After so many quiet stories we needed an adventure again. Hotel Tuscadero began with an experiment with a photo-editing programme on the computer which produced the old fashioned version of a modern photo. I thought of ways in which The Doctor and Rose might be photographed in the past and the photo survive. And my mind turned to the promenade photographers of Blackpool in the 1930s. Blackpool’s development as a resort town was one of my essays for History of Leisure module at university. Life in the 1930s was another. And the history of Preston North End was an elective essay. So between those three pieces of specialist knowledge I had a perfect setting. The trams and the promenade, the tower, and Louis Tussauds waxworks were all there in 1937. Tussauds DID have an Egyptian theme to its entrance. And the traditional carousel at the pleasure beach DOES have a horse called Rosie on it and does date back that far.

There ISN’T a hotel called Tuscadero behind the Pleasure Beach, although there ARE many hotels just like the one described. I got the idea for the name from a casual discussion of the character played by Suzie Quatro in the 1970s comedy Happy Days – Leather Tuscadero. Nobody knew what a tuscadero was, so I googled it. For good measure I also googled Trocadero.

The idea of an ordinary Human experimenting with time travel is not as peculiar as it seems. It is a stock idea of science fiction. The original Time Machine was the work of a Human scientist. So is Back To The Future and many other such stories. In Doctor Who, there was the machine in The Time Monster, built by a clever Human scientist. It also fits in with the rejuvenating experiment of Professor Lazarus in the 2007 series. That The Doctor should feel himself the ultimate expert and authority on such things, as well as a sort of ‘temporal policeman’ cracking down on those who get it wrong and cause temporal problems is perfectly reasonable. It IS what his people always did, after all. Whether they did so out of concern for the safety of those conducting such experiments or out of the same kind of corporate jealousy that makes KFC guard its secret recipe is open to question. The Doctor has always resented ham-fisted experiments. “Something is interfering with time and time is my business” he once said. And the same was the case here. But this time his reaction was a sympathetic one. He saw Lucas as a kindred spirit, albeit one who had got it all wrong. So after dealing with the faulty time machine he was more than willing to satisfy an old man’s wish his own way.

And yes, those football results are correct. Preston North End did get slaughtered by Sunderland in 1937, on the bank holiday weekend before the coronation of George VI. And they did come back in 1938 to win the FA cup against Huddersfield. That one was EASY.