That Dalek suit to me was the closest you could get to having a real dalek in the house.. and all I needed to do was wish out loud a couple of times that I'd love one for Christmas.
Christmas Day saw strong winds rushing from the docks and ploughing through the cobbled terraced streets like a fine tooth comb seeking out nits in the backyards and entries. There was no snow.. not even a frosty suggestion of it and most of the kids in my street were indoors fiddling with Mousetrap, Hot Wheels race tracks and newly acquired Monopoloy money.
There was no fun in screaming 'Exterminate' at my mother or the cat in my red vinyl dalek suit with it's sink plunger and plastic helmet that kept falling to one side of me head. Me dad would just give me 'that look' for being soft!
Pauline Kelly meanwhile had served as my assistant in the Tardis (that was really the outside toilet) for years... she also took on the leading role of Lady Penelope, Emma Peel, Catwoman, and tons of victims when we played Dracula in the entry (back alley for our North American comrades). God I didn't 'arf want to bite her neck!
Yep... Pauline would be perfect and Tony Bancroft would be cool too!
Now, the awful thing about girls in our street, regardless of their loyalty bonuses as best friends, is that they were excrutiatingly honest... it was for our own good! So when I knocked for Pauline wearing my dalek suit with the wind blowing the vinyl skirt part up around my knees and with the red plastic helmet cocked to one side.. she laughed so hard that the Dalek eye was near blown clean off the helmet! She was suppose to be scared to death!
I should really have worked it out on the approach to her door... she was a brilliant Dr Who assistant but she wasn't soft... and she wasn't ever gonna say 'God you scared me to death then!' when it was so much easier for her to be honest and say 'But er... you do look stupid!" "You're not coming out then? I asked, shunned into insignificance. "Nah... it's too windy but I might call for you later on." she promised.
With the Kirkdale Christmas Day street still deserted, I went home and came up with a brilliant idea! I took the dalek suit off, which had begun to look crapper and crapper, and set it up over a brush and some small boxes in the back yeard air raid shelter that was now a coal shed. It actually looked miles better in there than it did on me!
Tony Bancroft wouldn't have had much for Christmas... and he'd play with me even if he had scurvy or the flu! When I knocked at his house and told him I had a dalek in the coal shed and that he HAD to see it.. he grabbed a butty and followed me down the entry to my back yard door. "Shhhh yer fool... it'll hear ya!" I said with caution as we approached the coal shed door and the second I swung the door open to reveal the awaiting dalek... he frowned, sighed, rubbed his forehead and then looked back at me and said 'But er... It's shit! It's not even a proper dalek!"
I was gutted but instantly went into self recovery mode. Your mate's opinions matter more when you're a kid. They matter a lot when you're older, but when you're a child.. a little beacon of unparalleled imagination and wishful thinking, what your mates think makes all the difference in the world.
It was decided. The dalek had to be destroyed and so the dalek suit was eventually exterminated after being bricked to death by The Jelly Man in a street production of The Outer Limits! The Jelly Man would be played by Tony Bancroft (because of his scurvy), supporting actress Pauline Kelly would make a brilliant victim and you could easily bite her neck, and yours truly would produce.
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