Sladen, Elisabeth - Elisabeth Sladen - The Autobiography

Still, at least I wasn’t hiding a broken leg this time.

School Reunion had been very much me entering the Doctor’s world. Now he was coming into mine. At least, that’s how it should have been. But as soon as the team knew David was definitely doing it, the number of pages with his name on just seemed to go up and up. His heart must have sunk when he saw the amount of work in store for him. So he might have been forgiven if he’d served up some sort of Doctor-lite. But you never get that with David – it was a majestic performance, so alive and rat-a-tat-tat, and I’m proud to know it was his last performance as the Tenth Doctor.

* * *

I’m pretty sure my days on Who are over now as well – on the main programme, at least. We’re just finishing the fifth series of The Sarah Jane Adventures now and who knows how long that will go on? As long as our passionate audiences are still there, we will be, I suppose, although budget cuts and time constraints don’t make it any easier. (Not everything has changed at the BBC …) And Sarah Jane can’t regenerate.

Maybe one of the kids will take over, like on Taggart . Perhaps it will run forever.

While I knew David was coming over to us in spring 2008, I had no idea that I would be appearing in his show, too.

It would be easier to get an invite to the Royal Wedding than squeeze any information out of the Who team these days. I don’t blame them – every single episode or piece of gossip is leaked online within seconds. So I wasn’t surprised, then, to be handed two pages rather than the whole script.

We filmed it outside Sarah Jane’s Bannerman Road address, so nothing out of the ordinary as far as other people were concerned. Except, of course, David had just saved Tommy from a speeding car.

Nobody told me anything. Some things don’t need to be spelt out, though. The script just read: ‘You come out, you see him and you’re upset and you cry.’

Oh, it must be David leaving, I thought.

And so I didn’t ask any questions – I took it that Sarah Jane would know that the Doctor was regenerating. But really, they might have given me a few pointers. That annoyed me, actually, not having any context. So I did it in three different ways and just hoped one of them would fit.

For me, David’s real goodbye was equally disappointing. They had a no-expenses-spared party for him and emotions ran high. Russell told this brilliant story about trying to write his speech. He’d gone to a park in Cardiff, completely deserted, and sat down on one of the many benches. Then he watched a tramp enter and he just thought, I bet he sits down next to me.

Sure enough, he did.

The tramp said, ‘What do you do?’

‘I work on Doctor Who ,’ Russell replied, prepared for the inevitable conversation.

The tramp turned to study his face.

‘Are you David Tennant?’

Bernard Cribbins and Timothy Dalton were at the party as well, obviously, and as Timothy left the stage, Julie said, ‘My God, we’ve got Doctor Who and James Bond!’

Russell said, ‘Ooh, is he James Bond as well?’

Everyone laughed but I heard Timothy’s smile was a little forced, if you know what I mean …

David’s father gave the best speech, revealing how the young David used to play in the garden dressed up in his mother’s hat and scarf pretending to be Tom Baker! That brought the house down but it made me feel my age, I can tell you.

Afterwards I found David standing by a wall, a bit overwhelmed by it all. ‘Weren’t the speeches lovely?’ I said.

‘I was having a great time until my father let the cat out of the bag!’ he laughed.

In hindsight, this was the perfect moment to say goodbye properly. I’d thought long and hard about the perfect gift for him and had wrapped up the old TARDIS key that George had given me when I left. Knowing David was such a fan I thought it would mean something to him and because the TARDIS is now opened by a simple Yale, I wrote, ‘In case the buggers ever change the locks.’

I was pretty pleased with it, I have to say, especially after David’s dad’s revelations but when I came to hand it over, David had gone. The night was young but I think the emotions had caught up with him and he’d slunk away without fanfare. I sent the gift to his assistant and I hope he got it: he deserved it.

* * *

It wasn’t just goodbye to David, though. The whole team was handing over the reins and Russell and Julie were relocating to Hollywood. I wondered how this would affect my little programme. Russell put me straight at the party – ‘Never forget, I’m only a phone call away.’ In fact, it works perfectly. We speak and text now more than ever and it doesn’t matter what time of night or day, he’s always on. I was anguishing over an awards show outfit recently so I texted, ‘Blue or pink?’

A second later: ‘Blue.’

He just knows .

It’s unprecedented, in my experience, to have that level of access to the execs but The Sarah Jane Adventures is Russell’s baby. He looks over all the scripts, looks at the edits and fires off notes left, right and centre. It’s as if he’s in the next room.

But it wasn’t just the show I was worried about when Russell announced he was leaving the UK – I also needed to give him the best farewell gift, but what? When I’d left Who , I bought Tom an engraved gin glass, which he claims to still have to this day – but what for Russell?

Then I realised I had the perfect thing at home. Russell’s leaving, the Doctor’s leaving – just as I once left, I thought. So I rooted around in my cuttings box and there it was: my original script complete with my own deliciously inconsiderate comments in the margins!

Russell being Russell, he knew exactly what it was the moment I handed it over. There’s no one else I would rather have given it to, actually. He has been so important in my life and totally deserving of something truly unique as a thank-you present.

* * *

Russell’s generosity didn’t only extend to me, though. I’ll never forget how thoughtful he was in inviting Barry and Terry to Cardiff to give their opinions on what he was doing. Poor Barry died unexpectedly in 2009. That shook me more than even Jon’s death, I think. He was my mentor, my inspiration in so many ways, and my friend. It was a dark few days in the Miller household after that. It was a very private family funeral so we didn’t attend, but we sent a card and I spoke to his daughter. I’m just so glad Barry lived to see the heights his Sarah Jane had achieved. I owe him so much. It’s fair to say, not even Russell could have rejuvenated Who if Barry hadn’t lain such solid foundations.

A few months after Barry’s passing, on New Year’s Day 2010, I sat down with my family to watch part two of The End of Time. My scene at the end is one of those blink-and-you’ll-miss-it numbers but I think it works. It’s nice, actually, and says all it needs to. Matt Smith is the Doctor now and even joined us on the fourth series of The Sarah Jane Adventures. He was brilliant – so young and so tall! But I think my time on the main programme passed with David: his Doctor brought me back. So now – thirty-seven years after I first stepped inside the TARDIS, after I encountered my initial alien encounter, after having my life turned upside down by the wonderful team on Who and the fans who made it all worthwhile – we were leaving together.

As the credits on The End of Time rolled I realised it was three years to the day since the pilot episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures premiered on the same channel. Who saw that coming, back in 1973 when Brian and I sat down to watch my fledgling appearance on The Time Warrior ?