Category: Time Travel

  • The Anapestic Doctor

    I hit the publish button too soon on that last post about Dr Who before the comments box was added so I’m going to post a poem I wrote a while back about the later incarnation of Dr Who as David Tennant with Billie Piper as Rose. And hopefully I will add a comment box so you can comment about either post.

    Technical bit: Anapestic Meter in poetry depends on three-syllable sections of verse, or words. An anapest is two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed.

    Here is the poem:

    At the end of the world the doctor is waiting
    He knows what needs doing without hesitating
    His faithful companion, Rose Tyler, is with him
    When it comes to the crunch, she will risk life and limb

    The daleks attack without any compassion
    They don’t know that killing has gone out of fashion
    The doctor will snare them, they’ll suffer defeat
    With his sonic screwdriver, they’ll soon be dead meat

    So earthlings don’t worry or get in a stew
    You have a protector – he’s called Dr Who

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  • Untitled post 2339

    Memories of 1960’s TV in the United Kingdom

    Dalek from Dr Who

    So, I had to check this. We didn’t have a TV until I was 8 years old in 1963.

    But every Saturday we would go to visit my mum’s parents, Nan and Pa Simpson and they did have a black and white set.

    My memory is that we used to watch wrestling with Mick McManus who was a local Camberwell boy, followed by The Adventures of Robin Hood with Richard Greene, finishing with Bonanza.

    We’re talking about 1959 to 1961- when I was 4 to 6 years old. I think some of them were reruns. This was the only time we saw TV unless we went to Saturday morning pictures.

    Robin Hood was the best. Is this where I became fascinated with forests, outlaws and beating the bad guys?

    We lived on the fourth floor of a council flat at the top of Denmark Hill, South London. Ruskin Park was nearby, but no forests.

    Moving on, if your 63rd birthday has been this year, then you were born in 1963. This conjunction of dates only happens once in your life time.

    November 4th 1963 – my youngest brother was born.
    November 22nd 1963 – President Kennedy was assassinated.
    November 23rd 1963 – First episode of Dr Who with William Hartnell was broadcast.

    The BBC broadcast the first episode again the following Saturday before the second one because the news coverage was so intense the previous week with the assassination.

    We had a black and white TV by 1963. It sat in a walnut coloured box and you closed the door when you weren’t watching it so it looked like a cabinet.

    December 21st 1963 – First time the daleks appeared in an episode of Dr Who. It was the scariest thing I’d ever seen and yes, I did hide behind the sofa.

    Do you have memories of that era?

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