Hello! My name is Soph and I’m an artist and writer who has written articles, fiction and created interlude artwork for a variety of websites, fanzines and charity projects in the last year.
I’ve been invited to share with you my most recent project, Mild Curiosities. It was inspired by Doctor Who On Twitch this summer.
This was a six week event where Doctor Who was broadcast on Twitch in order from Hartnell to McCoy. Watching this bring a new audience to learn about and love the show inspired me to see if people would be interested in art and stories about Ian and Barbara, whom the newly-inspired audience had become attached to in the week they had been aired. I never expected the interest to be as high as it had! Then I got to work.
My close friend and editor who had worked with me on a few occasions previous, James Bojaciuk, offered his help to set everything up. From there we set off looking for looking for art and stories about Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright.
I wanted the proceeds to go to charity for breast cancer, which took away the actress that played Barbara Wright, the wonderful Jacqueline Hill. As Jacqueline would have turned 89 in December, that was our aim to release. Proceeds will be going toward Beast Cancer Now, a research charity aiming to assure that everyone with everyone who develops breast cancer by 2050 will live – and live well.
So as a special treat for all of you I’ve included some extracts and introductions for Mild Curiosities to whet your appetite for the stories inside.
Mild Curiosities can be purchased now.
The fanzine is available to buy now for £4.99 on digital download, which includes a PDF, mobi and epub formats. You can get in digital here!
Physical copies can be pre-ordered for £19.99. You can get it in print here!
A digital and physical package can be gotten for £21.99, which gets you both the ebooks and the print pre-order. You can get both here!
All proceeds will be donated to Breast Cancer Now.
Find out more about the responding breast cancer charity here: https://breastcancernow.org/
Have you ever wondered about Ian and Barbara became friends at Coal Hill School? Kara Dennison explores their first conversations and their teacher life in her short slice of life story, ‘Touch the Stars’.
“Mr. Chesterton?”
Yes, that would probably be best. Her coming to him first, so he wasn’t forcing her to be polite if she wasn’t in the mood. Maybe as he was leaving for the evening, just casually—
“You are Mr. Chesterton, aren’t you?”
Ian shook himself out of his daydream, then apparently launched straight back into it. Ms. Wright had appeared next to him in the hallway as he stared off into space.
“Oh, er, yes. Sorry, that’s me. You’re Barbara Wright, I believe? Sorry, I’m still getting to know everyone.” Which you’ve absolutely backed up by knowing her name right away, you fool.
Ms. Wright smiled. It was polite, but not strained. “I saw you out here looking up at something and came to see if you needed anything.”
Ian glanced at his previous choice of staring spot: a crack in the far corner of the ceiling. “Ah, no, sorry to pull you away. Just staring off into space as usual.” She didn’t seem inclined to respond right away, so he rushed to fill the silence. “You know, that’s me. Teach the students, do my marking, then out for my 4 P.M. stare. ‘There’s Ian again,’ the others say, ‘having his afternoon stare. Must be 4 o’clock.’”
Dear God, shut up.
Ms. Wright laughed. It was small and bright and sudden, like the bubble of a tea kettle. Despite how pleasant it seemed, he couldn’t really read anything from it.
“Well, I’ll let you get back to your daily stare, then. Let me know if you need help finding your way around, though.”
She was gone as suddenly as she’d arrived.
Present day Ian Chesterton’s had a special project close to his heart in the last few years, and with it brings about a particular memory of the story of ‘The Wreck of the San Juan De Pasajes’ (told by James Bojaciuk).
You know what those days were like, rattling around the universe. Sometimes I think I’ve made it sound too dangerous! But then again…We had just come from the markets of the Tracian system. When the Doctor’s ship stopped again, I stepped out into what could’ve passed for a biting northern Winter. Snow and all. It would be a white Christmas with this much snow, I fancied, even if it were only still Autumn!
When my eyes cleared from the glare, we were standing on a beautiful ship. However, a beautiful ship of a far greater vintage. It was a seventeenth century sailing vessel, with bright, light wood.
