Doctor Who: I Remember...
50 Years of Doctor Who

By Karen Dunn

It's hard to put into words how much Doctor Who means to me and hard to explain why I'm not ashamed that a TV show has provided the bedrock for most of the important events in my life.

As a child, I was the odd one. The smart one, the loner, the one who went to grammar school, the one who could play football better than any of the boys. And the one who eventually gave the bullies something with which to target her - a love of a strange man and his police box.

But fate has a odd sense of humour and the loneliness and dejection of teenage angst would go on to lead me to the people who have been my closest friends, my only love, my family for almost 30 years.

We finished growing up together, learning the lessons of life from a fictional character who was all things noble and brave.

We passed many a memorable day waxing lyrical about time and space, monsters and villains, and how wonderful life would be if we could just find our own Gallifreyan, our own police box.

And in between all that we came to realise life was already wonderful because we had each other and no longer armed the bullies with our tears.

This musing has been more about friends than our favourite Time Lord - but that's the way it should be.

Because without him there would be no us. And that would have been a terrible shame.