My Doctor Who Poster

There was a time when I was an avid autograph hunter. I was pretty successful at it as well, collecting about 200 over the years, mostly by writing letters to the celebrities and sports people I wanted to add to my collection. Now, it’s more difficult as a letter is much less likely to result in a signed photo. As a result, you often have to go to the conventions in order to secure the signed photos you want. However, in the course of my hobby I have met 5 people who will be instantly recognisable to any fans of Doctor Who – the UNIT family.

I started at the very top with the Third Doctor himself, Jon Pertwee, who I met backstage at the revival of Scrooge The Musical in 1992. I took a poster along featuring a print of the artwork from the Radio Times cover for Day of the Daleks. Jon signed it and I genuinely thought no more about it. Then I found out that Nicholas Courtney was signing in London in 1995 when I was in the vicinity so I went to a very small convention – they weren’t as well publicised back then – and met him. He was an absolute pleasure to talk to and he too signed my poster. It was then I decided that I wanted all five of the regular cast of the time to sign it.

Fast forward to 2005 and I was at the Stamp Centre on The Strand which used to have regular signing sessions. First of all I met the lovely John Levene who played Corporal Benton (later promoted to Sergeant) and was the loveliest person to talk to. A few months later, Richard Franklin who played Captain Yates signed there and I had four out of five. The only one missing was the lovely Katy Manning who played Jo Grant. I, along with many others, had a king sized crush on her as a child!

I found out that she was signing on a day in 2007 where I had a two hour window of time between teaching lessons. I sped to the Strand and was faced with a huge queue which was moving very slowly indeed! As time ticked on I realised that I was almost certain to miss my chance. I explained my predicament to the person who was giving updates to the queue and showed him the poster. He asked me to give him 5 minutes, which was about as long as I had before I needed to be leaving. A couple of minutes later he said that Katy had asked if I could queue jump so I was whisked in. She was so lovely and I was so completely overwhelmed to finally be meeting her that I am sure I was babbling away like an idiot! When she saw the poster she was really excited and she put the finishing touch to it with a huge smile and a flourish of her signature. My thanks were heartfelt and very quick as I needed to be back in the classroom, but I was walking on air for the journey back to the centre.

My wife had the poster framed and it has had pride of place in our lounge ever since. Every time I look at it I smile with the memories of five lovely people who helped me complete my very unlikely quest.