Dalek I Loved You

Nick Griffiths watched his first Doctor Who aged four and a bit. He would have hidden behind the sofa but it was back against the wall and his parents didn't let him move furniture so he hid behind a cushion instead. He's since been told by his mum and dad that they didn't have a sofa only armchairs. So this book should really be called Behind the Armchair, but that didn't sound right.

And so began a life long obsession. When Doctor Who started getting rubbish (after Tom Baker basically) he nearly escaped into the world of music and girls until he discovered someone selling tapes of old episodes in the small ads and that was that again.

Dalek I Loved You is an irresistible memoir of a childhood lived through the 1970s and 1980s. Writing with wit and humour, Griffiths takes us on a poignant and often hilarious journey through his childhood, where he first encountered Dr Who, into his teens where he is packed off to boarding school and discovers girls and David Bowie, onto his first formative years of employment at some hip but now defunct music magazines and into life as a father and husband who is now writing about his childhood passion for a living.

For anyone who hid behind the sofa, dreamed of far away planets, or remembers those long lazy carefree summers of your childhood, Dalek I Loved You will be a wonderful journey. He may not have a TARDIS to whisk you off to far flung galaxies, but in Dalek I Loved You Nick Griffiths reminds us that growing up is the greatest adventure of them all.