When I was nine years old I remember being driven along Blackpool promenade at night when the ‘illuminations’ were on and it didn’t excite me that much. Until I saw a Police Box down a side street. A TARDIS! That was the entrance to a Doctor Who exhibition as I later found out. I didn’t get to go to it and we didn’t drive past it again despite my “Dad, can we go back” pleas.

So, scarred for life and scared on a weekly Saturday night basis I finally got to go to a Doctor Who exhibition at Longleat on my 13th birthday. At the time I was a member of DWAS and got the regular Celestial Toymaker newsletter. My paper round money didn’t make it to a further subscription but I’d seen the news item about the Longleat exhibition and bleated significantly to my parents that they took me there for my birthday; if only to shut me up.

I’ve got pics from my visit, all with camera flash reflections off the glass around the exhibits; somewhere in a box in the basement. I’ll scan them and upload here at some point. I remember being really excited when I went around and could see Sea Devils, Silurians (actually, probably only one of each) and a wobbly Dalek that moved back and forth. Oh, and there was a TARDIS console. To be fair it was a good day out (lions are quite friendly and won’t normally eat irritating kids); I did leave feeling underwhelmed though. I wanted to go back to the exhibit and make it mean something, make my connection with The Doctor. Which of course would not happen as it was a collection of props with the occasional clunky moving creature.

So, the point I’m getting to is this: went to the Earls Court Exhibition Centre yesterday and took some pics. I’d been there last month and my camera had no charge so no pics but a friend got tickets for this weekend so I went again.

Going around the exhibit again was amazing. I’m 22 years older than I was when I went to Longleat. Seeing kids who are the age I was at the time, thoroughly enjoying it was just great. And… you get to take photos.

Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be posting the pics that we took, on Web Of Fear, with a topic to discuss.