Who & I

For the anniversary week I thought it would be interesting to find out the fans first memories of the series and their involvement in the world of Doctor Who.

My first memory of Doctor Who was quite possibly a dream:

On a Dark and Stormy Night the Doctor was pushed out of a helicopter by the Master. The Doctor fell to the ground. His companions surrounded him, but the Doctor started to change into different robots..

That seems like a re-imagining of the Fourth Doctor's regeneration at the end of Logopolis.

My fondest memories of watching the series was running home from Cubs in time to watch seasons 24 to 26. I thought Ace was the coolest girl ever! My Dad would say that it wasn't as good as it used to be. But the stories did seem to improve to me. Well, I didn't know any better as I hadn't seen the older series.

In 1990 I visited family friends, who had pictures of Doctor Who all over their bedroom walls. They told me about the Doctor Who Magazine, which I started to collect soon after. DWM opened up the world of Doctor Who to me. Through the detailed archive articles I was able to find out about stories from other Doctors.

For Christmas that year I received my first Doctor Who video: The Five Doctors. I was able to see the previous Doctor's for the very first time!

In 1991 my Dad took me to a small convention at Canterbury university. It was organised by the great John Nathan-Turner, who told me he was worth four of the Doctors! It also featured William Russell, Mary Tamm, Barry Letts and Michael Kerrigan, though the highlights for me were Colin Baker and Tom Baker.

It was during this weekend I discovered that the BBC were going to do a series of repeats, one story from each Doctor. It was thrilling seeing William Hartnell's Doctor battle against a mischievous Monk, Patrick Troughton in the surreal The Mind Robber, Jon Pertwee battling the Master and The Sea Devils, then the Master again in The Daemons. Later that year I saw Genesis of the Daleks for the first time, then the Caves of Androzani, Revelation of the Daleks and finally Battlefield.

The following year I went to another small convention in Peterborough, Writer's Gate, which DWM told me was to star Jon Pertwee! I was nervous at meeting him. However when I got there it was the writers of the New Adventures books, Jim Mortimer, Andy Lane, Gary Russell and Paul Cornell.

In 1994 I went to Dreamwatch 94 and met the great Jon Pertwee himself, but I barely managed to say more than hello as I was so overwhelmed! During that convention I also meet Elisabeth Sladen, Sylvester McCoy and Nicholas Courtney.

It was exciting to think that the Doctor was coming back in the TV Movie in 1996. I was hoping for a new series.. I kept waiting, but it unfortunately never happened.

Then as I went away to college my interest waned. I bought some of the Big Finish releases and continued to get DWM.

Then in 2003 the announcement that the series was to come back seemed to come out of nowhere. I couldn't wait for the show to return!

Though I had dabbled in various Doctor Who forums and the old newsgroup rec.arts.drwho I had never made any connections with Doctor Who fandom, until March this year I heard about Doctor Who Bar. It was great fun tweeting whilst watching my old videos and added a new element to watching stories I had seen many times before. I joined the sessions regularly and was soon asked to be part of the team. At first I was reluctant. However I am now helping to run the sessions and have made great friends with the other DWBar members and have connections with other fans.

I would love to hear about your stories of your first memories of Doctor Who. Please post in the comments section below or use the contact form on the left.