front that year. There was a DWAS Panopticon on 12th/13th September 1987, which I dismissed in my diary as “dreary on the whole”, though it was enlivened on the second day by a surprise guest. Katy Manning! It was the first time I’d seen this fabulous woman in the flesh – 14 years after she’d left Doctor Who – and I noted she was “beautiful and so bubbly”.
For Doctor Who’s 24th anniversary, we decided to give the programme a bit of a splash in Radio Times; we also miscalculated Sylvester’s latest serial Dragonfire as the 150th story since 1963. I was commissioned to write a brief encapsulation of each Doctor to date, with a spread of colour pictures.
Each Radio Times sub-editor was responsible for one day of television, and I was in charge of the Monday pages – a mini-thrill when Doctor Who was scheduled. Ever since I was a little kid in the 1970s, the weekly episode billings in RT had held a fascination. Now I was subbing the page myself, composing the layout, correcting the billings if needed, and marking them up for style (font and size) for the typesetters outside London.
Forget desktop publishing; that was still way ahead in the future. The precision with which we worked is a lost art. We sat over an actual pasteboard, a huge card sheet printed with the blank outline of the magazine pages. The billings returned overnight from the typesetters as “galleys” of styled text (“copy”). We cut those with scissors or scalpels, then glued them onto the pasteboard. The copy was accurately measured in “point” sizes and “ems” (there are 12 points to one em) and the depth of each page column was 63.5 ems. Each sub had an em rule and a depth scale, and woe betide you if you mislaid them. I still have mine. Once your pages were made up, with gaps for still missing billings, off they went to the typesetters to become drafts – with blank blocks for pictures and captions. In those days, I selected the pictures with a designer and wrote the captions. The result was then amended and approved by a chief sub. Quite a process!
1988
Time is speeding up now. As the 1980s drew to a close, Doctor Who slipped from view. It was only on BBC1 for a few weeks in the year, soon forgotten, and seemed a pale shadow of the programme I’d adored in the 1970s. My family and friends never watched it and the fans I knew didn’t much care for it. I stopped going to the studio recordings. I drifted from DWAS, disenchanted by endemic bickering and elitism. I gave up on the Fitzroy gatherings in 1988 and have never been back since. I also moved on from DWM (as did Richard) after Sheila handed her editorship to John Freeman, and finally in November 1988 I left Radio Times.
There’s a tradition at RT that any long-serving member is given a cover pastiche for their send-off. My chums made up a card for me based on a montage of companions that had recently featured inside the mag. (If they’d truly known me, they wouldn’t have glued my mug on top of Katy Manning!) I went freelance as a sub-editor and soon landed a job at ES Magazine back when it was a gorgeous glossy monthly.
1989
Late in 1989 came Season 26 – Sylvester McCoy and JN-T’s last – after which production shut down for a second time. Quietly. Conclusively. Apparently for ever. But the curtains had closed for me on 31st March 1989, with yet another Doctor Who “panto”. I went with my sister Karen and her then-partner Tim Masters to see The Ultimate Adventure at Wimbledon Theatre. A play by Terrance Dicks, with JN-T acting as creative consultant, it starred my Doctor – Jon Pertwee – on magnificent form. It recalled the glory days and felt like a respectable place for Doctor Who to cease.
Next: the 1990s doldrums and 21st-century rebirth…
My Life as a Doctor Who Fan in full:
- Part 1 – the 1960s to 1974
- Part 2 – 1974 to 1981
- Part 3 – 1982 to 1984
- Part 5 – 1990 to 2012
- Part 6 – 2013 to now
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