Where have you been, Polly?
Polly?
My name isn't Polly. You must have made a mistake.
I've never seen them before in my life.
Alice Nightingale's the doctor's daughter.
She rather fancies herself as a nurse.
Always got her bandages and things with her.
A bit silly, really.
Yes, there's a lot of valuable stuff still there.
Ask her if she can be supervisor.
You couldn't be a super anything.
I could.
What, then?
Well, I could be a, um, supervisor.
Super, silly, ass. You mean?
Ha, ha, ha!
Come on, another couple of trips will finish it.
But press on regardless.
One of those, that ain't it?
Hello.
Hello. Isn't it a terribly clever idea, a party on a train like this?
Don't you think it's just fabby?
Very apt.
There you are, old man.
I'm afraid you'll have to make do with this.
There don't seem to be any sources of milk.
My name's Preston, by the way.
Frederick Preston.
John Steed.
Delighted to meet you.
And this is, uh, uh, what did you say your name was?
Jane Wentworth.
Jane?
I'm a pussycat.
So I see.
Whoops!
You'll make me purr.
Actually, though, I'm very glad you arrived.
Well, I thought everybody was going to be very stodgy.
Well, Mr. Steed, if it were always like this, commuting would be a pleasure, wouldn't it?
It would indeed. And cheers to us all.
Cheers.
Well, uh...
Who is it?
The management.
This is Mr. Regler, Gnaeus Folline.
Where's Mr. Sempler?
Out.
I can see that, but where?
I've no idea.
I must ask you, Gnaeus Folline, for identification.
Look, I'm a friend of Mr. Templer's.
Miss Frances G. Royden.
Well, hello.
We met the other night, remember?
Oh, yeah. I think I do.
You think you do? I must have made a big impression on you.
No, it's not that.
What is it, then?
Must be something pretty big not to have noticed me.
I'm sorry.
Oh, he says he's sorry.
Well, there's no law against sitting here, is there?
Well, there should be when you've got that look on your face.
Look, I'll show you.
Is it as bad as that, then?
Worse.
So, spill the beans, sailor.
Give us the facts. What's your problem?
Ah, you wouldn't understand. You think I'm some kind of nut?
Try us.
Well, it's my ship, see.
It's gone off to the West Indies, and I've got a shore posting.
In barracks for six months.
And you'll miss the swaying palms, the white beaches, the blue seas.
It would be very funny if you finished cheering me up.
Come on, Dona, let me them. I can't stand people with no sense of humour.
I thought so.
We were at school together.
Were we?
Mm-hm.
I'm Emma.
Emma.
Emma, you're not the girl who climbed the clock tower and put the unmentionable on the top of the...
Do you know, I can still see the sun glinting on it.
And the head girl called the whole school to give three chairs for the constable who bought it dying.
How is your uncle?
Which one?
The rich one, Mr. Lit... Litvanov?
Litov.
Oh, still as rich as ever.
Is he still an invalid?
Mm, kidney trouble.
We went to the opera the other night.
Businessmen.
We arrived late and had to leave before the last scene.
Do you know, I've seen Farr's three times, and I still don't know what happens to him in the end.
There we are. Cash or a kind?
A kind, please. And would you send it to this address?
Certainly.
I read that he was leaving London.
Who, Uncle Alex?
Mm.
Never.
He was born an Armenian, but he's British to the core.
Excuse me.
And the devil claims his soul.
I want to get out of this place. Do you understand?
Why, Miss Maclean, did you remove those cigars from Anthony Williams' ashtray?
You don't smoke them, do you?
Doesn't every girl?
Look, I pinch things, anything.
You are a thief.
My only sin.
And a liar.
I'm not.
I want to get out of here.
Please.
Benetos. A heart attack.
Where's Dr. Comitas?
With him.
That fool.
Get Sanders.
I'm leaving.
Stay here.
You can't keep me here.
All right, then.
Writing my book is amazing for me because in a way it's like painting with words for me, you see.
And so to find the memories, what I do before I go to sleep at night, I'm thinking about the next bit that I'm going to be writing.
And then in my dreams the memories are coming.
And so then at 4 o'clock in the morning when the psychic space is very clear, then I'm waking up and I'm remembering things that I hadn't remembered from that day to this.
And so that's the magic time, actually.
I'm stumbling up in the dark.
I light a little candle because this is a very precious time, actually, and it's special.
So it's like a sort of a kind of ritual.
So I light my candle and then I'm writing with a pencil.
