Canberra Road School, Leyland, Lancs. A long way from the ACT
I have always been fascinated with the city of Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory, ever since I went to a primary school called Canberra Road School and therefore could tell most adults that the capital of Australia was Canberra, not Sydney. That was why I called Julia’s school on Beta Delta IV New Canberra High School, and later decided that the town, until then nameless, could be called New Canberra, with a New Perth and some other places mentioned from time to time. Well, why not.
Then I thought it would be nice to see Chrístõ and Julia on some kind of holiday, and I thought Canberra in contemporary time would be a good choice. I researched the city and found a lot of interesting places where they could visit. Oddly enough the one that got dropped in the course of the story was the hexagonal ‘hub’ with all the theatres and museums and restaurants that was originally going to be the place where the story reached its dénouement. They never actually go there in the course of the story, although it is mentioned in passing when the Eleventh Doctor reveals the reason the aliens were going to attack Canberra – because the ‘hub’ of the city resembles, from above, the symbol of their enemy!
The national war memorial struck me as a wonderful place for them to visit and I started with Chrístõ being a bit introspective while visiting there, because he IS a war veteran and this sort of thing would affect him. It was a good location for a mysterious stranger to be lurking about. At that point I hadn’t actually decided who the stranger was going to be, or why. For a while it was going to be some kind of kidnapper or alien spy after Chrístõ, but since we’d been down that road a couple of times before, I decided against it.
The War Memorial
Lake Burley Griffin and Commonwealth Park had to be the next location, and then the Parliament House, which is an absolutely fabulous place and worthy of a lot more description than I felt capable of. At each location, the mystery man turned up briefly, compounding Chrístõ’s paranoia!
Lake Burley Griffin
Commonwealth Park
I know nothing about Australian cars. I GOOGLED them and the first picture I found was a plum coloured Holden VE Commodore which almost knocked the McLaren F1 out of top spot of my favourite cars. I fully intend to use it again some time! Quite possibly it will become Davie’s next prototype time machine in New Lords of Time.
Meanwhile, my Google searches hit upon a perfect place for the final showdown. The Black Mountain Tower with its revolving restaurant and observation platform. There, finally, Chrístõ catches up with the stranger and finds out that it is one of his own future incarnations. This one, to his surprise, looks about the same age as him. This is my gentle dig, of course, at Stephen Moffatt and Piers Wenger who managed to choose an Eleventh Doctor who is EXACTLY what I had in mind when I first pictured Chrístõ! Matt Smith is JUST what I wanted, but didn’t know it at the time! Anyway, I think this makes the first online fiction about the Eleventh Doctor, unless anyone has got in there on Teaspoon and an Open Mind. Fortunately, the week it was due to go online they released pictures of what Matt would be wearing in the role so I was able to adapt the story to suit!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_War_Memorial
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Burley_Griffin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Park
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_House,_Canberra
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mountain_Tower
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holden_Commodore
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canberra
