Who Wants Everything? I'll Settle For 90 Percent!

Most Doctor Who fans (as opposed to Doctor Who viewers) probably have some sort of collection of merchandise related to the show. I don't think that's an unfair comment.

The degrees to which one has a collection will of course vary from person to person as will the motivations. Some people like the idea of a collection full stop and will buy any and all merchandise related to the show, take great pains to store and preserve it. Others buy the spin-off merchandise because they hunger for more Who adventures and with Big Finish issuing a new CD seemingly every single day there's certainly an appetite there for it!

Of course building a collection can be expensive. I recently joined eBay ironically because I wanted to thin out my collection (mostly duplicates of things). A month later I've sold nothing and spent over £300 plugging the holes in my Target Novelisation and New/Missing Adventures collections as well as buying up old fanzines that I missed out on first time (See my editorial in TTZ8).

My collection means a lot to me and I fall in to the category of "It's because I love Doctor Who and want more adventures!" My collection is predominantly books because I read with a voracious appetite and have done since I was a child and whilst I do try to not let Who predominate quite it often does. Ok so we're only in February but I've only read two non-Who book (Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson, a really great read about a lost WWII U-Boat; and Ethel & Ernest by Raymond Brigg, simply beautiful), the rest is all Doctor Who. For the last few weeks I've been carting around the revised edition of The Writer's Tale which has simultaneously revitalised my desire to pursue a career as a screen writer (Which after all is what I set out to do when I went to uni, I certainly didn't dream of being an accountant, which alas for now I am!) but also reminded me what a dreadful procrastinator I am.

It's true even in this entry, I sat down to write rather than actually tidy up my collection!!

I owned toys when I was a kid and I actually played with them for hours on end so for those who like mint memorabilia they'd dissaprove of my one armed Mel, one legged Tetrap, no tailed K9 and totally emasculated Dalek. Some adults collect the toys now and fair play to then, it's not really my cup of tea but I will confess I do have a Tenth Doctor, a sonic screwdriver and a fob watch which doesn't work (In that it doesn't turn me in to a Time Lord!)

I wish I could pinpoint exactly which was the first Target book that kick started the collection. Technically the 1965 edition of Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks by David Whitaker was my Dad's, brought at the time and thus by the time I laid eyes on it in the early 90s already yellow and fragile. I think the first I could call my own was either Doctot Who and the Terror of the Autons or The Faceless Ones given to me as a birthday present from one of my Mum's co-workers but I could be wrong.

Presently I am 12 books away from a complete Target collection (13 if we count Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma!), and 8 away from a complete Virgin NA/MA collection. I'm 5 billion away from a complete Big Finish collection!!!

Ok enough procrastinating. I'm on leave from work for a week and sorting out the Who collection (as well as the rest of my room) was top of my to do list. I may try and catalogue it and take photos along the way so stay tuned.