Peter Davison as the Doctor, on location at Birchden Wood in East Sussex for Part Two of Castrovalva (1982).
Margot Hayhoe’s career in television production spanned over four decades, much of it spent as an AFM (assistant floor manager) and later as production manager at the BBC. These key behind-the-scenes roles saw her work on six Doctor Who adventures between 1966 and 1983, taking much of the responsibility for finding suitable exteriors for the series’ location filming requirements. “The very first thing I ever did as an assistant floor manager was in 1966 on The War Machines,” she says when we meet up at London’s South Bank to discuss the practicalities and pitfalls of location filming.
However, prior to entering a life in production, the young Margot worked on the other side of the camera. “I was a child actor,” she remembers. “I went to a school called the Arts Educational. I used to go to Saturday morning classes and the teacher thought I was a good dancer, so at nine I went to stage school. But I wasn’t really a very good dancer, so I switched more to the acting side.