Initially, I had a message when I came back from a late-night sh**t on an advert that I was to go for an interview with Barry Letts at Villiers House for a part in Doctor Who.
So as far as I knew, it was just for maybe one-episode, two-episode character.
Went along, met Barry, and I read a scene, and I was asked to read Sarah Jane Smith.
Did that, climbed through a few pretend windows, and Barry said, "Yes, you know, it's really good.
"Jon's just on his way down.
Please stay and meet him.
" Jon walked through the double doors and, you Here is Doctor Who.
Um, he's over six foot tall, he's got this white hair, and he was flanked either side by a young lady, who, I learned later, on the technical team, he was quite nervous, actually, coming down and you know, presenting himself.
And all it needed was baboom! And Jon walks through.
I was introduced.
"This is Lis, this is John.
How do you do?
" Barry went behind me and put a thumbs-up sign in the air, meaning, "Yes, she's good.
"If you like her, if she looks right, I'm happy.
" Then, as the story goes again, Barry came in front of me, Jon went behind and Jon went, "Yes, she looks good, "if she's all right, fine by me.
" And I was offered the job on the spot, to be the new girl in Doctor Who.
And I said, "Oh! Yeah, you know, love to, fantastic.
" "Right", he said.
"I'll talk to your agent.
" So I went away and I phoned my agent and there was a long pause, and he said, "Oh.
"And have you accepted?
" I said, "Yeah, yeah, I have.
" And there was this silence, and he said, "Oh.
" He said, "Couldn't you have let me talk money first?
" So, that's how it all started.
Jon was a dandy.
He came from an era He told me he was the first teddy boy.
And I looked askance but teddy boy to him, then, was someone who had the first winkle pickers, the first drainpipes, the first You know, really lovely, beautiful material.
Jon adored his clothes.
So he was the dandy Doctor.
The cape, which I think he got the idea from his grandfather.
And his idea of a Doctor to an assistant was He was the protector.
The assistant, as he treated women, really, were the little chicks, were the ones to be protected, you know.
Put the arm, the cloak round, and "we will protect you".
Fantastic.
And I think Jon, he He had a great romantic streak in him.
Doctor Who was his Maybe his Romeo or something.
Or it was his lead man role, and he took it and he played it for what it was worth.
And he adored doing it.
He made the Doctor so his own.
My first story was "Time Warrior", and I don't think I realised, and if anyone watches it, they will realise I didn't realise exactly what a companion has to do.
We need somebody around here to make the coffee.
If you think I'm going to spend my time making cups of coffee for you She's the strongest, my character, that she would ever be allowed to be in that story.
I think it's a very theatrical story, and I was used to that and I played it as such.
After that, there wasn't so many "Yes, Doctor, no, Doctors", because they didn't know each other.
So, in fact, I was given by Robert Holmes a really strong story for the character.
And I thought it would go on like that.
And then there was the summer gap.
They went away for about two, three months, and I came back to the script of "Dinosaurs" and I thought, "Oh, this is another character.
What's this about?
" You have to be pretty quick then to realise there is a format, you have to stick to it.
And if you have to say, "Yes, Doctor, no, Doctor, three bags full, Doctor, " well, that is your brief, and the important thing is how you manage to vary that.
It's like George Formby, you can't have everyone playing a ukulele.
My character, my brief for Sarah Jane Smith was that she was Oh! And I hated this one 'cause I felt so embarrassed about it, a journalist.
And you can see all the journalists And you know, the journalist in her was the notebook and the pencil.
I could easily get rid of that.
What that meant was that she was questioning, she stood up for herself.
I hate the word "women's lib".
And I did have to stand up for myself on Who.
Sometimes I was the only girl there.
And you learn how to play that.
You really do.
You know, sometimes you'd Someone moved me once and said, "Oh, yes, "and Sarah stands here.
" And I thought, "Hello.
Yes, really?
I'm not a Dalek.
" And so I went in with this character I then thought, "Well, she can't scream "if she's meant to do this.
" And you realise you have to scream.
It isn't demeaning, and if it needs it for the cliffhanger and if the cliffhanger is me, yes, please.
I'll do it.
You know.
But you do try to make things different each week because you're put in the same situation.
