Nigel 
June 1st,2010
Saturday 23 November 1963 and we were excited. A brand new series was to start on BBC1. It was science fiction. It was hyped before we’d heard of the word.
At 5.15 that afternoon I was helping out at a Scout jumble sale and wishing I could be at home watching Dr Who. Pretty sad for a fourteen year old.
And then a shock that thrilled. So many people had missed the first episode that the BBC decided to show it again the next Saturday,followed by episode two. That was a long week.
We loved it. We didn’t know it would become the most successful TV SF series of all time,but if the good Doctor had dropped by and told us we’d not have been at all surprised. A DVD set of that first series arrived a few days ago and we’re looking forward to watching it.
In 1963 I lived in Bristol,which added an extra thrill. The theme tune was billed every episode as having been created at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop which was in Bristol,not far from my school. Sometimes I’d walk past the building in a dream. Like I said,sad.
Dr Who was part of the fabric of my teenage years,along with Top of the Pops (Beatles,Stones,Beach Boys,Cat Stevens),sunny days at Scout camps in Somerset,running,writing science fiction (none published).
Little did I know.
In September 1972 I started my teaching career at a successful but slightly stuffy old school called Northampton Town and County Grammar School. I was not a good teacher,but I did have fun. The school has a marvellous location at the crest of a gentle slope leading down to the river. During the war the slope had been tiered into three levels of playing fields with a spinney at the foot. We were on the edge of town. It was a marvellous area for running,and there were many wise and gentle people on the staff at the school who guided me through a bad beginning made worse by chronic depression.
Then,as I knew would happen,the school became comprehensive:it could no longer choose it’s pupils on the basis of an entry exam but had to take whoever the local council chose in their wisdom to send. We’d also change from being an 11-18 secondary school to a 13-18 upper school. And sadly we’d remain the one boys only school in Northampton.
We didn’t technically change till 1974,but in early 1973 we heard that they’d identified we had spare capacity for that September and they’d be sending us an extra sixty boys unfiltered by any exam. Rumour had it that the education office hand picked the sixty to impress on us we were no longer a grammar school. If it’s true,it worked. We were re-branded as Northampton School for Boys.
Being me I asked to teach one of the new-type year 9 classes. That’s when I really began to understand the meaning of stress. The kids were great people,but nothing like I’d experienced at Bristol Grammar School or Durham University. I had that class four days out of five every week,and believe me the first thing I thought of on waking up each day was whether it was my day off. A contrasting class springs to mind. They were old grammar school. I was a few minutes late for one lesson and they were in a mobile classroom where no one would notice if they messed around a bit,yet when I arrived they were sitting silently with their books open ready. Creepy.
What’s this to do with Dr Who?
Come 1979 I moved on to another school. Three years later Matt Smith was born,and he later went to Northampton School for Boys. I know that because for once on Saturday I was bored enough to follow up the latest episode of Dr Who –starring Matt Smith as the eleventh Doctor –with ‘Dr Who Confidential’. It included highlights of the tour he made last Easter (?)with Karen Gillan promoting the new series. They visited his old school,and I was delighted to be shown what had changed and what had stayed the same. Nice place to grow up eh Matt? A good school.
Also shortly after Easter Jenny and I visited Northampton,as we do from time to time. It is a beautiful town,and we still have friends there. The five pictures above were taken on our stroll round Abington Park which is a few hundred yards from the first house I owned. The park’s a great place to run,and site of the school cross-country course.
Do I wish I’d stayed at Northampton? Kind of,but if I had I’d never have met and married Jenny,so actually no. Not a good idea to dwell on what-ifs,though tempting 
Oh and some of my facts may be inaccurate,but that’s how I remember it. Feel free to correct me but I don’t really care.
And Cat Stevens? Now he is my real (and sad) claim to fame. Jenny used to sit with a student called Steve Georgiou in her first year at Hammersmith Art College. She didn’t know him well,but she remembers him with his guitar. The next year he was Cat Stevens and busy elsewhere. Now of course he’s Yusuf Islam and still performing,though I hope enjoying it more.
