The hand-built Daleks made by Richard Daddʼs Uncle John in the 1960s.
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In January 2018 my Uncle John died. He was an exceptionally skilled man who really could build or mend anything – a skill you often see in fictional characters like the Doctor, but rarely in real life. He might not have melted spoons to make a sonic screwdriver, but he would build bespoke tools for the specific job at hand. So when, in 1964, my then ten-year-old dad wanted a toy Dalek when no such thing was yet commercially available, John rose to the challenge and built two metal Daleks. We think he based the designs on photos in that November’s Radio Times, which promoted The Dalek Invasion of Earth.