“Wherever we are, Doctor, it’s not home!” I put my arms tight around myself.
“Nonsense! We are certainly on earth. It may only be one of those less looked-in ‘rooms’ everyone has in their home world.” He chuckled, bubbling over with merriment over his attempt at a joke. Then he looked out. “Only a chill!”
And he stepped out, only pausing at the door. “Follow me, my child,” he added to Barbara. “But bring a coat. Tell me what you can about this ship…”
She smiled at me, taking one of the coats we’d gotten from market, and followed him out.
I doubt I can describe what happened next. Imagine getting ten cruises worth of seasickness while standing on solid ground. Then imagine the solid ground is lurching with you. And the most frightful sound! The TARDIS screamed. The central column didn’t move up and down—it lurched, as though trying to fly side to side in a container that wouldn’t allow it. Bells rang in my ears. Somewhere, below it all, I wondered if there was a church tower in the TARDIS.
And Susan?
Susan clung to the console, pulling on a lever.
“Ian! Ian!”
I stumbled across the floor, dizzy, as our Susan multiplied into ten, twenty, a hundred Susans scattershot across my vision.
“Help me!”
Jeff Goddard’s short flash fiction gives us a small insight to the reaction from the school teachers after Dalek Invasion of Earth in ‘A Restless Night’.
The TARDIS at night was always a strange place, thought Ian. He often found himself wandering the corridors while the others slept and the Doctor busied himself fussing around that console of his, clucking over the instruments and tapping dials. He could lose himself for hours in that strange ship of the Doctor’s. Every corridor looked the same, but always subtly different. He was also convinced that it would subtly shift and alter around him, imperceptible and never maliciously, he always ended up where he needed or wanted to be, but there was an ever-present sensation of being slightly lost. It felt as though it was built for a larger crew too. As though it was meant for an entire team of people, and surely not just the original two occupants it had housed when they first stumbled upon it all that time ago. The ship felt even lonelier now Susan was gone.
His wanderings had somehow led him to the console room and strangely the Doctor wasn’t there, but Barbara was, sat in the chair, a blanket over her legs.
It’s the 1960s but not quite the 1960s you were expecting. A tale of wonder, bravery, and some spectacular superheroes in William J. Martin’s ‘Doctor Who in a Very Exciting Adventures with the Eater of Worlds’.
“Help me, someone!…I—the staircase has collapsed. Hello? Please, can anyone hear me?”
Ian strode toward the voice, halting just long enough to call back to the others.
“It’s coming from the fallen building.”
Barbara sprinted across to him. Vicki followed, gesturing for Argamant to join them.
A mound of rubble covered the doorway of the building. It filled the sidewalk, spilling out onto the road. At its highest, it stood a whole head above Ian….
“We can hear you!” he called up. “Don’t worry, we’re going to try and get you down.”
“Oh, thank God,” said the voice from inside. “I wasn’t prepared for such a commotion, not to mention one with aftershocks!”
“Ah, well. You’ll be alright now. My name is Ian Chesterton. What’s yours?”
“Karen. I’m Karen Lieber.”
Ian lowered himself onto the mound. Brick shards rolled down to the ground. He buried his hands into the dust, grabbing onto full, surviving bricks.
“Are you hurt at all, Karen?”
“I—well…I can’t feel my legs. I feel scratched up, all along my body. And there seems to be something on top of me. I can’t get up.”
“Right. I’m coming up now….So, Karen, what brings you to Times Square today?”
“I have an art studio here. I sculpt, mainly. Oh, I hope nothing has fallen over…”
“What can you see from where you are?”
“Well…Nothing really.”
“Ah.”
“I’m blind.”
His hand reached the mound’s summit…
“Well.” He brought one foot onto the peak. With both hands on the remaining wall, he dragged the rest of himself up…Both feet balanced on the highest point, Ian stretched up, pushing his arms as far up the wall as possible. The bricks became a ledge five inches past his fingertips.
