The earliest memory I have of Doctor Who goes way back to the late 70s or early 80s; I distinctly remember seeing dinosaurs attacking London in an episode that must have been a repeat from a Third Doctor serial, Invasion of the Dinosaurs.

Could my memory be faulty, however? A scan of the BBC repeat page of the frankly incredible resource, broadwcast.org, doesn’t seem to indicate that it was repeated in the time period where I would have been young enough for it to have been the first Doctor Who episode I saw, but I can picture it incredibly clearly – and it made a massive impression on me!

Regardless of that, we are talking about a first encounter with the Doctor nearly 45 years ago – when the show was already edging towards being 20 years old.

Tempus Fugit, as they say.

Everyone has ‘their’ Doctor – and, despite Tom Baker inhabiting the role at a time when I would have likely seen my first new episodes, the one who felt like my Doctor was Peter Davison.

I was just three years old when the Fourth Doctor regenerated into the Davison’s Fifth – and only a year older when the Fifth Doctor’s first series started. Despite being so young, I was deeply involved any time Doctor Who was on the TV; I don’t recall it ever scaring me, though I was particularly resilient when it came to spooky stuff or outright horror – and, from my recollections, Davison’s era was less horror-tinged than several of his predecessor’s stories anyway.

So there’s no hiding behind the sofa from me, as many people claim to have done when they first watched Doctor Who.

In any case, I find it utterly remarkable, impressive and pretty damn exciting to be writing this on the 60th anniversary of the show, having seen it die (more than once) and thankfully return from the dead in 2005 – with the mid 00s continuation of the series, then-showrunner Russell T Davies seems to have helped ensure that it’s now firmly lodged in popular culture forever.

Once unfairly derided as low budget schlock by casual observers (myself included, if I’m honest, once I reached my early teens) Doctor Who’s resilience – thanks to dedicated fans, several of whom managed to shift themselves into its orbit and help to carry the saga through its darkest day – is a testament to the strength of the material, whether its classic or ‘new’ Who.

I absolutely adore how diverse and inclusive modern Who is; though classic Doctor Who does well in these areas, it does still struggle at times with some dated elements. 1977’s Fourth Doctor story, The Talons of Weng-Chiang, is a good example of a well-written episode, brought down by a poor choice in casting a British actor as a Chinese character, along with all other Chinese characters presented only as dated stereotypes. There’s also plenty of racist comments that the Doctor either ignores or actually takes part in himself; this isn’t characteristic of the Doctor himself in general, thankfully.

I’ve been binging both old and newer content in preparation for the imminent Specials – and, despite those aforementioned issues, I’m struck by just how enjoyable even the older series are, now that I’m old enough to appreciate the writing and look past the budgetary constraints the cast and crew were almost always saddled with.

These days, I find myself even more impressed with what was achieved in the 70s and 80s, with such limited resources available to the production team – and the actors involved always seemed to give it their all.

So it’s great, in a world where I’ve now encountered Peter Davison in person (see my pic above!), that I can sit here and wish one of the finest shows in television history a very happy 60th anniversary.

Long may it continue; Gallifrey falls no more.