I was four years old when my father and sister sat me down to watch Jon Pertwee’s first episode of his final season as Dr Who in The Time Warrior. It was December 1973 and Christmas was approaching. I had heard about Dr Who of course, my sister was a big fan, and the occasion was certainly made the most of as I was now deemed old enough to watch what was, I was told, a rather scary and adult show. I guess nothing was to ever prepare me for what came next. The moment at the end of episode one when Lynx the Sontaran removed his helmet to reveal his egg like head was both funny and amazing at the same time, and I was hooked. My sister talked to me long and hard after the episode. She showed me her Patrick Troughton annual from 1969 and tried to explain that the Doctor can change his face. It didn’t really make any sense to me. I was transfixed by the figure of Jon Pertwee who reminded me ever so slightly of my Grandfather – he was dashing and physical and intelligent and to a four year old boy searching for a role model, he didn’t get any better.

Within the week my Dad told me of a magazine that had just been published by the Radio Times that chartered the history of Dr Who from the very beginning, ten years previously. I wanted it. I can remember standing in my parent’s bedroom by the dressing table looking at myself in the full length mirror overcome with delight when My Dad told me my Nan would get it for me as a Christmas present. I had only watched one episode but somehow or another it had made a profound impact on me. Episode two came the following week, and then Christmas. I don’t remember any other present apart from the Radio Times Dr Who anniversary special. My Dad took two photographs of me clutching it to my chest very proudly, never wanting to give it up, and I remember that Christmas night devouring every page of it under the covers.

It was an amazing publication. Even now when I look through the pages it haunts me. The stars didn’t smile in some glossy sales pitch way, they all looked rather serious and scared, all in character, especially all the Doctors who glared out at me behind furious expressions. It didn’t help that, in the magazines attempt to disguise the old black and white photography, it had opted for various tints of orange and green, heaping more and more mystery on the programme’s past as if it were impossible to see it clearly. The magazine is obviously something of folklore within Dr Who circles and was a seminal publication for all concerned. In fact it was lovingly reprinted in 2003 by the Radio Times using as much of the source material as possible although many of the original negatives have been lost to us. It is a magazine that guided my whomania throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and still now I get it out to brood over. It is imprinted on my psychee like nothing else and impossible to describe to only a very few.

I started to collect Radio Times cuttings from then on in. I cut out everything I could find and mounted them in a scrapbook with green and blue and purple pages. It wasn’t just Radio Times, it was TV Comic and the Holiday Specials, newspaper articles and magazine supplements, but it was the Radio Times, with Peter Brooks’ fantastic illustrations accompanying each episode that took centre stage, as if being the truly authentic voice of Dr Who. In general, the episodes would be watched once then forgotten, or for the fanatic, reimagined and retold in a thousand ways, but my Dad would record the episodes off the TV with a small plastic microphone onto a cassette recorder, narrating the action as it happened on screen whilst I would squeal in the background. Then, later, in my bedroom poring through the pages of my scrapbooks and annuals, I could relive the moments again and again and again, often acting out the entire story, reciting every line of dialogue, every bizarre sound effect, and being able to hum every musical score from Death to the Daleks to Planet of the Spiders. I was five, you understand, and the programme was well and truly in my blood.

It was only a few months later that I witnessed Jon Pertwee’s Doctor die in front of my eyes and change into another man. It must have had a profound impact, because I spent an inordinate amount of time drawing pictures of his previous selves and the regeneration process. Apparently,  a boy forms his attachments to male role models very early on his life, and yet here was mine dying and splintering off into a whole host of other personas. It mythologised the show even more and made the question of the Doctor’s identity more and more unfathomable. Tom Baker’s first season captivated me. I remember galloping along to the local Newsagents with my Dad to buy the Christmas Radio Times for 1975 and before we were even out of the shop I had the page open showing the rather fabulous quadriptych of images of the process of regeneration. I had to wait two weeks before I could cut it out. Then came Longleat, the Weetabix figures, the Dr Who Monster Book and meeting Tom Baker for a signing in a book store in Eastleigh.

Then for some inexplicable reason, mid way through 1976 I lost interest, too many other things were vying for my attention I presume and Dr Who was losing out to the American competition. “Knock Knock?” my uncle always used to ask. “Who’s there?” “The Man from Atlantis.” As a result I never watched any of Tom Baker’s last four seasons, and when I did, I didn’t like it. I was now into cinema and was busy cutting up editions of Film Review for my scrapbook, listening to Monty Python albums, watching Hammer Horror and making Super 8 films with my friends. Alien was also just around the corner, but that is another story entirely.