WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:08.640 Most Doctor Who fans will know that the first Doctor Who had a granddaughter on screen, 00:08.640 --> 00:13.840 Carol Ann Ford, but in real life, he had a real granddaughter, me. 00:13.840 --> 00:31.440 Actually when I was first at school, my grandfather was a Time Lord. 00:31.440 --> 00:35.720 We were told initially not to talk about it at school. 00:35.720 --> 00:40.280 My mother didn't want us to appear to be bragging and neither did she want us to be teased, 00:40.280 --> 00:47.960 so we were supposed to not mention it, which was fine to begin with, but then he'd been 00:47.960 --> 00:54.280 asked to open the local hospital FATE in Pembury where we lived as children. 00:54.280 --> 00:57.880 And so it was a little difficult to hide it after that because he arrived in full Doctor 00:57.880 --> 01:04.360 Who regalia, not in a TARDIS, but in an open top car and there was lots of cheering and 01:04.360 --> 01:10.000 it was all great fun because he absolutely adored doing these public appearances. 01:10.000 --> 01:15.240 And so really the cat was out of the bag then, so all my school friends knew about it. 01:15.240 --> 01:20.920 I do remember being asked for my autograph, which was terribly exciting and it was fun 01:20.920 --> 01:24.800 to be made a bit of a fuss of on the day of the FATE. 01:24.800 --> 01:30.320 They didn't live that close to us, they lived in Sussex, so I didn't see him because most 01:30.320 --> 01:32.640 of the time he was actually working. 01:32.640 --> 01:39.480 He was away shooting pretty much as far as I know 48 weeks a year, but I was obviously 01:39.480 --> 01:46.040 very conscious of him playing Doctor Who because Saturday afternoons everyone sat round watching 01:46.040 --> 01:49.000 the television with great excitement. 01:49.000 --> 01:52.600 And of course I wasn't scared because I knew it was my grandfather. 01:52.600 --> 01:58.880 One of the most exciting things I did when I was a kid was visit the studios when they 01:58.880 --> 02:02.960 were shooting the Minoptra, the Zarbi and the Minoptra. 02:02.960 --> 02:04.360 I was taken there. 02:04.360 --> 02:09.160 I don't remember anyone really being there apart from my grandfather, so whether I was 02:09.160 --> 02:14.760 just left in his care I don't know, but I remember sitting in the dressing room and 02:14.760 --> 02:20.760 sitting in the make-up room, which was terribly exciting to a kid, watching the make-up and 02:20.760 --> 02:22.640 watching him have his wig put on. 02:22.640 --> 02:29.520 I remember then being in the studio when they were doing some shooting and just thinking 02:29.520 --> 02:32.400 how incredibly busy the room was. 02:32.400 --> 02:35.860 Lots of wires everywhere and I was told to keep out of the way. 02:35.860 --> 02:44.360 I remember the huge ant costumes and how heavy they were and these rather strange looking 02:44.360 --> 02:48.160 people wandering around with great big wings, the Minoptra. 02:48.160 --> 02:52.200 My brother also visited the studios, but because he was a bit younger than me he doesn't really 02:52.200 --> 02:57.440 remember as much about it, but he visited when the Daleks were being shot, which was 02:57.440 --> 02:58.440 terribly exciting. 02:58.440 --> 03:03.360 I don't mind admitting my boy that that thing gave me a start, coming face to face to it 03:03.360 --> 03:04.360 again. 03:04.360 --> 03:08.800 One of the things that used to happen in the playground to both my brother and I was the 03:08.800 --> 03:09.800 knock knock joke. 03:09.800 --> 03:15.400 So, everyone used to come up to us and say, knock knock, who's there? 03:15.400 --> 03:17.080 Doctor, Doctor who? 03:17.080 --> 03:20.320 And then peals of laughter and everyone thought it was a great joke. 03:20.320 --> 03:24.040 There's not much you can say to that when you've had it said to you umpteen times, but 03:24.040 --> 03:31.320 it was quite nice having that connection with a programme which was so, so popular. 03:31.320 --> 03:36.880 It really did go down well with children and I know that perhaps it was one of the first 03:36.880 --> 03:41.640 programmes that had a huge fan following and I know my grandfather would sometimes get 03:41.640 --> 03:47.000 letters from whole schools, he'd get a letter from a teacher and then twenty or thirty letters 03:47.000 --> 03:49.160 from the children. 03:49.160 --> 03:53.640 And I know that he believed the fan base was really important for a programme like this 03:53.640 --> 03:59.960 which had been largely aimed at children and families and he was very assiduous, with my 03:59.960 --> 04:05.120 grandmother's help, at replying to all the fan mail. 04:05.120 --> 04:12.760 So I was very conscious of the fact that it was a popular programme and that other children 04:12.760 --> 04:27.680 saw Doctor Who as a really iconic figure really. 04:27.680 --> 04:32.360 One of the interesting things I found about watching many of my grandfather's performances 04:32.360 --> 04:37.520 in old films was that, apart from the fact he had a huge range, I mean he really was 04:37.520 --> 04:43.840 very good at comedy, he spent a lot of time playing the tough sergeant and the tough character 04:43.840 --> 04:44.840 in uniform. 04:44.840 --> 04:51.460 He used to really research his roles and he had a huge attention to detail. 