For some reason this morning I woke up at 4.00. After an hour I gave in and turned on the radio, (I'm trying to break myself of the habit of only falling asleep if the radio is on). First was the shipping forecast with gale force 8 & 9 and storm force 10 being predicted for all the areas from the Thames, around Southern England and back up to the Hebrides. This was confirmed by the wind I could hear rushing through the trees in our valley. The general forecast was for snow in Scotland and eastern England with warmer temperatures for the South West. Then a spot called 'On This Day' where they mentioned that Dr Who was first shown on tv 45 years ago.
This brought back a whole string of memories. My mother didn't have a tv , and didn't get one until 1976, but I happened to be staying the night at some friends of hers in Queensway, (my mother was probably at work), and I watched the pilot episode with their children. I don't remember very much except that it was very exciting and I can vividly remember thinking how strange it would be if I stood on one of the knots in the stripped pine floor and things started to change. I wonder if that was the start of my fascination with alternative realities. Later I can remember being scared of the cybermen mainly when it was revealed that they were originally humans who had gone overboard with replacement surgery. Anyway back to that weekend 45 years ago. The next morning I was supposed to go to the cinema with the rest of the children but for some reason I decided to take myself home early. I was 6 years old and travelled 7 stops on the underground from Bayswater to Parson's Green and walked home. My mother was always a worrier and this must have completely freaked her out and was probably the reason why she sent me to boarding school. It was a little convent boarding school, minimal teaching standards but the fees were £23 a term. We went home every 3rd weekend but on the Saturdays we were there we watched Dr Who. It was on at the same time as those who wanted to could go to Confession at the Church across the road so I didn't go to Confession that often. When I was at secondary school there was no tv unless I went next door where we watched 'The Monkees', (Mickey Dolenz was my favourite), but I read all the science fiction/fantasy I could get my hands on and we still have 100s of SF books. My mother didn't approve of reading fiction but there was only so much studying and piano practice I was prepared to do. And then I discovered boys and started going out with Peter when I was 15. Looking back at Dr Who the programmes were very basic but it was the concepts that were so exciting. Needless to say when I did have access to a tv we watched all the SF dramas, remember Blake's 7? Incidently I saw Clockwork Orange (with a different boyfriend) when it was first released. It was withdrawn because of death-threats made to the director and not released again in the UK until 2000, it didn't seem that extreme at the time.