And so, if I've fallen down that hole last week, I will try and jump over it this week.
But if I fall in it again, well, there we go.
I have to.
Jon did something that was so sweet, but oh, I wish he hadn't.
My first scene was in the open, filming, and wherever Doctor Who goes, it can be desolate, a rubbish dump, and heads will pop up above the And you know, all of a sudden you've got these people watching.
And Jon came with his cape and his walking stick, which makes into a seat for him.
He went over to the crowd, he beckoned me over.
"Lissie, darling," he said.
"Come over and meet your fans.
" They didn't know who I was! I didn't want to go there.
I went there.
"Hello.
" I was kind of hanging back, and of course they adored Jon.
And then, he said, "Now, this is Lis's first scene.
"We can all watch her.
" Eek! I don't want to go there.
You know, I just had to get on and do it.
And he thought he was being so kind and so gentlemanly doing that.
My first monster that I met I met him going down on the train, actually.
It was Kevin Lindsay.
He was going to play a Sontaran.
Lovely, lovely Australian actor.
Quite irreverent.
Rather like the director Lenny Mayne, who directed some of my And I really was quite nervous.
I stayed up in the bar till 3:00 that night.
You know, I thought 'Cause we got to the bar and Jon said, "Hello, Katy, how are you?
" Oh, and the tears started down his face.
It was like, "Oh, let me out of here.
" "Kevin", he said.
"You gotta have fun.
" "You've got to have fun on this, Lis.
No other way, you've got to have fun.
" And he said, "Look, I'm first scene of the day.
"You watch me, I'll find something.
" And so, they got a director who'd never directed Doctor Who before.
Ever.
I don't know why they did.
I really don't.
And Jon was very perplexed by it as well, like it was my fault.
I didn't know.
And he comes out of this great big silver golf ball and he puts his hand on his hip and he goes (AUSTRALIAN ACCENT) "I am a 'Sont-ah-ran'.
" And the director sort of looks He's flicking through his pages, he goes up to him and says, "Kevin, I think it's pronounced 'Sont-uh-ran'.
" He said, "Listen, I come from that place, I should know.
" And he looked and he said, "Now, girl, you have fun.
" First Dalek one I was in, "Death to the Daleks".
The Exxilons, their clothes were very simple but they were quite problematic 'cause they couldn't move very well and they would walk on them, and they'd be walking on them and couldn't get their head up.
And there was one very wide scene that was being filmed in the studio with a fire and the Exxilons, and I was meant to be prisoner.
And I was on a pole with my hands like that, tied up.
And I was hanging there for so long, the guy on the other end of the pole, his arms were aching.
So, we just went and sat very quietly on the side while they got on in the scene, and they were chatting.
And all of a sudden the PA says, "Right.
Action!" I said, "I'm in" "No, darling, no, darling, we're filming.
Later, later.
" And I thought, "All right, you can film, but I'm not in it.
"I don't mind.
" So, there's a scene there that I'm meant to be in that I'm not actually in.
My first time in the studio with CSO, whereby you're put on a blue screen and all strange things happen around you, but you actually don't see what's happening, you just hear them shouting at you.
Where you have to look, how you have to look, what is going on.
And I did I think it was in "Dinosaurs", and I was so proud of myself that I'd done it and it was done in one take.
And then the cameraman came up to me as the studio floor cleared and he said, "That was really very, very good, Elisabeth, but "Did no one tell you?
You have to have special CSO underwear.
" I said, "No.
" And he said, "Well, I'm sorry.
"But you know, we didn't like to say, but we could see everything.
" I went, "Oh!" And I believe what people tell me.
And I went rushing.
I went rushing to the to the bay where the costume people were.
They'd locked it.
They knew what was happening.
Oh, my heart just I was so embarrassed.
Nothing was true.
Oh, they thought it was hysterical.
Absolutely.
Ha.
The Brig thinks about everything.
He cogitates and, you know, he is the Brutus of Julius Caesar.
He's a man of of great integrity.
We'll never see him again.
He doesn't always understand the Doctor or Miss Smith, as he called her.
You always felt you had that link with the Brig, but never go in Bessie with him.
Never go in Bessie.
I had noticed a group of people first time I was to go in the car with him.
