The Official Doctor Who Fanclub Vol 1

[SiHart]

Via Richard Bignell on Roobarbs:

Some people with long memories may remember the name Keith Miller, who with the assistance of the production office, started to run the official Doctor Who Fan Club back in January 1972 - and all this when he was only 13 years old!

Keith is now releasing the first volume of his memories of setting up and running the fan club, documenting events from the start of the club through to the end of Jon Pertwee's tenure - and all told by reproducing the correspondence he received at the time, primarily with Sarah Newman, the secretary in the Doctor Who Production Office along with copies of all the Doctor Who Fan Club newsletters produced over those years. Keith also recounts in vivid detail his set visits to the BBC to watch the recording of The Three Doctors, Carnival of Monsters and Planet of the Spiders, how he came to write one of the stories in the 1973 Doctor Who Annual and the tussles he had with a young "Peter Bleedin' Capaldi"!

It's a fascinating account of the early years of fandom and one young man's love for the programme. Highly recommended.

Pre-orders for the 237 page, A4 book open today from Keith's site - http://www.odwfc.com/

Volume 2 covering the early Tom Baker years (and set visits to Genesis of the Daleks, Terror of the Zygons and The Masque of Mandragora) follows later in the year.

This could be fascinating stuff. It'd be quite interesting to see what fandom made of the Pertwee years at the time, as there's not much out there at the moment about this. I bet they wanted William Hartnell back and a return to the way the series was before!

[Stuart Wallis]

Don't we all!

I wouldn't mind buying it, if only to see if he got any cash from Tom (and why he wanted it!), and what Peter bleedin' Capaldi has to do with anything!

Only Peter, you know that wossname you did with David Tennant about Pompeii...?

[SiHart]

Apparently Peter Capaldi is a massive, long time Who fan... maybe he wanted to run the club?!

[SiHart]

There's some more about it here, courtesy of TV Cream

[Stuart Wallis]

Whoever would have thought that in a past life, Peter Capaldi was the Ian Levine of his day!

[SiHart]

I didn't see that coming, no!