“Of course, why make this easy?”
He sucked in a long, low breath. The rubble growled as he bent at the knees. A herd of pebbles clunked down to the pavement. He held up his arms.
And jumped.
The mound dissolved beneath him. Entire bricks slipped, clattering to the floor. Clumps of broken shards bounced down.
Ian grabbed the ledge.
He hoisted one arm onto the floor above. Then the other. With a grunt, he dragged himself into Karen’s studio.
A set of plinths stood in a grid pattern across the floor. On each sat a clay bust; they were perfect replicas of famous faces. The only furniture was a chaise-lounge, buried beneath a vast wooden beam. The ceiling of the far right corner lay in tatters. Clusters of snapped planks formed another mound.
“Ian?” said the mound.
“Karen!” He darted over to the corner. “You’re under a large chunk of the ceiling. Much of it is broken bits of wood. I can’t even see you underneath it all.”
“That makes two of us.”
“I’m going to lift off the outer planks. Once we’ve got you uncovered, we’ll see what needs doing.”
He sank to his knees. The first plank clunked onto the floor. He reached for the second.
Argamant appeared in the centre of the room.
“What is the purpose of this? You don’t know this woman. She is nothing to you. Even if you do save her, she shall soon be consumed by Omnidax.”
“Because, Argamant, I am not going to just stand here and let an innocent woman lie injured in her art studio. I don’t care if we’re all about to die, or if those superheroes save us all. I cannot let someone suffer if there’s anything I can do to stop it.”
“Who are you talking to?” asked Karen. “Ian, is there somebody with you?”
“Yes, he’s—”
Four more planks hit the floor.
“Karen Lieber is thirty-one years old. She learned sculpture from her step-father, and considers this the only gift he ever gave her.”
“Ian, who is that?”
“He’s—” Ian paused. “An annoyance is what he is at the moment. Now how about you stop poking your nose into other people’s lives, and help her out?”
This won’t be the last time the Doctor has unexpected guests on his timeship that he wasn’t expecting. Find out more about who in ‘The Stowaways’ by Peter Cumiskey.
Barbara leaned against the console. “You know. On the surface of that strange barren world, I had never felt so far from home. In Cathay… With the Aztecs… Even on the fantastic spaceships we’ve travelled aboard, I’ve always found something I could relate to. Some vestige of human culture or civilisation…. But the Zarbi… Vicki’s friend. They’re just so…”
“Alien?” suggested Ian.
“That’s one way of putting it,” smiled Barbara, faintly embarrassed. “I was going to say unfamiliar.”
Ian nodded his head in understanding and pulled up one of the antique chairs for Barbara. When they had first boarded the Tardis, this chair had belonged to Doctor Who—and woe betide anybody who sat in it. Slowly but surely, the Doctor had mellowed and become less irascible. Maybe it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that the old boy could welcome a pet on board…
“I’ve been in your shoes more often than you might think,” said Ian. Barbara looked at him quizzically. “Oh yes, all these jaunts into Earth’s history. The Reign of Terror… Nero’s Rome… I often rely on you to make sure I stay in line…. And sometimes the Doctor does too, although he’d never admit it, of course!”
Barbara blushed. “And what about the Science master of Coal Hill School? It was you that introduced fire to Stone Age man!”
“Yes,” chuckled Ian. “I suppose I did.” Their eyes met across an ormolu clock. After a moment, Barbara replied: “As we learn about each other, so we learn about ourselves.”
Ian asked: “Who said that—some great philosopher, I imagine?”
“Yes, I rather think it was.”
Ian finally gets his wish, to sit in a pub and drink a pint again, along with Barbara Wright, but there’s more to this fulfilled wish than meets the eye in Adam Christopher’s ‘Homecoming’.
“You know,” said the man, as he gently eased himself into a seat in the corner of the crowded pub, “I can’t even begin to tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to one of these.” He lifted his pint glass to the light and carefully studied the colour and clarity of his bitter.
