As the BBC celebrates 60 years of Doctor Who, Travis Elborough takes us back to a previous millennium, and an encounter with the fourth – and many would say best – Doctor, Tom Baker

Not long before the turn of the millennium I was working for the bookseller Waterstones as an editor on their website. This was an early short-lived venture into what was then laughably called e-commerce (the buzz phrase, I kid you not, was actually “bricks and clicks”) and was created largely in response to the arrival of Amazon.

The Internet was still novel and rather exciting. The mythic date 2000 AD was imminent and the long-promised jet-pack future appeared to have arrived at last… Well, we had EasyJet, at least.

My colleagues and I, however, were based some distance from happening Old Street’s Silicon Roundabout. We were in Brentford, in a grim office complex called Capital Court, soon waggishly dubbed Capital Punishment Court. Working there often felt more like being banished to Siberia than operating at the cutting edge of cyberspace.

However, the job itself had its compensations. I spent my days writing book blurbs and even got to interview some authors. Mostly this was over email. But Waterstones also published the odd physical magazine, and so it was that I managed to interview, in person, Doctor Who actor Tom Baker for a magazine aimed at students.

Baker had just published a children’s book, albeit one with a body count that meant it was now being marketed slightly ironically at the Pulp Fiction-poster crowd. And there was a lot of slight irony around in 1999.

The results of my encounter with Mr Baker, first published in the September of that year, are offered below as they originally appeared, and as an exercise in time-travelling for Whovians of a certain age…

SEPTEMBER 1999: AN APPOINTMENT WITH THE DOCTOR
As any child of the seventies or early eighties knows, there is only one true Doctor Who – Tom Baker. Each Saturday night the whole of the UK tuned in to watch a resplendently scarved Galifreyan – aided by some jelly babies, a sonic screwdriver and a tin dog – do battle with a galaxy of evil. Daleks, Cybermen and The Master all attempted to dominate the universe but, with the help of some swift manoeuvres in the air-conditioning units, our curly-haired hero would always outwit them. We could then emerge from behind the sofas relieved that the space-time continuum was safe, at least until next week.

It is, therefore, with some trepidation that I make my way to The Swan, a pub in Bloomsbury, to meet one of my childhood heroes, who, fresh from the success of his autobiography, Who on Earth is Tom Baker?, is about to publish his first fiction book. The Boy Who Kicks Pigs is a magnificently malevolent tale about Robert Caligari, a teenager who manages to kill half of Kent before being devoured by rats.

Originally commissioned as a children’s book, this cross between Roald Dahl and Reservoir Dogs was deemed a tad violent for a nation strung out on the Teletubbies. But then some things are just too good for kids.

I arrive to find Tom and Julian the photographer already ensconced in the pub. Baker greets me with a beaming smile as he takes a sip of his double G&T – “I can never taste singles,” he later informs me. For a man who is alleged to have drunk Anthony Hopkins under the table, this doesn’t come as much of a surprise.

As I sit down he fixes me with his piercing blue eyes and then, in a voice that has travelled half the galaxy, prophesied the fall of the Romanovs and chilled the Hound of the Baskervilles, says, “I’m reading a very sad book. Do you like sad stories?” For a brief moment I expect him to wax lyrically, like Uncle Monty from Withnail and I, about former theatrical glories.

Instead he continues, “You see, on my way here I sneezed and when I opened my eyes there was a little piss-artist standing before me. It was as if he had materialised from my snot. He looked up at me with eyes like segments of a blood orange and said, ‘I used to be as big as you.’ I said, ‘Whatever happened?’ ‘Effin’ Special Brew.'”

Tom then roars with laughter before adding, “I gave him three quid. I always give beggars money if they have a story. None of that ’30p for a cup of tea’ crap. If a beggar comes up and says he’s trying to get the money together for a bottle of champagne then I’m hooked.”

Another rumble of laughter echoes through the pub. I have visions of the world’s whales hurtling toward the shores mistaking his low tones for sonar signals.

Tom Baker laughs a lot over the next hour as he regales me with his opinions on a barrel full of subjects: Dracula (“They always cast vegetarians,” he confides); sitcoms (“I still love Dad’s Army but I can’t stand that effing British school of middle-class sarcasm that passes for wit”); novelists (“You have to be shameless to be a truly great novelist”).

I found it hard to believe that before acting he managed to survive the six years of virtual silence he spent as a monk.

“To tell a great story you must be brave and vulgar,” he informs me. “I, however, can only tell stories.”

The taller the better, I felt like adding.

While on the subject of stories, I asked why on earth he had decided to write such a monstrous children’s book?

“It was a tale that came to me. I wanted to write a story about a monster, but one who was also funny.”

Robert the main character is certainly a monster – he happily poisons his sister, and helps an old man to walk out in front of a bus. I ask Tom if he ever worried that some people might find it all a bit disturbing.

“No, I think children like grotesque stories. You see, I like to find irony or fun in any situation. Those old people in my book who would rather burn than leave their car are a bit like those idiots who run into burning buildings to rescue cats and end up dying. I’d like to write a book where someone saves their cat but leaves their revolting children to burn.”

I’m obviously looking scared because he adds, “Look, I don’t think you could write a funny story about a paedophile, but you could write one about a sexually insatiable old woman.” He pauses and looks wistfully into the distance as if just discovering his next project, before resuming, “You see I’m a bit grotesque myself. But because of the old Doctor Who thing people are sympathetic to me.”

Partly through fear and partly because I’ve barely got a word in edgeways, I haven’t yet mentioned the role that made him a household name. I decided to broach the subject by asking him if, like Alec Guinness with Star Wars, he wished people would stop going on about Doctor Who.

“No, Doctor Who was infinitely more interesting than Star Wars,” and, as if sensing some doubt in me, booms, “Still is,” before bellowing proudly, “I was a children’s hero. After all these years I still get sweet love letters, presents and even requests to father children across the globe.”

Steeling myself for perhaps my boldest question, I mumble something about a certain incident in his autobiography involving an Australian hotel, a female fan and his Doctor Who costume. A broad smile breaks across Baker’s face.

“Well, after the book came out I got a letter from her thanking me for presenting the memory so tenderly. She said she’d be in London soon and would I like to meet for dinner.”

Did you go?

“No. That would have been reckless even for me.”

Then apropos of nothing, or possibly to change the subject, he interjects, “The Blackadder I was in was on the other night. I did enjoy that.”

Baker played a legless pirate in the sitcom, and sitting among the oak-panelled walls of the pub, I can see it was a role he was unduly suited for.

Mention of Blackadder has led him seamlessly into another highly improbable tale involving Rowan Atkinson and his cars, but within seconds he’s midway into an elegy on the wonders of Brian Blessed: “My God, he’s so nourishing. None of this effing nouvelle cuisine, he’s like a bloody great plateful. Speaking of which, we should order some lunch.”

We pause to ponder the menu. Tom, who has now switched from G&Ts to a rousing red wine, decides the perfect companion for his Antipodean grape will be a bowl of jam roly poly with custard. Hunger has slowly gripped him and, halfway through telling me about his forthcoming role as a ghost in Charlie Higson’s new version of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), his sugary luncheon arrives. The interview is pronounced over and Tom bids Julian and me farewell, happily sending us on our way with the words, “Make it up if you like.”

I stagger off to find the tube, my head befuddled by gin and his eclectic conversation, wondering quite where the time has gone.

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