You can't move for tenuous Doctor Who'anniversaries' nowadays, but what happened on that very first one way back in November 1963? Did anything even happen at all? Would the BBC have noticed, or even cared, that what was in many ways just another show had notched up a less-than-dazzling twelve months on air?
Well, as you've probably worked out by now, I've been trying to find this out, and you can now read the results of this recorded-as-live black and white quest in One Glorious Year, a special mini-magazine available as part of a special one-off revival of Faze, John Connors' offbeat and influential nineties Doctor Who fanzine. Why was Jason The Cat excused from sending Verity Lambert a congratulatory telegram? How are Marvin Gaye, some photos of Lulu, and a Beatles song that hadn't even been recorded yet involved in all this? Who were 'Peter And The Headlines'? And why was William Hartnell plying a young blonde lady with booze? Find out all of this, and more (including which Light Programme jazz concert I'm now looking for an off-air of) in One Glorious Year!
Faze is available as a free eBook or a limited edition print version (which really does look rather splendid), and you can find out more about how to get hold of it by clicking here. 'Time out for comedy!'.
You can find tons more about the early years of Doctor Who in my book Well At Least It's Free.