An Overview

I started watching Doctor Who back in the early eighties when I was about 5 years old. My earliest memory of Doctor Who is sitting cross-legged in front of the TV watching Jon Pertwee replay double episodes while eating cheerios dipped in tomato sauce. My interest in Doctor Who really took off when I was given the Radio Times Doctor Who 20th Anniversary Special which I almost literally devoured! At that point, I started collecting the Target novelisations and spending a lot of time at the Library and in bookstores old and new. 30 years later and I now have three cupboards crammed full of Doctor Who merchandise. Since I don't (currently) have a space I can dedicate to my collection, I keep it all in these cupboards in our "beautiful guest room" so that the unsuspecting wayward traveller isn't freaked out by one man's obvious addiction. The first two cupboards mainly contain novels and reference books, *most* of which I have read from cover to cover. I have used the minuscule space that remains in front of the books to display the majority of the actions figures that I have bought. I have tried to stick to the theme of "one Doctor surrounded by his friends and foes", but the eagle-eyed fan might spot that the scenes that have been set up don't necessarily correspond with the costume that the Doctor was wearing at the time. I have also imagined a brilliant and scary first encounter of the Eighth Doctor and the Weeping Angels that would give you nightmares! In the first cupboard, I have a complete collection of Target novelisations, rounded off with a few spin-off novels and the excellent "The Handbook" series. This is followed by an almost complete collection of annuals, and most of the reference books from the eighties and nineties. These are followed with a complete set of Virgin novels, Decalogs, Short Trips, and Missing Adventures, and Benny NA novels, then the left over books (quiz books, Make Your Own Adventure series, FASA etc). The bottom shelf breaks into the New Series with a range of reference books, annuals, and story books. [Close Ups: 1, 2, 3, 4] The second cupboard continues with a complete set of BBC Eighth Doctor novels, followed by a shelf of script and quiz books, Decide Your Destiny books, Quick Reads, and Telos Novellas. A complete set of BBC Past Doctor novels bridges the gap to the New Series BBC books, and the recent random series of BBC novels. Finally, the bottom shelf is mainly dedicated to the Big Finish Short Trips series. [Close Ups: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5] The third cupboard has a set of shelves starting with the Panini graphic novel series (collected from the pages of DWM over the years), and folders full of Doctor Who Magazines going right back to issue 1 (when it was Doctor Who Weekly). Oddly, they changed the size of the magazine a few years ago, and they no longer fit in the Foolscap magazine protectors, so the latest issues are sitting bare on my shelf until I find a suitable replacement. [Close Ups: 1, 2] A smaller set of shelves is dedicated to the About Time series of Guides to Doctor Who, followed by the Telos New Series guides, and a couple of other random books, followed by biographies and autobiographies of cast and crew, special edition Doctor Who Magazines, visual dictionaries, and my DVD/Blu-ray collection. You might note that I have merged my DVD collection into boxsets to save on storage space. (The original DVD boxes are used to push the novels out to the fronts of the shelves in the first two cupboards.) [Close Ups: 1] Up high is the rest of the "odds and ends": trading cards, VHS/DVD special box sets, lunch box, cake and chocolate molds, and a couple of backup Eleven Doctors figure sets. [Close Ups: 1, 2, 3]