Sitting here, waiting fairly impatiently for the new series of Doctor Who to start next Saturday (it’s been so long), it seems like a good time to blow the dust from this vintage book. I imagine fellow Doctor Who fans would be as keen as me to have a look inside.
I’m sorry to say goodbye to the immense talent of Peter Capaldi, who feels so new to me still – yet the Zoe Ball-hosted special announcement programme seems like an awful long time ago now. And so we’re in the speculative hinterland of who the next Doctor may be. It’s decided now, of course, and it would be marvellous if somehow the surprise remained unspoilered until the regeneration, but that’s never going to happen. My choice, for what’s it’s worth – Ben Willbond all day long or, frankly, any single one of the Horrible Histories/Yonderland troupe. I’m sure any reader of this blog will be unsurprised to learn I am a massive Horrible Histories fan.
Anyway, on a grey December day in Manchester I found one of my best ever vintage book finds – the Doctor Who Travels in Space Painting Book. A colouring book dating from 1966 and William Hartnell days, wrapped in a plastic bag stuck down with sellotape which had obviously not been removed for decades. I had to buy it just to open that seal and have a peep.
Thanks to that plastic bag it was in fabulous condition for a 50 year old colouring book, the cover still vivid, and only one page coloured in. So here it’s is, and it’s not just pictures, it’s a story.
The robot destruction scene isn’t very “New Who”, is it?
I love that it was published in Manchester too – unlike the Doctor, it never travelled far.