04:51.460 --> 04:56.680 When he was given the role of the sergeant in The Way Ahead he went off and trained at 04:56.680 --> 05:02.680 a training camp with the sergeant so he knew how they behaved and took roll call and things 05:02.680 --> 05:04.000 like that. 05:04.000 --> 05:09.520 He really was quite obsessive about detail with his characters and wanted to make them 05:09.520 --> 05:15.080 as believable as possible, which made him probably a bit obsessional when he was working, 05:15.080 --> 05:19.860 but I think means that his performances still stand up today. 05:19.860 --> 05:25.880 Playing the tough sergeant in The Way Ahead got him lots of good notices and then he sort 05:25.880 --> 05:31.480 of reprised the role in Carry On Sergeant, which was a send up of The Way Ahead. 05:31.480 --> 05:38.680 Alongside the quite tough sergeant roles he did, he also sometimes played tough crooks. 05:38.680 --> 05:42.480 One of the very good films which still is shown frequently today is Brighton Rock where 05:42.480 --> 05:48.160 he plays Dallow, I think the character is, Pinky's sidekick. 05:48.160 --> 05:53.040 There's an edge to that film which must have been quite shocking in those days. 05:53.040 --> 06:00.080 Then his characters got a lot of intensity and he was able to play those roles because 06:00.080 --> 06:02.560 he wasn't from a posh background. 06:02.560 --> 06:08.760 He was often called upon to play the same sort of character which I think is slightly 06:08.760 --> 06:11.200 frustrating after a while if you keep doing it. 06:11.200 --> 06:17.560 When he was offered Doctor Who, I think he jumped at the chance because it was something 06:17.560 --> 06:19.220 completely unique. 06:19.220 --> 06:26.400 He could create a character from scratch that had no parameters really. 06:26.400 --> 06:31.840 It would have been very easy to send up a character like that or to make it unbelievable 06:31.840 --> 06:38.760 because after all he was in a fantastical box that had wobbly scenery and everything 06:38.760 --> 06:39.760 around it. 06:39.760 --> 06:45.560 But he had an attention to detail and he brought that to the role of Doctor Who. 06:45.560 --> 06:48.000 He made the TARDIS real for him. 06:48.000 --> 06:54.000 He worked out what every button, every switch did on the console so that he could use it 06:54.000 --> 07:01.120 realistically and repeat what he did in each series so that the children couldn't pick 07:01.120 --> 07:04.360 him up and say, that button doesn't do that. 07:04.360 --> 07:09.960 He knew that young audiences would be very particular, very sure of what they were watching. 07:09.960 --> 07:12.800 Yes, we shall find that out. 07:12.800 --> 07:16.440 And I'm sure you will agree with me there are several things that we would like an answer 07:16.440 --> 07:17.440 to. 07:17.440 --> 07:21.720 Perhaps it wouldn't have grown into such a big thing if he hadn't been so careful of 07:21.720 --> 07:22.720 the fans. 07:22.720 --> 07:29.200 I think one of the things about being so meticulous about his performance possibly made him quite 07:29.200 --> 07:30.600 difficult to work with. 07:30.600 --> 07:35.920 Anyone who is a bit obsessional and very meticulous will annoy those who are a bit more happy 07:35.920 --> 07:39.960 go lucky and a bit more casual about the way they do it. 07:39.960 --> 07:44.200 Whether it was because he had to concentrate that hard to create that reality for himself 07:44.200 --> 07:48.760 or whether he just got frustrated with actors who didn't take it as seriously as he took 07:48.760 --> 07:49.760 it. 07:49.760 --> 07:54.040 I don't know. 07:54.040 --> 07:57.720 In researching his life, one of the things, we knew that he was illegitimate but I was 07:57.720 --> 08:01.760 able to find out much more about that. 08:01.760 --> 08:09.320 He had no real father figure around at all until a mentor who was an art critic, an art 08:09.320 --> 08:12.520 connoisseur came into his life when he was in his teens. 08:12.520 --> 08:18.360 I think that the insecurity of being illegitimate when he was young and teased and having no 08:18.360 --> 08:22.960 father figure around and for much of his time no mother around because he was fostered out 08:22.960 --> 08:29.840 must have led to an awful lot of insecurity on his behalf, which in many ways explained 08:29.840 --> 08:34.600 to me the difficult aspects of his character that people had and perhaps also why he wanted 08:34.600 --> 08:40.680 to be an actor because an actor is often motivated to take on other characters because they don't 08:40.680 --> 08:43.400 have any confidence in themselves. 08:43.400 --> 08:50.560 I think the fact that Doctor Who is still successful and even entrancing even more children 08:50.560 --> 08:53.700 today would just have thrilled him so much. 08:53.700 --> 08:57.140 I think he took the part seriously. 08:57.140 --> 08:59.680 He loved the character. 08:59.680 --> 09:02.160 He owned it and he was very proud of the character. 09:02.160 --> 09:09.720 I think he'd be so thrilled to know how successful it is now. 09:09.720 --> 09:14.840 There's a story my mother told me that when they were in a pub at one point, my grandmother 09:14.840 --> 09:18.680 and my grandfather, somebody came up to him and I think it was during the Doctor Who years. 09:18.680 --> 09:24.880 Someone came up to him and said as if it was a prediction, the best is yet to come, the 09:24.880 --> 09:25.880 best is yet to come. 09:25.880 --> 09:32.080 I know it had a profound effect on my grandfather and my grandmother mentioned this to my mother 09:32.080 --> 09:38.400 that it was as if the success would be greater later on and it's something my mother's always 09:38.400 --> 09:44.040 remembered and perhaps somebody had a prescience that the character would live on.