Adventures with the Wife in Space: Living With Doctor Who (8 page)

As we approached Hartlepool, I was expecting the worst. Sue was a single parent who lived in a council house in the north of England. I imagined burning cars on the pavement, damp on the walls and a kitchen infested with cockroaches. As Sue drove us down a small terraced street, with a
beautiful
wrought-iron lamppost, exquisitely arranged flowerboxes and neatly polished doors, I didn’t think we’d be stopping. Suddenly, Sue jammed on the brakes.

I panicked. You met a girl’s parents after the fourth, fifth or six hundredth date. You definitely didn’t meet the
parents
if you hadn’t slept with their daughter yet. A woman was waving at us from the kerb. This must be Sue’s mum. I couldn’t put my finger on it but there was something oddly familiar about her. Sue was already out of the car before I could unbuckle my seatbelt.

Sue tapped on the passenger window so I reluctantly
stepped out of the car. I couldn’t believe it. Sue’s mother was the spitting double of Jon Pertwee. All she needed was a crushed velvet cape.

We were now joined outside the house by the snooker player Dennis Taylor. This was Sue’s dad.

Sue’s mother poked my ribcage with her finger. I
half-expected
her to cry ‘
HAI
!’

And with that, Jon Pertwee and Dennis Taylor walked arm in arm towards the Mecca.

Sue likes to say that I only agreed to go back to her place that first time because she had cable television. I admit that when I realised the channel UK Gold was
broadcasting
late-night repeats of
Doctor Who
– episodes I’d never seen before – Hartlepool suddenly seemed as exciting as New Zealand. And I also admit that I placed a blank VHS tape in the pocket of my donkey jacket, just in case,
during
my stay, the opportunity arose to record an episode or
two. But Sue fascinated me. She was unlike any woman I’d ever met. She drank pints for a start – not because she was a feminist, she just drank pints. And yes, I fancied her. I fancied her like mad. It didn’t bother me that she was older than me, or that she was a single parent. I wasn’t
looking
for a serious relationship; besides, knowing my luck, I’d almost certainly mess things up long before I met her daughter.

But it turned out Sue’s daughter was waiting for us in the living room.

This was the first thing that Nicol Malapert Thompson ever said to me.

It was also the second, third, fourth and fifth thing she ever said to me.

Sue’s daughter roared with laughter. I wanted to join in
but how could I? Her so-called joke didn’t make any sense. What did the sucking of feet have to do with sweets? It wasn’t even remotely funny.

Nicol clambered onto the sofa, paused for effect, and then yelled at the top of her lungs:

Every time Sue led Nicol up the wooden hill to bed, the little comedienne would creep down again a few minutes later; we could hear her giggling as she tiptoed towards the living-room door, preparing to deliver her killer punchline for the umpteenth time. This went on for about an hour, until Sue gave in and Nicol was allowed to sit with us while we watched the
Nine O’Clock News.

I glanced at the rectangular bulge in my donkey jacket and sighed.

Sue decided to stay with Nicol in her bedroom until she fell asleep. She told me that she’d come back downstairs again later – if she could stay awake. I glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was 11.20 p.m.;
Doctor Who
was due
to start in ten minutes. I told her not to worry about me and to get some sleep.

With Sue gone, I urgently flicked through the channels on her cable box – past the German quiz shows and the racy Italian movies – until I found UK Gold. As I waited for part 2 of ‘The Curse of Peladon’ (Jon Pertwee, season 9, 1972) to begin I could feel butterflies in the pit of my stomach. This was partly because upstairs were two people I instinctively knew were going to become the most important of my adult life, but mostly it was because I’d never seen ‘The Curse of Peladon’ before.

It was 11.28 p.m. when the living room door opened again.

Sue knelt on the floor in front of the sofa, obstructing my view of the television.

Sue moved closer. As the theme music swelled to its
familiar
crescendo, she prised the remote from my hand.

And without breaking eye contact, she aimed it behind her back and switched off the television.

In 1975, when Weetabix’s
Doctor Who
promotion was over and you couldn’t buy the special packets in the shops any more, I threw my Weetabix cards away. I find this
thoughtless
act quite difficult to write about. My collector gene hadn’t been activated yet. However, shortly after this, I found myself strangely drawn to the checklist I’d found on the first page of the Target novelisation of
The Three
Doctors
.
As I scanned this list of the other titles in the series, something inside me clicked – or cracked. In that moment, I knew with absolute certainty that I would have to possess every single last one of these books, and if I didn’t, I would never be whole again.

As I’ve said elsewhere in this book, there wasn’t that much
Doctor Who
stuff around to collect when I was growing up in the 1970s. I now realise that this was probably for the best. If the same amount of merchandise that’s available today had been around when I was a boy, I would have bankrupted my parents. Thirty years later, I’ve almost bankrupted myself.

