Fallen Angel was the Theta Sigma Christmas story for 2006. I set it in Liverpool because that had become the focal point of his visits to Earth, where his friends now are.

I originally had in mind them coming from Christmas Midnight Mass at the Catholic Cathedral. If the story had been based at Li Tuo’s Chinatown home it would have been ok, since the Cathedral isn’t far from there. But it is TOO far from Terry and Cassie’s keyside apartment for them to have chosen to walk home. I’m not QUITE sure where the nearest Catholic church is to them. There is one on Scotland Road, heading up towards Everton, but there may be a closer one than that.

Anyway, it is hard to imagine a colder, darker place to be walking after midnight on Christmas Eve in the UK than along that old dockside with the breeze coming up the Mersey estuary. Chrístõ’s brief stop to look at the stars would have been very inopportune. And the water in the dock basin he dived into would have been sub-zero. Only a Time Lord could possibly have done it.

The ‘egg’ with the baby seraphim in it, was simply inspired by an egg shaped glass paperweight on my desk. The size of it compared to the five inch Doctor Who action figures gave me the perspective for a full size one. My main concern was to avoid making the travel arrangements sound TOO much like the Isolas in the episode Fear Her. But this alien child was a far cry from the near invisible Isolas anyway.

The bulk of the story, then, became a vigil through the night, with the companions talking about old times and new, thinking about the meaning of Christmas, wondering about their future, until finally the adult seraphim arrive.

There were two schools of thought here. One was that angelic creatures over Liverpool was a wonderful, inspiring idea, the other that it was a terrible idea because Liverpool wasn’t a place where anyone would see angels.

The jury was out on that until Christmas 2007 when the Liverpool Nativity, a live musical retelling of the story had, not only angels over Liverpool but Mary and Joseph travelling on the Mersey Ferry on their journey to the stable. So there you go, I’m not the only one who thinks Liverpool is a place where Christmas miracles might happen.