Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography

actually see me at a typewriter being a journalist – it’s a small reminder that she’s still an independent career woman, despite the aliens and everything. I think the headline on my piece was ‘Another Bermuda Triangle?’ – that was clever of Robert, rooting the story in popular myth once again. There are also some good scenes where Sarah is left to strike out on her own – without the Doctor, for example, when she gets to investigate the Duke’s library and then saves Harry. In fact, I think I got as much if not more solo screen time in Episode 1 as Tom. That’s a real compliment to the character. Whatever my paranoia about Philip’s opinion, he obviously felt Sarah Jane was popular enough with audiences to warrant it.

Zygons picked up where Cybermen left off and the distress call from UNIT at the end of Season Thirteen. By the time we land in Season Fourteen, there have been a number of costume changes. I’m wearing a sort of pale green safari suit with long boots. Harry is all blazered up as usual, but wearing a familiar inordinately long scarf. And the Doctor is decked out in tartan neckwear plus full Scottish hat and coat combo. The theme continues throughout the start of Episode 1. There’s an off-screen bagpipe player puffing his guts out, which is really played for laughs, while the Brig’s first appearance is wearing a kilt. It turns out he’s related to the clan Stewart, as per his name. And not because, as Sarah mocks him: ‘You were just doing a Doctor.’

With budgets not stretching to Loch Ness, Philip and Dougie sourced the ideal alternative locations – in Sussex. In mid-March we recorded all the beach scenes on Climping Beach, plus the TARDIS’s arrival on Ambersham Common. The next day we filmed Tom’s big chase scene on Tullock Moor. That was action-packed and a half, really redolent of Cary Grant in North by Northwest. When it came to the Zygon spaceship landing, however, I think someone somewhere was enjoying an in-joke.

According to the script, the aliens landed their craft in a disused quarry outside Brentford. A quarry actually in the script! When the Brig and co. screech up in their Jeeps, for once there was no need to block out the cranes and diggers. I wonder how many people at home had a giggle at that.

Early April we finally shot the first studio episode in White City; the second followed the day after. I had a good feeling about this one. As usual there were some great auxiliary players, notably John Woodnutt as the Duke of Forgill. It never ceased to amaze me how Who could be like this kind of glee club for actors. Some quality talent appeared on our doorstep – and they were so happy to be part of it. John had a couple of parts. When he wasn’t being the Duke, or a Zygon pretending to be the Duke, he actually lived inside one of the Zygon costumes. They were very difficult to move inside – I can still picture Jim Acheson guiding John across the room. John didn’t let it get him down; he used to tap dance on his mark. Once I went too close and this crazy orange lizard creature said, ‘Feel my suckers, Sladen. My suckers are so exquisite, feel them!’

Working with Dougie Camfield was a hoot. Like Maloney, he made you feel part of something special. He wasn’t some coach with a megaphone ordering his minions around – we were crucial to the programme.

‘Morning, people,’ he would holler when he arrived. ‘Where’s my A-team?’

He was such a flatterer. And because he got on so well with everyone, we’d do anything for him. One day he announced, ‘Look guys, we’re behind, we’re running out of days, and I really need this to be good. Who’s going to come in at the weekend?’

Of course, we all told him to clear off, or words to that effect – he would have expected nothing less, I’m sure – especially when he admitted we wouldn’t be paid. But we were only kidding: anything for Dougie.

Tom said, ‘Yes, I’ll bring the soup, Lissie can bring the pork pies.’ Everyone was given a task because of course the canteen wouldn’t be running on the Sabbath. Then on the Sunday, in we duly marched. Dougie couldn’t have looked prouder.

‘My beautiful A-team!’

I’d have done anything for Dougie – well, almost anything. He had a background in gritty dramas like The Sweeney, real urban telly, and so when it came to us he had particular tastes. For example, if the script said, ‘Sarah’s leg bleeds’, he would not have been disappointed to see real blood. It’s true. I’m not saying he would ask me to hurt myself – but if it happened I don’t think he’d be too put out! Imagine being poor Lillias Walker. For one scene on the moor, her character Sister Lamont has to wield a sickening arm gash. She must have been so nervous around Dougie and sharp objects …

Dougie was a mass of contradictions. He was very hippy-looking, with his beard, hat and thin, pale physique, but he was also a military man through and through. More than that, he had an air-raid shelter at the bottom of his garden stocked with bully beef. Everything was set for the bomb to go off. He used to say, ‘The invasion is coming – and I’m ready!’

A complete one-off.

There were some nice action pieces, especially Harry’s shooting and my game of hide-and-seek with him in the countryside; plenty of comedy too. I get to poke my tongue out at one man, which I think children always like seeing adults do. Tom mimics the Duke’s accent at one point, and there’s the series of jokes about the incessant bagpipes at the start. Angus Lennie, as the hotelier Angus, had some light moments, too, especially when he’s outstaring a mounted moose.

Sadly the fun was about to end for one of us. Early in 1975 Philip Hinchcliffe had mentioned to Bobby Holmes that he’d like Harry Sullivan to be written out. Robert disagreed. Harry, he said, was the perfect foil for the Doctor – and a great companion for Sarah. I think ultimately Philip admitted this was true, but by then it was too late. The decision was made – Harry Sullivan was off.

Filming the studio scenes, especially the ones where Harry is unconscious in hospital, and knowing he was on his way out, were difficult. I still remember getting the news.

‘I’m not going to be in it any more, Lissie,’ he told me one day.

‘Well, I’m sure you’ll come back.’

I truly believed he would return. After all, Nick and UNIT came and went. Why wouldn’t Harry?

In fact, and I didn’t know this at the time, it would be eight years before Nick’s services were required again. Ian, however, would be back far sooner.

*   *   *

I remember when Jon Pertwee went. He himself had set the wheels in motion but by the time the moment came he was devastated to leave. It was when he was going through his lowest ebb that I was offered a new contract. A year later, when my good friend Ian had just been told his contract wouldn’t be renewed, I was offered a deal for a further twenty-two episodes. The question was: did I want to sign?

It wasn’t just Ian’s situation that muddied the waters: my epiphany from that conversation with Philip during