1987- Where were you?

[SiHart]

September 1987, S24 burst onto our screens...

But where were you, what were you doing, how old were you and what was your life like in the late 80s?

Si xx

[Dirk Gently]

Because of the placement of my birthday I was starting my last year of Secondary School, (Almost always the oldest in the class).
And as a consequence of being 15/16 during season 24 I was more interested in girls than Doctor Who. I'll leave what I was up to to your imaginations.

'88/'89 was all about exams...well not all, but you get the idea.

[Lissa]

I was starting at the fine old school in September 1987. It was big and scary. I also got my first ever television that month as a reward for passing the entrance exams.

I don't remember anything about season 24 until Dragonfire and the frozen zombie crew members that someone - I forget who - might also have found big and scary.

[Simon R]

I think I was in my second year at primary school. We all loved Season 24 and played Doctor Who every break time!

[Anthony Williams]

1987? I was in my mother's womb from March till November, then didn't know much about what else was going on for the rest of the year

Ant x

[SiHart]

I was in my second year at secodary school. I'd got the hang of being there, felt OK and had a Doctor Who fan for a best friend. Season 24 was the first Doctor Who we experienced together, with all the fantastic discussion, speculation, anger and all the stuff that goes with being a fan.

They were very happy days.

Si xx

[WhiteCrowNZ]

I was just starting Sixth Form ... and we were all trying to look like Robert Smith from the Cure ...

[Captain Tancredi]

I watched the first episode of 'Time and the Rani' on a black and white portable TV in my bedroom in 1987.

As opposed to today, when I watched the beginning of 'Image of the Fendahl' on the laptop in my bedroom. Different bedroom, though.

[Si Hunt]

I took my first steps that year. It was a tender time, learning to hawl myself up on tabletops and survive without my dummy.

Si.

[Andrew Curnow]

There's no answer to that!

I was just starting A-Levels, the first day of my course being the day part 2 of Time and the Rani started. It wasn't, to be honest, the best time of my life and in hindsight that was probably, again to be honest, my fault to a very large extent. And yet at this distance I do have a great fondness for that time - and a big part of that is the Doctor Who factor.

It was the first full season we had a VCR for, and I guess in part because of that ability to watch the stories again and again (and again) those stories don't feel like they're 23 years old. But in fact, that whole time, just having left school, doesn't feel anything like 23 years ago either. I suppose if I think about it, I know 'rationally' that it was an entirely different time - no net, no mobiles, no satellite TV, no DVDs, not really much in the way of videos (certainly not Doctor Who-wise); but it doesn't feel like it.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

I took my first steps that year. It was a tender time, learning to hawl myself up on tabletops and survive without my dummy.

Si.

That could be any age!

[Larry]

sept 1987, I had just left school and was 2 months into my job with HMRC.

[Stuart Wallis]

Trapped in the nebulous period twixt exams and first library job and on-site IT training. The systems they'd used there by the time Microsoft had got a stranglehold ten years later had been forgotten - good job I've got more exams since, eh?

[Jonno]

A year of big change for me as I turned 18 in the early summer. I took my A-Levels and therefore left school and had a wonderful long summer stretching from late June to late September. A summer in which my friends and I could legally go drinking in pubs - bliss! Then just days after "Rani" ended, it was off to Bristol Polytechnic (as it was then) to start a 3 year degree.

It was a year of big change for my fan perspective too - very early in the year, I'd bought a joblot of old DWBs stretching back to 1985 and their somewhat radical view of the current state of the show made me see the show in a different light and, with hindsight, probably made me dislike current Who even more. Also in the spring I bought my first ever vintage videos - Pyramids and Talons (at a combined price of £65, probably the equivalent of £300-£400 now!!) and the sheer enjoyment those two stories gave me also probably coloured my judgement against new Who...

[Stephen Morgan]

Right, big memory time for me.

Viv and I met the previous year on a Government scheme that involved a lot of social work, visiting the elderly in the local area, doing a few odd jobs, collecting their pensions etc. Viv was a team leader on the project and we hit it off straightaway, especially as she had Super Channel on cable which was showing old Who at the time
Anyway, at this stage in 1987 we, as a group, had got to know the people we were working with and we would organise trips out for them.The day after the first episode of Time and the Rani was shown we all went on a bus trip to Weston Super Mare, it was the first time out for many of them for ages and they all had a good day.
I remember the bus trip down to Weston, a young guy I was working with was a Trekkie, TNG hadn't long started and he was as enthusiastic about that as I was about the return of Doctor Who, and I remember describing in great detail scene for scene that first episode as he hadn't seen it the night before.
It's incredible to think that so many years have gone by, we've lost contact with our friends from that time, and all the old people have long gone, all they are now is memories of a very, very busy year.

[Jon Masters]

I was starting my second year at Edinburgh Uni - in those days I didn't have a TV so didn't watch any of Season 24 live. However, the trusty VCR was at home so my Dad was under strict instructions to record everything so I could watch it when I came home at Christmas.

That's probably the reason why I never took to Sylv in that first year, and definitely the reason that I never saw Delta (to quote my Dad - "I saw the first bit with Ken Dodd in it and it was so s#1t I turned the video off to save you the tape" !!)

[duncan]

1987 saw me leave home at the age of 21. My Grandfather had died in 86 and I was left £600. Being the sensible one of the family, I didn't spend it putting it in the bank instead. I was working for Finlay's the newsagency chain at the time and was assistant manager in one of their south-east london stores when I was offered a Manager's position at the store in Hockley, Essex. The job came with a flat above the shop rent free, so I used the £600 to buy some bits of furniture and I moved out of my parents house and "flew the nest". I had a great time down there going from groups of yobbish youths hanging about outside the london shop, to horses being tethered outside the essex store. Then one day, in walked one of the most stunningly beutiful women I had ever met. Her name was Yvonne and she eventually became my wife. Sadly, our marriage didn't last long and we split in '89. But '87 was a big year for me and full of happy memories.

[Martin Curnow]

1987 - left college and started work in August.

We'd persuaded the old man to finally buy a video recorder (just in time for the last 2 epsiodes of the Trial season) and as I had to be out when part 1 of Time and the Rani was on I had the joy of being able to come home and watch it at 10pm - hey, I know how sad that sounds now but back then, if we'd previously missed an episode on transmission then that was it.

[Dino]

1987 I was in the third year of secondary school. The first two years it had been a single sex school, but thanks to some "trendy European Union boxticking" it merged with the girls school over the field.
My school work suffered. And my social structure crumbled when I turned down a date to catch TATR part 1.
She lied that we'd met up. If only I'd played along and covered for her!
It would have saved me a whole lot of grief.
Not sure if I contracted meningitis this year or the next. But I lived for "...all the best" and "Cloud Nine" albums. Not buying the videos of Doctor Who just yet.