Children of Bliss was a rather troublesome story. It went through several rethinks and plot changes before I decided on the final form. Originally, it was Spenser who was with Davie on the trip, for one thing. I wrote the previous story, Bodysnatchers, which saw Spenser meeting Stuart and meant that the intensity and dynamic of his relationship with Davie was going to change. This was a good time to bring Brenda back into the central place in his life.

The other change was that this story was meant to be about Cybermen. The planet was supposed to be Telos, and the adults had been transformed to Cybermen. I decided against that as it is just a bit too nasty. And in any case, why would the cybermen leave the children to grow up?

Instead, I developed this Lord of the Flies village of children, the eldest of which remembered that they were from Earth, but the rest knowing only that life. The puzzle of where all the babies came from, in a community with nobody over the age of sixteen, occupied Davie and Brenda for a while. Learning that they came from under the trees compounded the mystery.

Then they discover the truth. Planets where the people are transformed by their environment have been done before on Doctor Who, incidentally. The Jon Pertwee story The Mutants and the Tom Baker one, Full Circle, both deal with such ideas. This is another one. The adults, for whatever reason, leave their corporeal bodies and live in a different plane of existence. The children fend for themselves, joining them at the age of Passing. New babies are left with the children to look after.

Well, why not?

Most importantly, it is another clue to Davie’s hidden affinity with babies. Does anyone think his memories of Khristan are going to stay hidden for much longer? Of course not!