Darren Stockford

Collectormania 12: The encore

Meeting Elisabeth Sladen at Collectormania 12I popped back to Milton Keynes yesterday for the final day of Collectormania 12, as it was the only day on which Elisabeth Sladen was appearing.

I ummed about it the night before, as Sunday transport meant a four-hour round trip. But using the old ‘I’m more likely to regret something I didn’t do than something I did do’ logic, I woke up on Sunday, jumped on a train and got to MK around 11.45am. And I’m glad I did.

Lis was all-round lovely. She dug my Dalek shirt and asked me about my nine-year-old niece, who I was also getting a signed pic for. There were loads of little 'uns in the queue. It must be nice, as an actor, to know that you have that generation-spanning appeal.

It’s an aspect of Doctor Who that I find very inspiring. The young kids remind me of me at their age. Seeing their excitement, I’m transported back to a time when my life was a heck of a lot simpler.*

* Saying that, there was that time at infants’ school when I had my Sarah Jane Smith Weetabix card confiscated. So distraught was I that I thieved it back from the teacher’s drawer, sinking myself further into the mire. My life seemed pretty damned complicated that day.

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