“So here you have it: the Doctor with his Master, or, in one case, Masters (though technically I was not a Doctor at this point!). I think I spoil the illusion in the photograph with both Masters (Anthony Ainley and Geoffrey Beevers), with a grin on my face, but the one of me (thankfully) in the suit, back-to-back with Ant, with my arms folded (suggesting assertiveness), is passable. Of course, the Doctor and Master back-to-back is a publicity pose from the set of “Time-Flight” (1982) with Anthony Ainley and Peter Davison. This also goes to show the development from Longleat 1983 where most did not have an opportunity to be photographed with the celebrities, let alone in a carefully staged pose like this one. There is also a point to be made here about the earlier photo of myself wearing the sixth Doctor’s costume with Colin Baker, another ‘staged’ photograph of the type that would have been impossible for me to obtain at Longleat 1983. I would like to say that the cast of Doctor Who had some premonition that I would soon become ‘the Doctor’ but these images were staged for all fans (I have seen other photographs on the web). However, what this also serves to highlight is the fact that, unlike at Longleat 1983, there was time to stage such shots.”

“Breakfast with Mr. Bronson! Not actually the first time I had sat down for a meal with Mr. B – that was, unlike this, a paid-for experience at the Infinity event in Cardiff. Michael Sheard was one of the warmest celebrities I have had the pleasure of meeting and who is sadly missed. Usually the first guest to arrive early on the Friday, he was likely to greet you with the words ‘Have you got the book?’, as he tried to sell his memoirs, and he took to the stage with a powerful presence and the exclamation ‘Now pay attention’ associated with his on-screen Grange Hill character, and continued ‘I can categorically tell you that Mr. Bronson was in no way responsible for the death of Danny Kendall!’. That’s one of the things about the celebrities: many of them remain very much the performers (Anthony Ainley and Debbie Watling doing cabaret spring to mind), and we always remember stories about the way Pat Troughton and Jon Pertwee remained in character on stage together. Always leading the discos, Michael was present when I dislocated my knee at the April 2000 Battlefield convention in Coventry. Conventions of the late 1990s/early 2000s were notable for these ‘celebrity dinners’, where, for a price, one would sit around a table with other fans and a special guest, another big difference from Longleat 1983 and even the other conventions of the 1980s. My first of these was at Peladon in Basildon where I sat at Debbie Watling’s table. Unfortunately I had been drinking cider in the sports hall bar (where the main convention was held) for an afternoon and soon after we sat to dinner in a nearby hotel I informed Debbie that I was feeling sick. No doubt fearing for her safety, she told me to rush to the toilet where I promptly threw up! At other events, I sat in-between Debbie and Anneke Wills, and with John Levene for a buffet meal. At Blake’s 7 Star One events, I sat with Jacqueline Pearce, and with Jan Chappell, Gareth Thomas and Paul Darrow, each for one course of a three course meal. Anyway, returning to Michael Sheard, I did ask him to come along to celebrate the launch of the Terry Nation book in Café Coco on the Cowley Road in Oxford on Saturday August 7 2004, but he had convention commitments in Germany, and instead we were joined for champagne by the gracious Lalla Ward.”

“Michael didn’t like to refer to us as ‘fans’. He felt that the word ‘fans’ carried with it too many negative connotations, being derived from the term to be fanatic about something. He preferred the term ‘enthusiasts’. We were all ‘enthusiasts of something’. And it is true that the word ‘fan’ is often used negatively. Science fiction fans are commonly portrayed as being ‘nutty’ and needing to get a life. And Michael’s use of the term ‘enthusiasts’ shows the high regard he had for attendees.” 

“Hotel bars. Those are one of the key sites of Doctor Who conventions, where fans socialise with other fans and indeed with celebrities during the day and into the early hours of the morning. First, there would usually be a celebrity dinner for those who wanted, followed by evening entertainment, then a disco, and then bar time. I have never been a heavy drinker and this picture taken in the early afternoon shows a group of fans enjoying a drink with celebrities and myself with a cup of tea (though not actually at a hotel). Doctor Who conventions were, however, one of the rare places I would drink, although nowadays I find myself drinking far more: white wines, bloody Mary’s, vodka, lime and lemonades, and, on special occasions, champagne. To be honest, I’ve never much liked the taste of much alcohol. Things were a bit different in Canada where I developed a taste for Labatt Blue, and enjoyed seeing how many of these I could amass on my table at once from those wanting to buy me a drink, but even then I had a tendency to nurse my drinks.” 

Photos © Andrew O'Day and used with his kind permission.    This page was compiled by Tim Harris.

Doctor Who, The Tardis © BBC. All images on this site are © their respective copyright holders.