"The best of luck!"

 

I've been having a look back at my New Year's Eve post from twelve months ago, as is only natural as this year draws to a close, now into its final few hours here in the UK.

I mentioned in that post that in 2022 I'd written a draft of a new non-fiction book, and that "...it looks as if it may appear sometime in 2023." In fact, I was underselling things a bit there. At that point I was probably about 90% sure it would be published this year, and I was also pretty confident that it was quite good.

Pull to Open did indeed come out, somewhat delayed by various factors but it finally got there in August, and the response has been amazing. I'm very proud of the book, and incredibly pleased with how it has been received. There may, perhaps, even be something new coming on that score in 2024 - but once again I have to be slightly cagey about that, as nothing is anywhere near being definite yet.

In fact, there is more than one iron in the fire for exciting new writing possibilities in the New Year. Obviously I am well-aware that these things might not actually end up happening. They are only possibilities at the moment. But it is nice to at least have something to look forward to, in that respect; to be able to greet the passing of the year with the possibility of some fresh exciting prospects, rather than thinking all of the interesting things are now behind me.

Mind you, on that score, this time last year I was also talking about the radio documentaries I'd made. This year, there have been no radio documentaries, and sadly I don't think there ever will be again. That chapter of my career seems to be over and done with now. Treasure Quest also came to an end - a huge wrench for me, and for many others. Not just the closing of a chapter, but the closing of an entire book.

I spent most of the year at risk of redundancy, but I was luckier than many - after six job interviews, or 'boards' as the BBC calls them, I managed to hang onto a role. A very different one to what I was doing before, but I do appreciate that I am one of the fortunate ones. I do still have a job.

And it enables me to still do interesting things. Last year I was writing about the George Russell documentary I made - and this year I got to have even more of a play at covering Formula One. I even produced an F1-based radio show for a few months. I had a piece about the 60th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination go out on The World Tonight on Radio 4, and a Doctor Who 60th anniversary piece on the World Service - an anniversary which saw me appear on around thirty different BBC stations in total in one form or another.

I also wrote for the Radio Times, and for the BBC History website this year... Yes, it sounds as if I tot these things up as if they add some sense of value to my life. And hey, why not? It's as good a measure for me as anyone else's measures are for them.

Anybody who has enthusiastically followed Paul Kerensa's British Broadcasting Century podcast may well have been struck, as I was, by the words of Arthur Burrows on the BBC's 2LO station in London just after midnight on New Year's Day 1923 - the first ever New Year of the brand new BBC as a whole. Fitting that Burrows should be there to see the New Year in, as he'd been the first ever voice on the BBC the previous month.

I'd never heard this before Paul included it in his episode looking at that first BBC change of years - which by coincidence also happened to be an episode on which I made a guest appearance, talking about my book The Long Game. Anyway, Burrows' actual words from the night were never recorded, going out live into the ether and that was that. But we do know what he said, and Paul recreated the moment for the podcast.

"2LO wishes you a happy and prosperous New Year. May you have the best of luck - goodbye everybody, goodbye. And the best of luck!"

I was particularly taken with it was because of the way it captures two of those feelings of New Year's Eve and the passing of midnight. It feels, as the New Year often does, like one of those fleeting moments of camaraderie when we are all in this together. A sense of optimism and a willingness for everyone's hopes and dreams and ambitions for the next 12 months to be fulfilled, whatever they may be.

Before cold, hard reality sets in through the still, quiet dawn of January the 1st.

But still, I do like the sentiment. So, whoever you are, wherever you are and whatever you're doing - the best of luck!

A New World Somewhere

It's been many years, until now, since I last wrote for a fanzine. At least fifteen, I would say, and probably inching closer to twenty. There's no particular reason for this - I'm not anti-fanzine at all, and in my teens and early twenties wrote for them quite regularly, particularly for the Doctor Who Appreciation Society's Celestial Toyroom. It was certainly a boost to my confidence as a young and aspiring writer that other people thought my work worth publishing, even on an amateur basis. And it's always much better and more fun to write something which you know is actually going to be read by somebody!

It think it just happened that it became far easier to write for online - when I moved on from writing for CT I ended up writing quite a bit for the old Outpost Gallifrey Doctor Who fan site. It was a lot quicker and easier to get things put up, of course, and you got more of an instant reaction, so I sort of naturally fell into doing that. And then gradually did less and less fan writing at all as I became more involved with the BBC and my career there.

But anyway, all this serves as mere background to the fact that for the first time in many years, I have now written for a fanzine - although it seems almost disrespectful to call it that. Vworp Vworp! is an impressively put-together magazine, which comes out at irregular intervals and was originally based around Doctor Who Magazine and its comic strip. However, for the latest issue in this Doctor Who sixtieth anniversary year the sixth issue - more of a bookazine than a magazine, so laden with pieces is it - is all based around the show's very beginnings. If you're interested in that era, I highly recommend it - there are many fascinating articles on aspects you might not even have considered before, from a 'who's who' of writers whose names you'll know well if you have even a casual research interest in this era of British television history.

I was actually approached and asked if I would be interested in contributing a piece, given how I'd been researching the era for my own book Pull to Open. This, of course, I was very happy to do - as it gave me the opportunity to expand on a story I'd only had time to touch on briefly in Pull to Open itself. This was the story of director Rex Tucker, a name anyone interested in the creation of Doctor Who will recognise, and his efforts to get his own science-fiction serial The Seekers off the ground. What is that story? Well, I'm afraid you'll have to get hold of your own copy of Vworp Vworp! issue six to learn that!

Or Pull to Open, of course! Which continues to attract very kind comments from its readers. And perhaps even create exciting new opportunities for me - of which more, possibly, in the New Year, if anything comes of it.

But I think it's fair to say that the book has gone down better than I could ever have hoped. Since I last wrote on here I've been fortunate enough to appear on two further podcasts discussing it, The Doctor Who Literature Podcast and the Power of 3. And AJ Black very kindly included me on his list of his top-ten favourite books of 2023, alongside some very big hitters!

Pull to Open is, I hardly need say, still very much available from Ten Acre Films if you're interested in having a read!