Time and Relative (novel)

Time and Relative was the first Telos Doctor Who novella. It featured the First Doctor and Susan. This is author Kim Newman's only contribution to prose-based Doctor Who. This novella is one of several stories set prior to An Unearthly Child.

Publisher's summary[]

The harsh British winter of 1963 brings a big freeze that extends into April with no sign of letting up. And with it comes a new, far greater menace: terrifying icy creatures are stalking the streets, bringing death and destruction.

The First Doctor and Susan, trapped on Earth until the faulty TARDIS can be repaired, are caught up in the crisis. The Doctor seems to know what is going on, but is uncharacteristically detached and furtive, almost as if he is losing his memory...

Susan, isolated from her grandfather and finding it hard to fit in with the human teenagers at Coal Hill School, tries to cope by recording her thoughts in a diary. But she too feels her memory slipping away and her past unravelling. Is she even sure who she is any more...?

Plot[]

to be added

Characters[]

Worldbuilding[]

Coal Hill School[]

Basil James Carker is headmaster of Coal Hill School.
Other than Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton, teachers include Mr Grange, Mrs Bellweather, Mlle Quelou and Mr Okehurst.
Susan's friends at Coal Hill are John Brent and Gillian Roberts, all three in Year Four.
Also in Year Four are Wendy Coburn, Francis Minto and Little Titch Critchley. Sadie Lederer is in Year One. Joe Gibson, Dudley Hatcher and Leslie Culver are in Year Five.
Assembly takes place every day at nine o'clock in the assembly hall.
They make snowmen in the playground, which come to life due to the Cold.
They barricade the entrance to the crush hall with a heavy cabinet of sport trophies.
The gang steal food from the tuck shop.
Susan breaks into the Staff Common Room to make tea.

Food and beverages[]

The Coal Hill tuck shop only has cold Cadbury's chocolate, Smith's crisps and Tizer.
Susan makes tea in the Staff Common Room.

Culture[]

Susan is a fan of the Beatles and tells her friends that "Love Me Do" is the best and most important single of the past five years. She also enjoys playing Snakes & Ladders. Conversely, she dislikes the music of Cliff Richard and his band, The Shadows. Also mentioned are Chris Waites and the Carrollers.
The Coal Hill students sing "To Be a Pilgrim" and "There Is a Green Hill Far Away".
Susan mentions in her diary that she finds John Lennon, Peter O'Toole and Patrick McGoohan attractive but not Albert Finney.

Literature[]

Susan is reading Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, but the book is confiscated by Mr Grange.
John shows Susan the book How to Be Topp.
Rumours say that the Coal Hill Staff Common Room would contain confiscated paperbacks of Hank Jansen and Dennis Wheatley.
Susan's English class is reading Lord of the Flies.

Magazines[]

Rumours say that the Coal Hill Staff Common Room would contain confiscated copies of Liliput and Health & Efficiency.

Comics[]

Gillian compares John to the Mekon from the comic Eagle, featuring the adventures of Dan Dare.

Television series[]

Susan enjoys watching Danger Man.

The Doctor's items[]

The Doctor has everlasting matches.

Individuals[]

John Brent is nicknamed "the Martian" by Gillian Roberts as a result of his alleged resemblance to the Mekon, the main villain of the comic strip Dan Dare. As John points out, however, the Mekon is actually a Venusian. Furthermore, Gillian has nicknamed Susan "Forehead" based on her apparent surname.
There are several references by Susan, John and Gillian to their science and history teachers Mr Chesteron and Miss Wright.
Susan says she's still on her "first face".
Susan remembers one particular Master, who was in the same class as the Doctor.
The Doctor claims to have never broken the Time Lords' non-interference policy.
Susan likes the writer and political activist Lawrence of Arabia, particularly as portrayed by Peter O'Toole.
Susan wonders if Jean-Paul Sartre is a renegade Time Lord.

Notes[]

The characters John Brent and Gillian Roberts are named after John and Gillian Who, who accompanied the First and Second Doctors in early comic strip stories in which they were his grandchildren.
The illustration from the deluxe edition is by Bryan Talbot.
The book was published on the thirty-eighth anniversary of Doctor Who, which coincided with the death of the series' long time critic Mary Whitehouse.
The Doctor and Susan actually act very uncharacteristically in this novella, even for a story set prior to TV: An Unearthly Child. It is discussed how breaking the Time Lords' "conditioning" actually results in memory loss and entire shutdowns of an individual's personality.
It was a notably rare story in that it depicted the lives of Ian and Barbara - albeit very briefly - several months before the events of An Unearthly Child.

Time and Relative illustration — Deluxe Edition illustration

Continuity[]

This story occurs before TV: An Unearthly Child and sets up a few of the events in that story.
The Doctor mentions meeting the Mongol military leader Genghis Khan. During his seventh incarnation, he claimed to have delivered him, describing him as as "a sweet baby." (PROSE: Tragedy Day) The Sixth and Ninth Doctors both claimed that the TARDIS once withstood an attack from the assembled hordes of Genghis Khan, though it is unclear if this occurred during the First Doctor's encounter with him. (AUDIO: City of Spires, TV: Rose) The Doctor, Susan, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright would later encounter Genghis' grandson Kublai in 1289. (TV: Marco Polo)
Coal Hill School students have seen Ian and Barbara attending the cinema together, suggesting that they had gone out on at least one date prior to meeting the Doctor in 76 Totter's Lane in November 1963. (TV: An Unearthly Child) They would eventually marry. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy, TV: Death of the Doctor, COMIC: Hunters of the Burning Stone) and have a son named John Alydon Ganatus Chesterton, who became the 1980s pop star Johnny Chess (PROSE: Byzantium!, PROSE: Timewyrm: Revelation).
Before the Doctor and Susan settled down in Shoreditch in 1963, they took a brief trip to St Albans on 17 December 1997 to ensure that the United Kingdom would remain safe during and after the 1960s. Unbeknownst to either of them, the Fourth Doctor and his companions Romana and K9 were in the vicinity on the same day. (PROSE: The Little Things)
Susan's best friends were named John and Gillian. This is a likely reference to Susan's comic book cousins, John and Gillian. (COMIC: The Klepton Parasites - Invasion of the Quarks)
Little Titch Critchley is named after Little Tich, whom the Fourth Doctor later hoped to see perform in 1889. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)
Susan refers to the fact that she is usually bottom in her history class, except once, when the question was on Renaissance Italy. This was likely the time she'd brought in the Blessing Star to school, which had given her a special dose of luck for the day. (PROSE: The Rag & Bone Man's Story)

Tardis