Even though I was born several years after Patrick Troughton had left Doctor Who, his Doctor played a very influential role in my childhood. As you might remember from my editorial in DWM 499, from the time of my birth, I was already the owner of an extensive Doctor Who book collection. Patrick Troughton’s face was, of course, prominently displayed on the cover of titles such as Doctor Who and the Cybermen, Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen, and Doctor Who and the Web of Fear, so I had a pretty good idea of what this so-called ‘cosmic hobo’ was like.
In 1981, I got my first chance to see the Second Doctor in action, when BBC2 repeated The Krotons across four consecutive nights. Wonderful! I instantly adored this Doctor’s playful nature and quiet, thoughtful intensity, and the story even inspired me to write my own sequel, again featuring the Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe. A repeat of The Three Doctors followed soon afterwards, and Troughton’s subsequent guest appearances in The Five Doctors and The Two Doctors made me love him even more. Oh, just thinking of that Five Doctors scene where he gleefully fights off a Yeti with a Galactic Glitter still makes me smile!
He might have been an ‘ex-Doctor’, but it always felt like Patrick Troughton could reappear in Doctor Who at any moment.