The woman seated beside him took a sip of her dry white and began to open a packet of nuts. “Well,” she said, as she offered him the bag, “It’s been two years since our last visit to this place.” She paused in thought for a moment, and added between a crunch, “At a rough estimate, of course.”
The man chuckled quietly into his beer, then reached into his jacket pocket. Extracting a large leather wallet he emptied its contents onto the table. A few tarnished coins and a button rolled across the polished surface.
“Well, enjoy it, because I’m afraid we’ll have to walk after this,” he said, stacking the coins into separate piles. “I haven’t got enough for another bus fare.”
The woman smiled and took another sip of her wine. “Never mind,” she said. “Just think, tomorrow morning you can go along to the bank. There should be at least two years’ worth of compound interest to collect!”
The man’s expression set into one of pleasant amusement. “Yes, you’re right! Maybe I’ll have my chance to get some of the latest gear,” he said, gesturing towards a group of parka- clad Mods as they rose from a nearby table.
Was leaving the Tardis the right thing to do? Barbara Wright has a lot on her mind now she’s back in 1965. Dana Reboe tells us exactly what in ‘Comfort in Tea and Tales of Time Travel’.
Neither party spoke. Not just yet, both consumed with their own web of emotions to untangle and sort. They had been so determined to get home, now that they were here, the victory felt somewhat…hollow.
Barbara’s mind began to drift, her eyes slipping closed. The strain of the day taking its toll, she allowed the familiar street noise of early morning London to envelope her and cradle her to the space between consciousness and sleep.
She was aboard the TARDIS; from what she could gather, she and Ian had been there at least a relative week…or rather, that’s what it felt like. Barbara’s legs were hanging out the TARDIS doors, nothing but inky blackness beneath her, pin pricks of light winking their welcome out in the distance. She wasn’t certain of the science (nor was Ian, for that matter, which made her chuckle to herself—just a little, mind) but the Doctor had created something of an air bubble around the TARDIS, which meant she could observe the view for as long as she wished in safety.
And what a view it was.
Her stomach did tiny backflips as she studied the swirls of colour before her; the passionate magentas, the sweeps of deep blue, the splashes of golden yellow all blended together in one gorgeous array. She had never seen anything like it in her life—and it made her heart swell with absolute wonder, with pure curiosity. A childhood feeling she couldn’t at all recall having felt in her adulthood thus far. What else was out there, waiting to be explored? What other treasures did the universe have to offer that the human race had barely begun to scrape the surface of?
Barbara Wright has been sent something rather mysterious in the post. What is it exactly? Can the two school teachers figure out the answer? Read about it in Logan Fairchild’s ‘The Peculiar Package.’
Barbara stared at the strange, small silver device in her hand. It had arrived a few days before with no trace of where it had come from. At first it only appeared as a regular package. The contents reminded her of something the Doctor would have. There was a screen, like that of a television or the Doctor’s scanner in the TARDIS. All around it a plethora of small switches and buttons that eluded Barbara’s understanding. The Doctor was long gone. There was no way of asking him how to use it. She tried to the absolute best of her ability; pressing every button and flipping all the switches. She tried as many combinations as she could remember. She worked on it for days. With Ian away visiting family and school being out for holiday break, she had very little else to keep her occupied. But for all Barbara could see, this thing was simply a piece of junk. It gave no sign or sound of being functional in any way.
Thankfully, Ian was returning that evening and his plans were to head straight to Barbara’s for a night out. The two of them had been going out regularly. It was suffice to say they were more than just friends at this point. Ian was truly the one person she felt the most comfortable with; the safest. After all, he was the only other person she had left who went through the same experiences at her. And while the knowledge that there is more out there is intriguing, it’s a bit frightening as well.
