Bond of Betrothal starts with the journey back to Liverpool. I debated whether they should take the TARDIS or the train and decided on the TARDIS because they could go by the scenic route.

Then Marion discovers why she can read Gallifreyan text and realises she had travelled by TARDIS when she was sick. She lets that deception pass, because she is so much in love with Kristoph now. And she is falling in love with Gallifrey, through its poetry, as he tells her. This is a way of introducing an element of Kristoph’s history – his mother was a servant who married into the aristocracy, accepted by a few, scorned by some, struggling for acceptance. Marion realises that she would have the same struggle on his home world. This presages many later storylines, of course.

There isn’t, actually a Young Women’s Hostel at Mount Pleasant, Liverpool. There used to be a Young Men’s Hostel, though I don’t know if there is now. And a couple of private hotels in that area are ‘women only’. Mount Pleasant is a very inaptly named stretch of road behind Lime Street Railway station, running up towards the university. Although I like Liverpool, Mount Pleasant wouldn’t be my idea of a nice place to live as a single woman. Small wonder that Kristoph wants to take Marion away from all that.

The Cloister Room is mostly from my imagination, slightly based on the one seen in Logopolis, but bigger and more classical. The ceiling that shows the view of the solar system comes from the 1996 Doctor Who Movie, which did that in the console room.

But, of course, this story is leading up to a proposal. And where better than travelling through the solar system in a classical cloister room? Of course, the diamond is Gallifreyan and the tradition from Earth. Of course, she accepts.