Hines Sight

Frazer Hines is one of the UK's most charismatic stars of stage and screen. From his early days as a child actor in films such as X The Unknown, and appearances in Emergency Ward 10 and Coronation Street, Frazer became a household name playing the time-travelling Scot, Jamie McCrimmon, alongside Patrick Troughton in the BBC's cult series Doctor Who. In 1972 he was cast as Joe Sugden in the fledgeling soap opera Emmerdale Farm, and became the housewife's favourite farmer for over two decades.

In this compelling and funny book, Frazer reveals his own thoughts and feelings when faced with stardom at an early age, the pressure of being an early 'media celebrity', his love of horses and cricket, and what it was actually like to date, marry and divorce some of the most eligible and beautiful women to have crossed stage and screen in the last 40 years.

Looks like it's official. I'll be doing a new Dr Who novel (not a tie-in) for appearance, I understand, by next Christmas. Still have to have talks etc. with producers and publishers but we should be signing shortly. Should be fun.

Hmmm. I couldn't get to the Gallifrey site but I can answer the odd question here:

1) I've been watching Dr Who since it began. Haven't liked all the doctors and after Peter Davison stopped watching regularly until the new BBC Wales series.
2) Since the Tom Baker series, a lot of my ideas crept into the stories and so in many ways I'll be writing a story which already echoes my own work.
3)I do have to submit it to editors so they can make sure it fits into the canon and this, of course, is understandable. By saying it wasn't a tie-in I did, of course, mean that it would be an original novel, not one which was linked to previous stories.

I share an enthusiasm for the current Dr Who broadcasts with quite a few friends who are 'literary' novelists and I sense in some of the Gallifrey remarks a suspicion of the 'outsider' which you used to get when someone with a reputation as a non-sf writer would decide to write an sf novel. All I can answer to this is 'wait and see'. I'm certainly not a non-watcher! Neither am I someone who ascribes a kind of religiosity to an enthusiasm. This phenomenon crops up a lot, these days associated with sf/fantasy, LOTR, H.Potter, Twilight and so on. I hate these presumptions of exclusivity either in my own corner of the literary world or elsewhere. Mike Kustow, once director of the Royal Shakespeare Co, described this as 'the anxious ownership syndrome', when faced with his first confrontation with sf fandom in Brighton 1968. He'd found the same sort of expression with Shakespeare fans when someone from 'outside' showed an interest.

I've been asked to write Dr Who scripts or stories almost since the series began, because I was known to enjoy Dr Who. Only recently did the time feel right to me to do one. I'm going to enjoy that, too.