She hadn’t always been so curious about space the way she was now. Never put much thought into there being other planets or aliens. She only knew what she grew accustomed to. Travelling with the Doctor gave her a whole new view on those sort of things. Perhaps that was what led to her active interest in the object, as well? While she appreciated the mysteries of the universe a lot more, she was much happier to experience the little nuances of the otherworldly from the comfort of her everyday life. This little device was making quite a disruption in her everyday life. It was a little too obviously alien for her liking. And the fact it showed up on her doorstep with her name on it certainly didn’t make her feel any better.
In Stephen Hatcher’s story ‘Rivera Refuge’, Ian and Barbara are getting a holiday away for the first time since they returned to Earth. Strange things start happening, and they can’t help but wonder if it has anything to do with You Know Who?
By midday, she had found nothing. The sun was becoming hot and Barbara was becoming light-headed. She realized that she had had nothing to eat or drink all day and would have to stop, to recharge and to think. Then she would continue—all day if necessary, and the next and every day until she found Ian, sure in the knowledge that he was still alive. She decided too that if she hadn’t found him by nightfall, then she would inform the police—although in her heart, she knew that they would be able to do very little.
Barbara found a table in a small café-restaurant in the Condamine and picked up the menu. It was then that she noticed one of her fellow customers. The girl was tall and thin and was sitting at the table next to hers. What first caught Barbara’s attention was her short, unnaturally blonde hair, then as the girl lifted her sunglasses to study the menu, Barbara caught a very brief glimpse of the same violet eyes as those of the man she was looking for.
Barbara looked down at her own menu, keen not to let the
girl know that she had noticed her, but at the same time watching her intently out of the corner of her eye. To Barbara’s relief, the girl ordered lunch, allowing her the chance to eat too. She could relax for a while, knowing that she had picked up the trail. “Ian,” she whispered to herself, “I’m coming to find you.”
As a child Johnny Chesterton has had a tirade of different hobbies. This one might be the latest in a long line, it might not, but he still has to prove it to his parents in Anna Maloney’s ‘A Rockstar He Will Be’.
Barbara rose to the next morning to find Johnny already awake, dressed, and eating something that could passably be identified as a breakfast.
“Why, Johnny, what on Earth are you doing awake at this hour?”
He turned to her, eyes bright but still a little sleepy.
“I’m going to the music shop. They open early, and I want to start soon.”
Barbara raised an eyebrow.
“Start what?”
“Convincing you.”
Her lips pursed slightly as her second eyebrow joined the
first high on her forehead, watching him quickly finish the mess of eggs. She opened her mouth to tell him to clean up after himself before he left, but he anticipated it and hurried to the sink to scrub the plate off. A glance at the drainboard told her he’d already cleaned up the pan he’d used.
“Bye, mum!”
He shoved the plate into the drainboard and ran out of the room.
“Be safe, dear,” Barbara managed to call, watching through the kitchen window at the sound of the front door slamming to see Johnny pull his bicycle from the side of the house and jump on it. He’d affixed a decently sized basket above the back wheel, apparently at some time that morning. Barbara wondered vaguely how long he’d been awake as she watched him ride off.
She waved, but Johnny didn’t look back at the house to see.
“Barbara, what is it?”
Barbara was brought out of her thoughts by Ian, standing slightly behind her with his hands on her shoulders. She shook her head slightly, unaware of just how much time had passed.
“Johnny woke up before me this morning. He made himself breakfast, washed up after, and took off on his bicycle to go to the music shop.”
Ian scoffed lightly in surprise.
“Well, I suppose he is determined. But he’ll have to keep it up. You know how he is when he wants something.”
Barbara nodded. Johnny’s all-encompassing obsessions always started strong, but she was all too aware of their habit of fizzling out quickly.
“Well, he’s off to a good start, at any rate. Perhaps he’ll actually keep cleaning up after himself!”
Ian laughed, and Barbara joined him. Johnny was not the neat type.
In Christopher Hawton’s ‘The Gift’, Johnny’s excited to have his parents on tour along with him and his girlfriend Tegan, but what he didn’t expect was it to bring up memories of a difficult adventure.
