Sergeant pepper pots: the origins of Doctor Who's Daleks lie in the Blitz
- Publication: New Statesman
- Date: 2012-08-31
- Author: Alwyn W. Turner
- Page: 36
- Language: English
When they first appeared in the 1960s, these tinpot dictators evoked the fear of Nazi occupation; today they're more Swinging Sixties nostalgia
On 2 January 1941 Cardiff suffered its worst air raid of the Second World War. "For over five hours," reported the South Wales Echo, "German planes, sweeping over the city, dropped thousands of incendiaries and numerous high explosive bombs." The intensity of the fire-bombing was such, noted the Times, "that it was possible to read a newspaper in the street". That night 165 people were killed, hundreds of houses were destroyed and Llandaff Cathedral was so badly damaged that it was closed for the next 15 months.
A couple of hundred yards from the cathedral, ten-year-old Terry Nation was alone in an Anderson shelter. He was an only child. His father was in the army and his mother was an ARP warden. He spent that night and many others sheltering from the Luftwaffe's bombs on his own, reading adventure stories and listening to incongruously cheerful programmes on the radio.
Twenty-three years later, by which time he was a journeyman writer for radio and television, Nation was commissioned to contribute a seven-part story for a proposed BBC teatime science fiction series to be called Doctor Who. But he had another job--on a variety show for the comedian Eric Sykes--so he knocked out the BBC scripts as quickly as he could. Writing an episode a day, he finished it in a week and forgot all about it.
Perhaps it was the pace of the writing that enabled him so effectively to tap into subconscious fears that resonated widely. Speed helps when inventing new myths: Robert Louis Stevenson created Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in three days, Anthony Burgess wrote A Clock-work Orange in three weeks, Henry Rider Haggard knocked out She in six weeks.
Similarly, Nation had no time to weigh every word; he was looking only to spin a yarn. Dredging through his childhood memories of H G Wells and Jules Verne and the terror of the Blitz, he came up with the Daleks, a science-fiction incarnation of the Nazis by another name: anonymous, pitiless, killing machines, bent on genocide.
They were an instant sensation when they made their debut in 1963 and, although Nation had killed them off at the end of the serial, the viewing public demanded their return. They came back the following year, when Dalekmania was the only serious rival to Beatlemania as the cultural sensation of 1964, and they've been coming back ever since. As Doctor Who starts gearing up for its 50th anniversary year, it's no great shock to find the Daleks revived once more to launch the new series.
They were an unlikely success, incapable of facial expression and with restricted movement--after their first appearance an eight-year-old viewer wrote to the BBC wondering "how the Daleks get up and down the steps". Yet they have proved phenomenally durable, scaring generation after generation of children. Endlessly reinterpreted by other writers, they exist independently of actors, and remain the ultimate baddies--resolutely evil, with no redeeming features.
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- APA 6th ed.: Turner, Alwyn W. (2012-08-31). Sergeant pepper pots: the origins of Doctor Who's Daleks lie in the Blitz. New Statesman p. 36.
- MLA 7th ed.: Turner, Alwyn W.. "Sergeant pepper pots: the origins of Doctor Who's Daleks lie in the Blitz." New Statesman [add city] 2012-08-31, 36. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: Turner, Alwyn W.. "Sergeant pepper pots: the origins of Doctor Who's Daleks lie in the Blitz." New Statesman, edition, sec., 2012-08-31
- Turabian: Turner, Alwyn W.. "Sergeant pepper pots: the origins of Doctor Who's Daleks lie in the Blitz." New Statesman, 2012-08-31, section, 36 edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=Sergeant pepper pots: the origins of Doctor Who's Daleks lie in the Blitz | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Sergeant_pepper_pots:_the_origins_of_Doctor_Who%27s_Daleks_lie_in_the_Blitz | work=New Statesman | pages=36 | date=2012-08-31 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=30 April 2024 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Sergeant pepper pots: the origins of Doctor Who's Daleks lie in the Blitz | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Sergeant_pepper_pots:_the_origins_of_Doctor_Who%27s_Daleks_lie_in_the_Blitz | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=30 April 2024}}</ref>
