Hello everyone! 🙂
Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!
It’s time for me to share my memories of seeing Sarah Sutton (Nyssa) and Peter Davison (the Fifth Doctor), my two favourite ‘Doctor Who’ stars at a convention together. I first met Peter Davison at the ‘Project Motor Mouth 2’ convention, organised by Janet Fielding back in Slough in August 2013. 🙂
And of course, I saw Sarah Sutton many times at conventions beforehand. This was the first time I saw Peter and Sarah together at a convention, and this was before I saw them both again at future events like Leicester and Worcester in 2016, York in 2017, Carlisle in 2018 and Newcastle in 2022. 🙂
‘H-Con’ (‘Hampshire TV, Film & Comic Con’) was a two-day event run by the Sci-Fi South Collectors. I attended one of their events in Fareham in December 2014. ‘H-Con’ was held at the Fleming Park Leisure Centre in Eastleigh, Hampshire, and this was from Saturday 25th to Sunday 26th of July 2015.
I attended the Sunday only, since Sarah and Peter were guests at the event for just that day. It was a nice weekend for me, although it was unfortunate that it was raining on the Sunday whereas it was sunny on Saturday. Despite that, I sought to enjoy the day while seeing Sarah and Peter at ‘H-Con’. 🙂
At the event, I took some photos of some of the ‘Doctor Who’ and sci-fi props on display. This included a black Dalek, some ‘Doctor Who’ headgear including an ‘Earthshock’ Cyberman helmet with Cyber guns and a Sontaran helmet, the TARDIS itself, a mannequin of Davros and dearest K-9. 🙂
The Bumblebee camaro car from the ‘Transformers’ movies was there as well as the Delorean from the ‘Back to the Future’ film trilogy. At this point, I had yet to sit in the Delorean, which I would do in Weston-super-Mare in August 2016. There were also guest autographs and dealers’ stalls to enjoy. 🙂
I of course saw Sarah Sutton, my favourite ‘Doctor Who’ companion at ‘H-Con’. It was lovely to catch up with Sarah again after seeing her at the ‘Valiant 2015’ back in March. We chatted for a bit, and Sarah signed my covers of ‘Mistfall’, ‘Equilibrium’, ‘The Entropy Plague’ and ‘The King of the Dead’. 🙂
Sarah also signed my VHS cover of ‘TravelWise’, which I purchased from Amazon.com and got it converted into three copies on DVD, albeit in black-and-white. I gave a copy to Sarah to see if she could remember being in ‘TravelWise’ in 2000. To this day, Sarah doesn’t seem to recall being in it. 😀
I also had a couple of photos with Sarah via my digital camera. I had hoped to do an interview with Sarah that day, but she had a panel talk and photo shoots to do later that afternoon, so it wasn’t possible. Thankfully, I would be able to conduct an interview with Sarah at the next convention I saw her at. 🙂
It was nice to see Peter Davison properly at ‘H-Con’, after briefly meeting him in Slough in 2013. I enjoyed chatting with Peter, telling him how much I enjoyed ‘The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot’. I told him that my life hadn’t been the same since I first saw ‘Doctor Who’. Peter asked me if that was a bad thing. 🙂
I amusingly told him “Of course not”. 😀 Peter signed my CD and DVD copies of ‘1963: Fanfare For The Common Men’, ‘The Fifth Doctor Box Set’ (‘Psychodrome’ and ‘Iterations of I’), ‘Earthshock’, ‘The Light At The End’ and ‘The Caves of Androzani’ that day. I also had a photo with Peter via my digital camera.
I saw Sarah again and we chatted some more before I saw her and Peter again for their Q&A panel talk that afternoon. I gave an early copy of my ‘Nyssa Challenge’ timeline to Sarah, which she was impressed by. This was before ‘Bradley’s Basement’ came to existence, which is quite astounding. 🙂
I enjoyed the Q&A panel talk with Peter and Sarah. I got to ask them a question, which was “Would ‘Doctor Who’ work if it was just the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa in the TARDIS?” They responded with an enthusiastic “Absolutely!” Good answer. 😀 I’m glad I got to ask them that question. It made my day. 😀
Sadly, the link I had for Peter and Sarah’s Q&A panel talk via a ‘Gallifrey Stands’ podcast episode in one of my original blog posts is gone. If you’re lucky though and able to access Spotify, you might be able to listen to the Q&A panel talk and hear me asking my question to Peter and Sarah in the link here.
After the panel talk, we had the photo shoots. I enjoyed them very much. I got to have a photo with Peter, a photo with Sarah and a photo with both Peter and Sarah. All three photos have the TARDIS console in the background via a green screen. The photo that has us as a trio is one of my favourites.
I feel like I’m Billy Walker with the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa in the TARDIS in my ‘Fifth Doctor’ series of ‘Doctor Who’ stories in the photo. It was good timing to have that photo taken, especially as I’d just finished writing my initial set of Fifth Doctor-era stories before I started sharing them online in 2016.
There were other guests who attended ‘H-Con’ that Sunday, including Sarah Louise Madison who played a Weeping Angel in ‘Doctor Who’, and Arti Shah, who stood in for Rocket the Racoon in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’. David Bickerstaff was also there, helping Peter Davison out when at the autograph signings.
‘H-Con’ is a convention I hold very fond memories of, especially with seeing both Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton there. The weather wasn’t great, but I’m pleased it was all indoors. I got to see Peter and Sarah together for the first time at a convention and I’m very happy that I’ve had my photos taken with them.
This would be the first of many times that I would see Peter and Sarah at conventions together, which I’ve shared in convention reports on my blog over the years. The best was yet to come for me in 2015, as at the next convention I attended, I saw more ‘Doctor Who’ stars as well as Sarah Sutton. 🙂
Stay tuned for the final ‘convention memories’ blog post by me on the ‘Bournemouth Film and Comic Con’ in August 2015.
Thanks for reading!
Bye for now!
Tim 🙂
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