I write with a pencil because also for me, this is not an excuse.
I don't do computers.
But also for me, being a painter, to write, to actually write with my hand is part of the expression that I'm putting down.
And then I do the proceeding.
And then later on when it's gone on to a computer and then we have to do all the editing and we have to tighten it up and so forth.
But the actual creative process of going back into my life and remembering things.
And of course, I mean, when it's painful things, then you're reliving it.
But in a way removed.
So like now, for instance, I'm writing about my divorce.
So up will come all the rage and the anger and the hurt and it will all come.
And then extraordinary things will come out like, you know, I have to make major decisions about children and houses.
And actually what will come out is, but I've just ironed your goddamn shirts for 14 years.
You know, and this one of these wonderful things will come.
I write it all down.
I have a mentor who is a brilliant writer and he says, don't get it right.
Get it written.
So I write the whole lot just as it's all pouring out of me.
And then after that, we tidy it and make it tight.
So so otherwise, the poor readers would be inundated with too many words.
So I'm enjoying the process hugely.
I must say.
Do you use friends or family for memory joggers?
Yes.
Oh, yes, absolutely.
I've just been recently up back up to Norfolk to see friends in Norfolk because we lived in Norfolk for 10 years.
And so I went around all the old friends and and they were remembering bits about my children, bits about my husband and stuff that that I had forgotten.
So that all goes in.
And so I've got my notebooks.
I'm here all that will go in the book.
That's a good one.
That'll go in the book.
So so it's so it's it's like tragedies.
It's comedies.
It's the whole caboose.
It's yes.
If you could pick one part from your book or the next book, it's a very special memory to you.
What would it be?
I suppose I suppose, of course, immediately what comes up is because it's coming up that I have to write it is the death of my daughter.
So then that's a huge that's huge.
You know, that's a huge thing to go.
And of course, you have to go back into that space and remember, how was that?
You know, so then that's you're right on the edge there, you know, and so then that will colour my day, you know, and the other end of the spectrum.
And the and the other end of the spectrum is the love, I think, that I received from people.
You know, the joy is in book one is all those amazing people that I met at the time.
And then I look back and think, God, I was absolutely.
I am absolutely blessed.
You know, I'm totally blessed.
So to to be meeting Peter Cook and meeting Sammy Davis, Jr.
And and and having these people just be buddies, you know, looking back, you think, my God, that that's astounding.
You know, meeting John Lennon. Yeah.
You know, that's amazing. Yes.
Yeah. Resurgence in Doctor Who.
There's a lot of younger viewers have an interest in you.
How are you finding that? I love it.
I love it because the little faces are now coming up my table and and what's deeply flattering.
But also it's magic. The magic of Doctor Who is that these young kids are coming and little faces are coming.
And I'm saying, you know, I used to be, you know, with the.
They say, no, we know, we know, because when Doctor Who's gone dark and there isn't anything for a while,
they're on their computers and they're finding as much as they can of the old.
And what I love is I say, what do you like about the old the old Doctor Who?
And they say, we love the stories because the stories are so good.
So I like that, you see. And so in in my books.
So I go through the Doctor Who period and then I go off and I do all kinds of wild things.
But it ends up again. The loop is complete because it ends up with me being back here today with you guys chattering away.
And in a minute rushing off to listen to Tom Baker because I mustn't miss his panel.
You know, and so I'm still part of it, which once again, I'm so blessed.
You know, and it is magic. It's magic. I was thinking, I was thinking, I was thinking about this event today.
That's this few hours, you know, and that we were all coming from all over the parts of the UK, from Scotland, from Cornwall.
We are converging for these few hours to have this very special thing of listening and talking about this program.
This this has to be utterly unique. And one of the lines that I put in my book, because I just love it.
How could I have known then, back in 1966, that I would become part of cultural immortality?
And that's what Doctor Who has done for us, actually. I feel like bowing in a way.
Yes, yes. You mentioned earlier about the Strange Report. There's been an interest in that again.
Well, of course, it was just wonderful for me. And now it was slightly it was slightly different because this was not sort of BBC.
This was being filmed down at Pinewood. So this was like making a film. So it was 10 days of filming.
And so then it's down to Pinewood every morning. So that's like being in a film.
But once again, once again, I mean, not only am I am I.
I mean, in Doctor Who, I'm working with Patrick Troughton in Strange Report. I'm working with Antony Quayle, two of the absolutely astounding, great British actors.
And so as a young actor, you know, to be with these people, your your level of acting raises to their level.
