Compiled by MARCUS HEARN
There are three drafts of Dr. Who Meets the Pirates in Fred Newman’s. les, beginning with an original that was bashed out – like so much of his work – on his beloved Olivetti. In 2008 Newman’s deputy editor, Roger Tagholm, fondly described him as “a man who essentially belonged to a pre-digital, Fleet Street era, a man who was happiest with a manual typewriter, rather than a computer, and whose idea of new technology, we often joked affectionately, was to use Tipp-Ex on the screen.”
Newman sent the first draft of Pirates to Tony Pearce at Reference International on 3 October 1977. “I have not at this stage gone to the lengths of having it re-typed as I trust it will not be judged on appearance,” he wrote in the accompanying letter. “I have been through it carefully and found some spelling mistakes. In view of the time factor could you please obtain approval as soon as possible. I am holding up further work on the book until the text is cleared.”