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MEMOIR AND MEMORY
The Penny Drops
The memory of the memory may no longer be the memory, but what is absent, and has always been, remains telling
My earliest memories are interesting.
November 1981.
I was four.
I remember the Drashigs on the SS Bernice, their latex-covered terrier skull heads (yes, the effects team really did use terrier skulls) bursting through the card and silver foil of the ship’s hull.
I was told, later, that my father was the one who watched Doctor Who (for that is where you would have found the Drashigs that night). He was not a fan. He wouldn’t have recognised the word, outside of a euphemistic sense, but he was certainly some kind of aficionado. Primarily due to the young ladies that accompanied the Doctor at that time (I’m guessing Leela in her chamois leather leotard was the one that had him tuning in every week, although the degree of effort involved in turning the telly over after the football results that came immediately beforehand must also have been a factor. This was not a man who got to his feet in those pre-remote control days without very good reason).
It could be said, then, that my interest in all things Who stems from him (at least until the modern era when…