And there always seems to be a ditch on the other side of the roads where Doctor Who, where the cars go down.
And I said, "Why are you standing?
" "Oh, we're just going "Just be careful.
Brig driving.
" "Come on, Elisabeth! Yes, yes, off we go.
" Mind you, that was preferable to Jon's Whomobile.
John, he had this Whomobile built.
It featured in "Planet of the Spiders", and John loved his gadgets.
Oh, we're going filming outside Kingston one day and he said, "I'm going in the Whomobile, Lissie.
"I'll call for you and take you.
" Ha! So, you're in this silver stingray, going through peak time traffic in Kingston.
You've got people falling off bicycles.
In fact, the police came up and said, "Doctor, do you think "you can, you know, not drive?
"Could you be just be taken on the prop van again?
" It was hysterical.
You're going through and you're sitting there with Doctor Who.
Lenny Mayne, who directed some of my His language was so disrespectful of technical terms.
That's the only way one can put it.
"Now, Mum's sitting on the bog.
" You know, she's on the throne, really, you know.
Oh, Lenny was, "Come on, darling.
" I remember on the one with Jon, the Ice Warrior, I heard him panting down a corridor after me rather realistically, and no one had said, "Cut.
" (GASPING) I thought, "That's very good acting.
" And I sort of tripped and stopped, and actually, they'd He hadn't noticed they hadn't put a breathing part in for him.
He was sliding down the wall behind me.
Well, the strange thing, the rather sad thing for me when I joined the series was that I was told immediately Jon was leaving after this year.
Which I suppose was good in a way, otherwise I might have taken it a bit personally.
And as Jon and I got to know each other, he would tell me the story, and you know, I He so obviously loved Doctor Who and I could see I didn't think he wanted to leave, I thought maybe he had something really wonderful to move on to.
He said, "No, no, darling.
" He said, "I knew Doctor Who was being very, very well received "and, um, "I thought I might go and ask for a little rise.
"So I went to the powers that be and I knocked on the door "and I walked in and I said, 'Hello, dear boy, "'and how about a rise?
"' And he said instead of them saying "We'll think about it, Jon" or "Give us a little time", he said they said no.
And he said, "I was so taken aback, I immediately said, 'Well, I'll leave.
"' And left.
And I don't think he felt he could go back on that, and maybe he then after a while felt it was the right decision.
I don't know.
But from the moment I heard until the moment he left, there was nothing in the middle that ever made me think he was leaving.
He was my Doctor.
he was the Doctor, you know?
And then, when we came to do "Planet of the Spiders", which was Jon's last story, I heard all these rumours.
Barry would come up to me and say, "Now, we're thinking of so and so.
" "Oh, he hasn't.
He" I met Ron Moody years afterwards when he was working with my husband, and he said, "Worst thing I ever did, turned down Doctor Who.
" I heard, also, they had young people Anyway, that was Barry's area.
And you know, Jon would have a little ear to it.
He'd want to know who was going to be the next Doctor Who.
And as "Spiders" progressed, he started to do something he'd never done in rehearsal before.
He would bring his fan mail in.
And we had a big rehearsal room, and instead of Jon being around and looking in on each scene and having an opinion, which he did quite often, he sat at a table at the farthest end of the rehearsal room with all his paraphernalia around him for replying, and his stationery.
And after each scene, he would immediately go and start to do that.
And you just left him alone.
That was his way of kind of, I think, distancing himself from, you know, something 'Cause I think Well, as far as Tom and Jon are concerned, I think there's a moment where they think, "I am the Doctor.
" I used to stand next to Ronnie Barker in the canteen with my tray of food and he'd go, "Oh, God, haven't they k*lled you off yet?
" That's what had happened.
You had that magic.
You have to be careful who you say this to, they go, "Ah" But you did.
People People used to come and watch us through the rehearsal window.
When Tom and I got bored, we used to go and watch The Brothers, and Tom would go, "Isn't this boring?
"All they can do is lift a gin and tonic.
" You know.
"Let's go back and let's save the universe, Elisabeth.
" Great, you know.
How often do you get a job like that?
It's so sad, I'm sitting here trying to look younger than I am.
Trying to go, "Oh, yes!"