Conventions:

‘You’ll never catch me doing a Doctor Who signing. It’s just not for me.’

This is what Dad would always mutter when he was asked to appear in public as the Doctor during the late seventies and early eighties. Those words have been ingrained in my memory for as long as I can remember. Even before playing the Doctor, he was extremely reluctant to do interviews or any publicity that involved revealing the man behind the part. He believed that the actor and the character should never be mixed. The public should never see the real person behind the role because if they did it would destroy the illusion, reveal the magic and turn a character actor into a personality performer.

So you can imagine the shock and amazement that the whole family felt when, while being contracted to do The Five Doctors, he had reluctantly agreed to attend the 20th Anniversary Doctor Who convention. I remember him telling me,

‘I’m doing The Five Doctors, but they have said I have to do the convention at Longleat as an added unwritten agreement. What should I do?’

I can’t remember what I said but it must have been similar to Frazer and Jon who had both spoken to him about taking part in the celebrations. I think the final decision for Pat to attend came down to the fact it was a celebration of twenty years of Doctor Who and the event was for charity. I suppose he felt duty-bound to attend but in the back of his mind he must have been very nervous about the whole idea of facing his audience as himself.

The Longleat 20th Anniversary convention, titled ‘Twenty Years of a Time Lord’ and held at the Marquess of Bath’s estate in Wiltshire, from April 3rd-4th 1983, was a first for the UK. America had been holding science fiction conventions for a number of years before and some of the Doctor Who actors had already tasted the dedication and loyalty of fans.

The celebrations took place over Easter Sunday and Monday, with my father only attending on the Sunday. Advanced ticket sales were 13,000 but 40,000 attended during that Easter weekend, which meant many people were unable to enter or access some of the attractions, especially the actors’ tent. My father stayed in the Orangery, where signings took place, well beyond his allotted time to finish the immense queue that had developed on the Sunday. In the merchandise tent the books disappeared so rapidly that extra stock had to be transported from London on the second day.

The exhibition included Doctor Who TV sets. Inside a huge tent was the interior of the TARDIS complete with central console. Next to that the original studio set from The Five Doctors, which my father had only just completed the previous week. This included the tower corridor, the Gallifrey conference room, a control room and the Brigadier’s study and UNIT HQ. Monsters such as the famous ‘blue’ Dalek, androids and Cybermen patrolled the tent, much to the delight of the crowds. A costume and makeup tent catered for those young and old who wanted to be transformed into their favourite monsters.