Mark Campbell on fulfilling a lifelong dream one summer night in 2004…

At the time of writing, ‘new’ Doctor Who is celebrating its twentieth anniversary. That’s as big a gap as between the very first story, An Unearthly Child (broadcast in 1963, four years before I was born), and The Five Doctors (shown in 1983, when I was sixteen.)

I mean, that’s crazy.

Growing up with Doctor Who on Saturday nights in the 70s, I couldn’t help turn into a fan. I mean, it was one of the most popular shows on telly. I collected Target novelizations, I wrote juvenile stories featuring the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith (well, usually only the first chapters), I bought TV Comic and Doctor Who Weekly...but the one thing I hadn’t done - and what seemed at the time impossible - was to actually watch it being made. Either in the studio or out on location.

I did have a close shave while I was living in Swanage. One Saturday morning in the summer of ’79, I was in the newsagents and overheard two old biddies talking about a “chap with a long scarf” filming nearby. I was a shy lad and couldn’t pluck up enough courage to speak to them. They went off and that was it - I’d missed my chance of watching Tom Baker and Lalla Ward on location at the nearby Winspit Quarry for Destiny of the Daleks. I genuinely still regret it to this day.