Iconic Scarf - Disassembled

When I was 14 months, 21 days old my beloved BBC (currently so wounded and under attack from the Tory jackals) gave me the present of a lifelong friend - Dr Who. I can't remember a time before I was immersed in the Doctor's universe, indeed his first Regeneration is amongst the earliest memories i have. We are now rapidly approaching the celebrations of its 50th Anniversary ....it really doesn't seem forty years since I bought my copy of the 10th Anniversary Radio Times, Dr Who Special and no time at all since the 25th Anniversary episode but here we are! Frankly i think my own regeneration is long overdue - as I seem to remember William Hartnell saying just before he turned into Patrick Troughton, "This old body of mine is getting rather worn out..."

During the painful interregnum when it was off the airwaves I had a daughter and amongst my more successful bits of parenting I had succeeded in turning her into a diehard Whovian even before Paul McGann regenerated into Christopher Eccleston. I have happy memories of cuddling up in front of the TV with the toddler version of Catie for early Saturday morning cable TV marathons of old episodes. So as the celebrations approach it comes as no surprise to find history repeating itself (highly appropriate for time travellers) and Catie knitting herself a replica Dr Who scarf . There are two differences though between The Scarf I wore constantly as a teenager and the one currently sitting in unassembled form in Catie's wool stash; she is knitting it herself whereas I pressured my mother and grandmother into knitting mine, and hers will be a carefully researched, colour matched replica of the version worn in the 12th Season story The Ark in Space whereas mine was cobbled together from bits of left over wool in the maternal and grand maternal stashes and was consequently a garish muddle of 1970's acrylic colours. In those days we didn't have technology like the Internet that can pull up such research at the click of a button , just the old technology of knitting relatives that didn't really understand.