I suspect that this gene may be hereditary. My mum had a thing for Lladró porcelain and my sister owned one of the biggest collections of Sindy dolls West Coventry has ever seen. In the late 1980s, when
Doctor Who
was coming to an end, I mostly collected records by Tangerine Dream; but I also steadfastly acquired each new Target novelisation – there were now over a hundred – and, of course, old episodes of
Doctor Who
on videocassette. As many fans of a certain age will tell you,
Doctor Who
VHS tapes never lined up on the shelf properly. The diamond-shaped logo would move up and down willy-nilly on the spine of the box. Sometimes it was vertical, other times it was horizontal. And for the show’s thirtieth anniversary in 1993, the logo changed
completely
, which only made things worse.
Doctor Who
fans would be entitled to launch a legal claim for compensation against BBC Enterprises for knowingly encouraging chronic hoarding for financial gain, leading in turn to the mental anguish of rampant obsessive-compulsive disorder.

I am currently addicted to collecting a new range of classic
Doctor Who
action figures. These are the toys I so
desperately
craved as a child but which nobody ever got round to manufacturing for me. If only my younger self could see the carnival of monsters camped out on my bookshelves: fully articulated Zygons, difficult-to-balance Ice Warriors, a string-vested Sea Devil, and the shape-shifting robot
Kamelion
, who is disguised as the Master, and not the Master at all, despite what it says on the box. Furthermore, these figures look amazing. There are no Gareth Hunt lookalikes here.

Am I being exploited? Say, for example, I want a ‘Destiny of the Daleks’ Dalek to complete my collection of Daleks. I have to fork out for Tom Baker Doctor at the same time – he’s part of the set. Or maybe I’ve got my eye on a
Sontaran
spaceship. Just as long as I don’t mind paying extra for another Tom – he’s part of the set. And then there’s the
Jagaroth
from ‘City of Death’, and a Krynoid from ‘The Seeds of Doom’. That’s two more Toms, thank you very much. As a result, I now have more Tom Baker action figures than I
have Daleks. I’ve got Tom in a hat and I’ve got Tom without a hat. I’ve got Tom in a burgundy-coloured coat, Tom in an oatmeal coat, and Tom in a waistcoat. I’ve even got a unique Tom with no head; I think one of our cats ate it.

And then there’s the spectre of eBay. Oh, look, some Weetabix cards with the original cereal boxes still intact – a bargain at £76. Before you know it, a trip down memory lane has turned into a time-consuming, money-draining quest for completism – because you are not trying simply to complete a set of books or toys or Weetabix cards, you are trying to complete yourself, to get back to the whole
person
you were before, as a child, before the obstructions and compromises of adulthood got in the way. And yet, all you are really doing is accumulating a pile of crap, souvenirs of the futility of the quest. Thanks very much, collector gene.

All that being true, if anyone reading this can help me plug the hole in my Target book collection by sending me a copy of
The Wheel In Space,
I’d be eternally grateful. I haven’t slept since 1988.

Sue discovered that I was a functioning
Doctor Who
fan the day I moved in with her and Nicol. Up until then, I’d
managed
to keep it under wraps.

I didn’t bring that many possessions with me when I moved into Christopher Street in July 1993. All I had was a suitcase, two carrier bags and a small collection of cardboard boxes. When I asked Sue if I could store them in her attic, she demanded to know what was inside them. I think she suspected they might be full of pornography.

Before I could explain, Nicol had already tipped the
contents
of the nearest box onto the floor.

She was waving a VHS cassette in her hand.

She was holding ‘Day of the Daleks’ to be precise. (
Infuriatingly
, the BBC had edited out all the cliffhangers, but there was no need to burden her with that right now.)

Given the look on Sue’s face as Nicol systematically unpacked my boxes, I wish they had contained pornography.
It would have been easier to explain and marginally less embarrassing. So again I asked Sue if I could store these tapes in her attic. Her reply surprised me:

I stared at my tapes, which Nicol was stacking into neat piles on the carpet. I didn’t think Sue’s shelving suggestion was a trap, but I wasn’t sure. Her home was gorgeous, and it was obvious that a lot of time and effort had gone into making it look just so. You didn’t need to be an interior designer to know that my distended tape collection would create quite the wrong impression.

Nicol was now arranging my tapes into a single
quivering
tower of plastic. As I watched her play, I thought about putting away childish things again. If I was going to be a father figure to Nicol, maybe this was an opportunity to make a fresh start. Maybe now was the time to stop
worrying
about continuity errors in ‘Mawdryn Undead’. Maybe the moment had come to grow up.

Wait a minute, this felt like an increasingly momentous decision. How damp was her attic? I didn’t want my tapes to go mouldy up there. And what happened if I decided to buy more? Would I have to hide them in the attic after I’d watched them? That would be a bit weird. Or did it mean that I wouldn’t be buying any more tapes? I wasn’t thrilled about that, either. And then there was my plan to become a fully formed adult in the near future to consider.

