Joining the BBC’s Visual Effects Department in 1958, Peter Day was only its third member of staff, after Jack Kine and Bernard Wilkie. Peter contributed to ten Doctor Who stories, from 100,000 BC in 1963 to The Sun Makers in 1977, and while his memory is understandably hazy about what he designed for certain serials, he can still remember many of the highlights in illuminating detail.
An oxygen-mask prop created by Peter Day for Fury from the Deep (1968). Photo © Marcus Hearn.
After assisting fellow designer Michaeljohn Harris on The Tomb of the Cybermen (1967), Peter was assigned the equally challenging serial Fury from the Deep (1968). “I designed the seaweed-monster costume in a four-pointed ‘X’ shape, to be worn with the arms of the occupant above his head,” he says, describing the creature that terrorises the besieged occupants of a gas drilling rig. “We used a brown sacking material for the basic costume, onto which we attached long, seaweed-like, green plastic stems. These were produced by a plastic flower manufacturer in Uxbridge.