by Barry Letts
As for Jeremy, she understood him least of all.
When she’d found him, shaking and almost crying, and comforted him until he was in a fit state to learn what had nearly happened to him - and what had actually happened to his sort-of girlfriend - his reaction was not at all what she’d expected.
‘I was at the front of the queue,’ he’d said. ‘Emma was the only one to get the reward. It’s not fair. It should have been me!’
There’s nowt so queer as folk, as her mum used to say.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I didn’t appear in Doctor Who when I was earning my living as an actor in television, though my first appearance on the box
- over half a century ago? It can’t be! - was as one of the conspirators helping Guy Fawkes in his plans to blow up Parliament. So what’s that got to do with the price of turnips, as Sarah Jane Smith might say?
Guy Fawkes was played by Patrick Troughton, that’s all; and seventeen years later I was directing him, when he was the Second Doctor, in The Enemy of the World.
Since then, I’ve never really left Doctor Who. Within three years I was the producer, and was responsible for the show during the five years that Jon Pertwee played the part, sometimes directing and writing as well (including one book).
When Jon said that he wanted to leave, I had the job of finding his successor; and we all know who that was, don’t we? My biggest claim to a sort of vicarious fame was undoubtedly my casting of Tom Baker.
I’ve had a great career (so far). I love books, and for over ten years, after handing over Tom and the show to Philip Hinchcliffe, I produced and sometimes directed the BBC ONE
Classic Serial - the Sunday tea-time dramatizations of classic books, such as Great Expectations, Pinocchio, Jane Eyre. But even during this era I was in touch with the good Doctor, through conventions and so on. Indeed, this side of the connection has continued right up to the present. Who would grumble at all-expenses-paid trips to Los Angeles, or Florida, or a luxury cruise round the Caribbean, not to mention the innumerable opportunities to meet the fans all over this country?
Not only that: since I left the BBC staff in 1985, I’ve written two Doctor Who radio serials and two-and-a-third Doctor Who books (the last one, Deadly Reunion, I co-wrote with Terrance Dicks).
So here, in the year of the relaunch, which has already proved to be a thumping success, is another story about the Third Doctor. It’s thirty-eight years since, at the age of forty-two, I found myself directing Doctor Who. I see no reason why I shouldn’t be involved, one way or another, for the next thirty-eight years.
Document Outline
Front Cover
Back Cover
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
