Doctor Who history book written by Norwich author Paul Hayes

Those are the words of a time traveller who is about to celebrate 60 years of thrilling children and families by battling all manner of evil alien menaces, such as daleks, cybermen and weeping angels. 

On November 23, 1963 the first episode of Doctor Who was screened by the BBC.

Starring William Hartnell as the Doctor, it showed two teachers, Ian and Barbara, stumble into his Tardis as they searched for his granddaughter Susan in a junkyard.

William Hartnell as the first incarnation of the Time Lord Picture: Sunday Mirror/Mirrorpix/Getty Images (Image: Sunday Mirror/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)

And to help celebrate 60 years of television viewers being entranced by the adventures of the Time Lord, a Norwich fan of the show has written a book about the origins of the programme and its first episodes, starring cavemen and daleks.

Paul Hayes has written Pull to Open Picture: Paul Hayes (Image: Paul Hayes)

Pull to Open is written by 39-year-old writer and radio producer Paul Hayes, and is the product of in-depth research including in the earliest Doctor Who files held in the BBC Written Archives Centre at Caversham in Berkshire.

The book, published by Ten Acre Films, takes the story from the first vague thoughts of making a new science-fiction series in the spring of 1962 to Doctor Who’s arrival on-screen in late 1963.

David Tennant and Catherine Tate are back for the 60th anniversary specials Picture: BBC/Bad Wolf Studios

His book also comes as Doctor Who is set to blast back on to television screens for a trio of 60th anniversary shows with David Tennant returning as the Time Lord, ahead of the introduction of the latest incarnation to be played by Ncuti Gatwa.

Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson as The Doctor and Ruby Sunday (BBC/Bad Wolf/Disney/PA)

Mr Hayes said: "Doctor Who has been a part of my life pretty much ever since I can remember, really.

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"We always watched it as a family in the late 1980s when I was a very small child, and I always really liked it, and after that would deliberately seek it out when there were repeats on BBC 2 in the early 90s and that kind of thing.

The first Doctor works out how to defeat his arch foes in the Daleks' Master Plan Picture: BBC (Image: BBC)

"But there was never really one particular moment when I felt as if I became a fan - I just was, from the age of about four or five."

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The book explores television culture at the time and how some 'stuffy' BBC bosses were opposed to the creation of Doctor Who, which at one point faced only having 13 episodes made due to concerns over it.

Pull to Open details the origins of Doctor Who Picture: Paul Hayes (Image: Pull to Open details the origins of Doctor Who Picture: Paul Hayes)

The story of how the show's first producer Verity Lambert had to defend introducing the daleks after defying a ban on having "bug-eyed monsters" has also passed into the Doctor Who lore.

Exterminate! A dalek patrols London in a story from 1964 in which they take over the Earth Picture: BBC (Image: BBC)

Mr Hayes said: "It’s always fascinating to explore how any great cultural institution came to be, like how a famous band got together.
 
“But with a television series you have so many more strands to the story, so many more people involved.

"Because this book is only about the creation of the show, it’s a chance to explore the lives of some of those who made it happen in a bit more detail than is usually possible."
 
The author said other things that happened in 1963 added extra fascination to the story for him.
 
He said: “It’s a very evocative period – the Space Race and The Beatles, That Was the Week That Was and Z-Cars, Profumo and Kennedy."

When asked about why the show is still going 60 years after the transmission of the first episode The Unearthly Child, Mr Hayes said: "I think obviously a lot of it is down to the brilliant idea they came up with that the Doctor could regenerate into someone else, and allow the show to continue.

"Plus of course the basic genius of the format which Sydney Newman and Donald Wilson invented in 1963 - that it can go anywhere, do anything, and tell any kind of story."

His favourite story is Remembrance of the Daleks, which starred Sylvester McCoy.

A publicity shot for The Three Doctors with Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee and William Hartnell Picture: BBC (Image: BBC)

The Doctor's links to Norfolk

While Doctor Who has never been filmed in Norfolk, the show has some links to the county.

In the Jon Pertwee-era story the Three Doctors the Brigadier is famously heard to say: "I'm fairly sure that's Cromer", after he has been whisked to an anti-matter universe and gets his first glimpse of its sandy nature.

In 1964's Planet of the Giants an enormous matchbox had the words Norwich emblazoned on it.

For the 10th anniversary of the show Anneke Wills and Michael Craze, who played 60s companions Polly and Ben, were photographed at Stiffkey for a Radio Times special.

Both former companions had also lived in Norfolk for a while, with Mr Craze running a pub in the Dereham area.

The 11th Doctor Matt Smith had also studied drama at the University of East Anglia.

Matt Smith Picture: Doug Peters/PA

Across the county border, in Suffolk the 1978 Tom Baker story The Power of Kroll was filmed at Snape and Iken.