Then it hit me: maybe I could watch these tapes with Nicol while we bonded as stepfather and stepdaughter! I started watching
Doctor Who
when I was Nicol’s age and it had never done me any harm, possibly. The Doctor had been a wonderful role model. He taught me to oppose violence (when he wasn’t committing genocide) and to embrace
justice
, equality, curiosity and compassion. In fact, I decided, I would be neglecting my duties as a responsible parent if I
didn’t
show these stories to Nicol. When I met her, Nicol was destined to grow up without a Doctor to call her own. But I could fix that. With my help, Nicol would grow up with
seven
Doctors to call her own – and I would just grow up.

Sue put up some shelves.

Although I didn’t bring that many possessions with me when I moved into Christopher Street, I did have plenty of baggage, the sort of baggage that made it difficult for me to adjust to my new role as a responsible stepfather.

I was too strict with Nicol, for a start. My own parents weren’t exactly draconian, but they did have some very clear ideas when it came to boundaries and discipline. As far as I could tell, Nicol was allowed to do anything she liked, whenever she liked. I’m not saying she was spoiled – she wasn’t demanding as such – but she did have a ridiculous amount of freedom when it came to what she ate for dinner, what time she went to bed, and, most importantly of all, what she watched on TV.

One night Nicol and I had an argument about
something
or other – I forget the details now but it probably had
something to do with her not eating her vegetables – and in a spectacularly childish move I removed the plug from her television set to teach her a lesson. Sue wasn’t very happy with me when she came home to find her daughter in tears because she couldn’t watch her favourite movies all night. Sorry, Nic.

However, let’s take a look at Nicol’s videos when I moved in, shall we?
The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Pretty in Pink
and
Weird Science.
Yes, Nicol was a John Hughes junkie – and there’s nothing wrong with that – I just didn’t think these movies were suitable for a four-year-old child.

(This isn’t strictly true. In ‘The Talons of Weng-Chiang’
one of the story’s villains chases the dragon in an opium den; in ‘Nightmare of Eden’, the aliens turn out to be an
addictive
narcotic; and in ‘Snakedance’, the Fifth Doctor enjoys a hallucinatory trip after being bitten on the wrist by a snake. Also, the Sixth Doctor’s hideous multicoloured frock coat can only have been dreamed up by someone on drugs.
Ketamine
, probably.)

While Sue was busy rewiring Nicol’s television, I
studied
my VHS tape collection for the perfect story to show her daughter. With Sue calling me upstairs, I instinctively grabbed ‘Day of the Daleks’. This was the tape that Nicol waved at me the day I moved in with her. I took this for a sign and hoped for the best.

Sue and her daughter were cuddling each other on Nicol’s bed when I joined them. Simple Minds were belting out ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’.

I dropped the VHS tape into Nicol’s lap.

I headed for the bedroom door.

The next day, Nicol sidled up to me while I was chopping potatoes in the kitchen. When she tugged at my sleeve, I almost sliced my index finger off.

I pressed Play on her top-loading VCR and Nicol crossed her arms and waited for ‘Day of the Daleks’ to impress her.

She shouted with laughter.

The episode begins with a terrorist from the future attempting to assassinate a political figure from the past.

Three minutes in and she’s already beginning to fidget.

I quickly change the subject:

I knew it was hopeless when Nicol started to kick the covers off her bed, a sure sign she was restless. Another sign was she
had stopped asking questions. She didn’t even ask me if the ape-like Ogrons were gorillas.

Maybe Nicol was too young to appreciate
Doctor Who
after all. And it was very late; she was probably tired. I told myself that it wouldn’t have mattered what we were
watching
that night, she would have reacted exactly the same way. She just needed a good night’s sleep. And besides, Nicol shouldn’t be watching television at this hour anyway.

I’d really hoped to see Nicol’s eyes light up with wonder and joy that night – the same wonder and joy I experienced when I encountered
Doctor Who
for the first time. What I wasn’t expecting was she’d have that joyful look on her face when I offered to switch
Doctor Who
off. We were only ten minutes into the first episode; she didn’t even get to see a Dalek.

I offered to read
The Little Mermaid
to her but Nicol declined. As I headed downstairs again to join Sue, I heard
The Breakfast Club
rewinding in her VCR. She was still watching it when I went to bed an hour later.

Once the shelves were up, my video cassettes became part of the furniture, but my girlfriend proved as adept as her daughter at ignoring
Doctor Who
and my clumsy attempts to insinuate it into our unmarried life. Whenever I’d suggest it might be fun to watch, say, ‘The Seeds of Death’ or ‘The Ambassadors of Death’ or ‘The Robots of Death’ or even the comparatively light-hearted ‘City of Death’ together, the answer was always ‘no’.

Occasionally I would ask her for her memories of the programme.