Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography

My favourite event, I don’t know why, was an appearance on Multi-Coloured Swap Shop on 2 October, the morning of Hand of Fear’s debut. I don’t think Noel Edmonds showed himself to be the most informed Who fan but I had a ball. Catching up with Tom backstage and then sharing that sofa with him on-air was a genuine pleasure. Answering viewers’ questions was always an honour, not a chore. And when you’re not on a show anymore, you can view it from the outside. And, do you know what? I was bloody proud of what we’d achieved. Jon, Barry, Terry, Robert and Tom – I owed so much to so many. I was glad to have left but at the same time I was genuinely choked whenever I thought of Who’s contribution to television history. You knew it was special; even I could see that!

I managed to catch my Mandragora performances as they went out. By the time The Hand of Fear hit the screens, however, I was on stage in Mooney. Younger readers won’t be able to comprehend this, but if you didn’t catch a programme on broadcast, that was it. There were no video players, no Sky+ and certainly no YouTube or BBC iPlayer. So, while the nation was mourning my departure – so I’m told – I was none the wiser. For all I knew, Lennie Mayne could have edited me out of all my favourite scenes.

So there I was, on stage at the Playhouse in a Saturday matinee on 23 October, knowing that the nation – well, a young proportion of it – was engrossed in my sorrowful farewell. I still spoke to my folks afterwards as usual, except this time I listened more intently to their comments. Was I any good? Did they like it? These things are more important when you don’t catch it yourself.

I did see the show eventually. Do you know when? When the BBC released The Hand of Fear on VHS in the 90s.

It transpired that I was free to watch the debut of my successor in 1977 but – sorry about this – I didn’t want to. Tom was my Doctor. What pleasure was there to be gained from seeing him with someone else? It would feel like watching my husband with another woman.

Bizarrely, before we set off on our African trek, Brian had been finishing up at the Orange Tree in Richmond. With time on my hands I went down to join him. Afterwards, I was sitting at the bar when this pretty young thing came up to me.

‘Hello,’ she said, ‘You don’t know me but my name is Louise.’

‘Hello, Louise,’ I said.

‘And I’m going to be the new companion in Doctor Who.’

‘Oh.’ I was speechless. What were the odds of that meeting without a real-life TARDIS?

‘So,’ she continued, ‘I wondered if you could give me any pointers. I mean, what’s Tom like?’

We had a proper chat. I told her she was about to have the best years of her life. Well, I had, anyway.

*   *   *

In theatre you can be whoever you like. Audiences are very open-minded about casts, which is how I’ve played pensioners, teens, foreigners and sometimes even men. Television is a lot more restrictive. Producers see you doing well in one area and so they hire you to do the same thing again and again. I’d already turned down a lot of sci-fi offers but being viewed as a ‘children’s star’ was harder to get away from. Perhaps if I’d been slightly cannier immediately my ‘retirement’ was announced I’d have had more choice. However, when the offer came a year later to present a show called Merry-Go-Round for BBC Schools, I said yes.

After all, at least I knew I could play the character!

Merry-Go-Round had actually started at the same time as Doctor Who and it would run for twenty years. It was essentially an educational resource for junior school teachers covering all sorts of things like science, history, geography and even the odd sex education programme. I said I’d be happy to present on any subject they threw at me.

And then they mentioned the helicopter!

The episode was called The Fuel Fishers and I’d have to whizz around different oil rigs. And how do you get to those? I came so close to pulling out when I heard about it but Brian and Todd kept saying helicopters were so much safer than aeroplanes – basically, anything to calm me down. But they hadn’t been in Planet of the Spiders.

We were flying out to the Shetland Isles and from there to an operating rig. You don’t need me to tell you that the weather in the Highlands in winter is not going to be great. Oblivious to the conditions, our director led us out to an airfield in the windiest, wettest conditions I could remember. Waiting for us was the largest helicopter I’ve ever seen in my life. It was a Sikorsky.

‘Oh no,’ I said, ‘this thing will never get off the ground!’

The pilot laughed. ‘Safer than cars, these things.’

Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you? But I climbed on.

We took off with such a lurch I thought I’d left my stomach behind.

The director must have seen my face. ‘It’s not so bad is it?’ he said cheerily.

Then the Sikorsky plummeted about a hundred feet in a second.

‘He’s just flying beneath the clouds,’ my companion advised. ‘It’s safer nearer the water.’

There was a curtain between us and the pilot but I couldn’t resist taking a peep through. Now, I’m no expert on flying, but watching that pilot stamp repeatedly on the floor, as though he were desperately willing the chopper back into the sky, didn’t look textbook to me.

The director had noticed too. ‘Perfectly normal,’ he said quickly, but he wasn’t smiling now.

Somehow we made it down into the middle of nowhere and went out to eat in the one available pub. I was still trying to warm up when the pilot wandered over, grinning from ear to ear.

‘Well, that was a lucky escape,’ he said.