As old as Doctor Who
I already knew I had a memorable birthdate - when my mother was halfway through giving birth to me a nurse rushed in and disturbed the special moment by announcing that President Kennedy had been assassinated.
Unfortunately the horror of the world that was waiting for me was all a bit too much, and I refused to be born until early the following day, the 23rd November 1963. Being born in the UK in the early morning meant it was still only the 22nd November on the grassy knoll in Dallas, where the murder had taken place, so I have often used artistic licence and claimed (with some truth) that I was born on the day it actually happened.
Well it seems I no longer need to make these claims - something even more exciting has turned up.
We went to a Doctor Who fancy dress party yesterday. I haven’t seen Doctor Who for perhaps 20 years, but rumours often reach us that it is now the biggest thing on UK television. Apparently the stage sets wobble a lot less than the old days, and it is really quite exciting. Hmmm.
As part of the build up to the fancy dress party someone asked me if I was born before or after Doctor Who. Incredibly I had no idea, but they thought the first episode was around the time Kennedy was shot…so, excitement mounting, I did some research.
Well, it turns out the first ever episode of Doctor Who was broadcast on 23rd November 1963! Not necessarily to total acclaim - rather to a bemused audience who didn’t know what to make of a police box that could travel through time and space - but nonetheless it was broadcast just hours after I was born. The transmission was delayed ten minutes because of news reporting about the Kennedy assassination.
Even more exciting for me, the first series was called ‘The Unearthly Child’, pretty appropriate for my birthday don’t you agree! A couple of quotes from the first transmission:
“I was born in another time, another world…”
“But you are one of us! You look like us, you sound like us…”
“Have you ever thought what it’s like to be wanderers in the fourth dimension? Have you?”
and the best of all…’That’s not his name. Who is he? Dr who?’
So there you have it. Squeezed between the death of Kennedy and the birth of Doctor Who was my own little dramatic entry into the world - I had somehow managed to strangle myself with my own umbilical cord and emerged looking very blue, they tell me.
As a result I was too poorly to blog about the event at the time, so I am pleased to have now made amends. And apologies to everyone at the fancy-dress party last night who felt obliged, one after the other, to listen to this extraordinary tale of coincidences.