So it's just exciting to work with them. And at the same time, Strange Report also had a wonderful story.
It's really good directors, really good scripts. Sometimes the scripts were not quite so hot as they could be, but most of them were pretty good.
And all the best actors, you know, Julian Glover was was one of the actors I remember.
And John Thor, you know, just just we had the best actors.
So it was it was it was also very tiring for me because because although it's exciting to work all day,
but then getting home at night and then this I have two young children.
So at the weekends I'd be with my children. So I was trying to do everything.
I was trying to be the best mother and the best actress and do the whole whole and the best wife and do the whole lot.
I don't know that I managed to be best.
Can you remember where you were when you heard the news that Patrick Troughton had died?
Yes, I do remember exactly. I was sitting on a little island in Canada where I was living later on.
And and this is the weird thing.
This is you see, this is what happens for me. The night before I was with a bunch of friends.
We're having dinner and I do this thing. You see, I was just on the island and I was just I was painting houses.
And and suddenly I'm saying, you know, years ago I was in this TV program that's very big in England.
It was called Doctor Who. And I worked with this wonderful actor.
And I spent the entire evening telling stories about Patrick Troughton.
The next day in Canadian time, a friend from England said, called up and said, do you know, he died last night?
As I was telling the stories, he was leaving his body. I know. I know.
So I'm saying, hey, Pat, you know, thanks, man. Lovely. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.
So then you see this more because then when I'm I'm doing I'm doing the portraits of the doctors later on.
And his was the first one I thought, I wonder, I love the man so much.
And with that love, can I actually put that on? Can I can I bring this character into a into a portrait?
So I'm drawing him. And when I get around to making his eyes, I was feeling creepy.
I had goosebumps. I felt him so close to me. And when I'd finished, I was actually quite feeling rather pleased.
This is actually quite good. You know, well, maybe we have to sell it.
You know, you always have to make a bit of money as you go along. Well, I wonder I wonder how much I could ask for such a thing.
I mean, perhaps for the original, perhaps I could ask him a hundred bucks.
I heard his voice in my ears. A hundred bucks, a hundred bucks for a portrait of me.
At least 150. I mean, chuckling away. You see, for me, they don't die.
They don't die. They're all right. And the same with John Pertwee.
When I did John Pertwee's portrait, I'm drawing away and I heard him saying, give the clerk a flourish, darling.
Exactly. I mean, you know, you don't make it up because you hear the voice.
So I gave it a flourish. I'm sure you've been told this a hundred times before.
But what was your particular favourite Doctor Who story?
Michael Kray's and I both would always come up with the same like that.
The smugglers, we love the smugglers. We loved something about being in Cornwall.
And it was a lovely location. But being in Cornwall and being all dressed up in 18th century gear and having all these wonderful 18th century pirates.
That was fun. We like that. We like the historical. We like the Highlanders.
And actually, if you ask Fraser Hines, he says the same thing. We like the historical stories.
I'm going to be doing a Companions Chronicle and they're writing the story now.
And the guy was just telling me what the story is about. It's a historical story.
And it sounded so exciting. Again, I get this is my measure of something being very good.
If I'm getting goosebumps, all right, this is going to be good. So watch out for that. That's coming.
I'm going to be doing it in a week or two.
It's such a shame that the stories you've mentioned are completely missing from the archives.
When did you first discover that some of your stories were missing?
Well, I have this weird thing that actually that I'm kind of rather bemused by that, that I did it all and then it's kind of erased.
In California, there's a group of wonderful painters and they come and they're wonderful painters.
They paint like Renaissance paintings and they do it all in pastel and they do it all on this great big street.
And when the rain comes, it's gone. So I rather like that.
Well, having said that, I'm very pleased that they're doing the restorations.
And I've just done a commentary that goes over the newly restored war machines.
And they've put the whole thing together. And it's not it's all it runs all the way through.
So it's complete. So this is fantastic. And I do it with Michael Ferguson, who directed it at the time.
And then that again, you see, for me was wonderful. Here I sit with Michael Ferguson.
Forty years later and we're rabbiting away and we have to remember, you know, what do you remember of the time?
Well, I'm a woman. What I remember is, oh, those lovely little shoes I wore.
So we were having lovely memories and enjoying very much.
And so hopefully they'll be able to gather a few more stories together and and put them together.
I mean, the fact that the BBC trashed them is unbelievable. It's unbelievable.
OK, Annika, thank you very much for your time. Thank you very much. It's been nice to talk to you both.