vivdunstan

Checking new content on the British Newspaper Archive. As well as adding the St Andrews Citizen in 1991 they've added the Southern Reporter for 1990-1992. And crikey, here's me in the latter, for that bursary I won at St Andrews University. From the Southern Reporter newspaper, 22 November 1990. I also have much clearer photos from the reception at the principal's house.

Another in this slow going series from me, and this time I'm going for the easiest fandom of all for me to tackle!

I first started watching Doctor Who in 1978, aged 5, very shortly to be 6, with "The Ribos Operation" and the Key to Time 16th series with Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor paired with the glorious Mary Tamm as the first Romana. I was vaguely aware of Doctor Who before, but don't think I'd ever properly watched it. Certainly when I got my first Doctor Who annual, which featured Louise Jameson's Leela, I was utterly baffled. Though happy to go with the flow.

From that moment on Doctor Who was a fixed viewing point in our house, with Dad and me both hugely enjoying it. I loved the first version of Romana, but was shocked by the second - my first experience of Time Lord regeneration. And then we got to Logopolis, and yes, that was a shock too. Though I recognised Peter Davison from All Creatures Great and Small, and quickly took to his version of the Doctor with no problems.

I continued as a fan throughout the 1980s. Dad was often exasperated by some of the 1980s Doctors, especially Sylvester McCoy, but I remained a fan throughout. Loved the often bonkers storytelling. It did feel very much of its time. I continued to get a Doctor Who annual most years, but never joined fan organisations then like DWAS. Though I was generally reading Doctor Who Magazine every month throughout the 1980s.

I do remember trying to see a Doctor Who exhibition at Burntisland. My parents and I travelled the long distance up from the Scottish Borders by car, then got a train near Edinburgh to go over to Fife for the day. And there was supposed to be a Doctor Who exhibition there. But it wasn't there when we got there. I was disappointed. Though I do remember enjoying a helter skelter!

And then we got to 1989, and the end of TV Who. And I fell away. I remember joining a Doctor Who fan club at St Andrews University in 1990, but had a really unpleasant experience as a female fan and immediately left. It's just possible that it was a more generic scifi fan club, though if so I think it was still heavily Who leaning. I never knew about the Virgin New Adventures novels at the time, and completely stopped reading Doctor Who Magazine.

Then, somehow, and I still don't know how it happened, I completely missed that there was going to be a new Doctor Who TV Movie in 1996. I didn't even know it was on. Martin also failed to notice that - he would have mentioned it if he'd seen it. So we completely missed it. I also had no idea for many years that Paul McGann had played the part.

And that was how things remained, until 26th September 2003, and the news that Doctor Who was going to return with a new series. I saw that news on Ceefax, and it was like a total bolt out of the blue. And prompted me to return to the series, check out some books that had come out, start reading Doctor Who Magazine regularly again, and try my first Big Finish audio: The Chimes of Midnight, with Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor I'd never heard or seen before. Listened to on my own in our new home in 2004. Magic.

Martin has only an extremely faint positive today. And is feeling good. Though overnight he had extreme disco/sparkly visual effects, and a throat like a dagger in it. But good today. I am still testing negative. Though I may yet catch it from him, and get iller. But we are doing good for now. He is going to be working on the computer in the study today, and working from home all week.

He was masked up almost all the time we were in St Andrews on Friday, including in queues for the Cheesy Toast Shack and Jannettas. Both queues were phenomenally busy, and there were some scary coughs among the queuers. The first queue was outdoors, but unbelievably busy. The second queue was a mix of outdoors and indoors. So my theory now is that Martin probably picked it up in one of the queues (he hadn't been out of our house for over a week before). Which I was not queuing in. So I may yet catch Covid from him. And would, if I test positive, decide whether to ask for Paxlovid antivirals (very few people can get Paxlovid in the UK, but being severely immunosuppressed I am eligible). But if we're lucky it won't come to that ...

Had a lovely trip there today. Our hopes were to get to Toppings bookshop, lunch at the Cheesy Toast Shack at the East Sands, then the Wardlaw Museum (University of St Andrews) for their Alien Worlds temporary exhibition. We managed all that, plus bonus ice cream at Jannettas. All despite the Lammas Fair being partly underway. My Blue Badge helped me park despite that. Home now. I will be felled tomorrow and Sunday after this. But so happy I made it. St Andrews is a very special place for both my husband and me.

Here are some photos from the day.

Envious of my friends (including some St A CS folks!) who are heading to the Glasgow Worldcon this week. Sadly though we have in person attending tickets we can't go. I'm far too seriously ill now to manage it. Plus the infection risk is too high for severely immunosuppressed me. We can use the streaming part of our tickets though, both during the event, and on catchup after through to Christmas. So will get to see lots. Have fun folks going!

Waking up very late in the afternoon, and my brain's conjuring up memories from undergraduate days in St Andrews with Martin. Huge range. Sheltering together in Hamilton Hall one wintry night around midnight, while Chattan's full student population waited for a bomb scare to be cleared. Wintry misty walks near the castle and the cliff top walk past the cathedral. Thumbscrews for me during a ghost tour, plus spooks jumping out galore. Martin walking with me to the bus stop in South Street, where I'd get the last bus of the night back to Bogward.

The drawback of reading Iain Banks’s “Raw Spirit” whisky tour book is I now have a very long list of whiskies I want to try! If we ever get back to the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh I am going to have to spend a long time - and a lot of money! - in their dedicated whisky bar. It is also marvellous reading more about whisky names I recognise from all the computers at St Andrews Computer Science back in the 1990s 🙂

RIP Fred Brooks, architect of the IBM/360 and its OS, and author of The Mythical Man Month. A hugely influential computer scientist. As an undergraduate computer science student I worked part time in the Physics/Maths library at St Andrews University. And for much of my time there in between helping users I’d pull The Mythical Man Month off the shelf of short loan books behind me, and have another read.