“Have you ever been here before Mr Chesterton?”
In a fair few countries, he would be tempted to give Barbara a wink before giving the dull normal answer. An answer that didn’t quite speak to the honest truth.
Johnny was full of that boyish enthusiasm. The tour was, apparently, going great. Kyoto and Auckland were particularly good performances and the Brisbane audience was very receptive. Ian couldn’t help but reflect that was because Johnny was dating one of “their own.”
Johnny seemed particularly impressed that the country was so relaxed they once lost a prime minister in the 1960s and nobody noticed for a week. Ian wasn’t so sure Harold Holt’s disappearance was something to brag about.
And then Johnny popped open his briefcase, really wanting his Mum’s artistic eye. They were going to do a promotional video for some afternoon show on the ABC and so he needed to choose a location for it. He dramatically fanned out photos, all various beaches.
Barbara was excited, praising a cove here or a lighthouse there, until suddenly she stopped and passed a photo to Ian, clearly shaken.
The photo showed a river snaking through long sands, surrounded by rising cliffs. Johnny was talking about how stunning Lorne is and the aerial shots they could get, but Ian wasn’t listening. Ian was remembering…
The Ship had been needing a fix to something or other. The Doctor had tried to explain it to Ian but, even to a trained scientist such as himself, he felt the Doctor’s science was more like magic. Whatever it was that had gone on the fritz, the Doctor and Susan were having to grow a new part. They were quite insistent on that. Maybe it was an infinity chamber or something else equally implausible-sounding. And then Barbara had spotted a kangaroo on the scanner, a lone kangaroo bouncing along the sands.
In no time at all, he and Barbara were laying a blanket on the beach. The Doctor had even managed to find some cheese and ginger beer so they could have a picnic, complete with wicker basket and cloth. Ian had taken a cautious gulp of the ginger beer and found it most quaffable even if it was probably Edwardian. Barbara was taking in some rays (as much as her Edwardian costume allowed) and he was reading some Fleming. Yet even as they settled in for the afternoon, Ian knew the peace was unlikely to last.
In Katie and Clare Lambeth’s story ‘The Kidnapping of Johnny Chess’, a fairground visit in 1985 goes array for Johnny and his band whilst on tour. Just who are these strangers, and why are they looking for Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright?
“Are you alright?” I asked Jocelyn.
“I don’t know. What’s going on? What do they want us for?”
“Money?” It was my only conclusion.
“You think they’ll contact our families?”
And that’s when I felt relief. My parents were Ian and Barbara Chesterton and if there was one thing I could count on, it was them finding a way to sort out the mess.
“Quiet,” one of the kidnappers said as he nudged me into the corner of the room and sat me down. He spoke in a peculiar raspy voice and was covered by a long cloak and mask, not moving like a person at all, instead shuffling and wriggling. I was starting to wonder what the disguise concealed.
“What do you want with us?” My bandmate Andy had asked but the masked captors just stood there clasping what looked like ceremonial daggers. They were waiting by the door as though for further instruction.
I stared long and hard at one of the figures as it slowly began to take down the hood and then remove the robe. As soon as the fabric was pulled away, I gasped as I realised the figure- our captor- wasn’t human at all! It was a tall being with thin limbs and glowing pink eyes. It had tufts of hair sprouting from various places on its skinny torso and it wore some kind of military style trousers. Jocelyn screamed. I wanted to scream too but nothing came out.
I’d been told stories of aliens on other worlds. My parents witnessed it all on far away planets where lands were ruled by insects, or aliens wished them to be turned into museum exhibits and I’d dreamed of what the aliens had looked like, almost wished them to appear. But when it happened for real, when I saw one in front of me with its hypnotic pink eyes and its long-clawed fingers, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see one ever again. They were real. I didn’t need to find the aliens. The aliens had found me!
My mother had always said that the adventures happen without looking for it and she was right.
You can purchase Mild Curiosities here!
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