Doctor Who Magazine 25th Anniversary Party

It's hard to believe that it's the 25th anniversary of Doctor Who Magazine. I still remember getting the weekly issues way back in 1979, and I have every issue since. It's certainly grown and expanded since then, and today is an impressive magazine, well designed and put together and still containing some fabulous writing. To celebrate the 25th anniversary, which coincided with the 350th issue, we had a party last night up in London at the Motion Club on the banks of the Thames by Embankment Tube. It seemed that anyone who had ever had anything to do with the Magazine were invited and the smallish venue soon filled up to oxygen depravation levels. It was an amazing assortment of people who all started out as Doctor Who fans in some sense, but who had moved onwards and upwards and who were now influencing and creating their own visions or working on the show itself. The roll call is far too many to mention everyone, but here's a few of the people I remember seeing there (and sorry in advance if I miss anyone as I'm bound to do so). Clayton Hickman, the current editor was there of course, as was Gary Russell, Jason Haigh-Ellery, India Fisher, Stephen James Walker, James Goss, Rob Francis, Ann Kelly (who I called Jane for some reason when I first saw her there - I was having a lot of problems with names all night), Stephen Payne, Jan Vincent-Rudzki, Mark Wyman, Peter Darvill-Evans, Rebecca Levene, Alister Pearson, Daniel O'Mahony, Paul and Caroline Cornell, Rob Shearman, Steve Roberts, Sue Cowley, Paul Vanesis, Ed Stradling, Steve Lyons, Chris Howarth, Michele and Colin Howard, Dicky Howitt, Jeremy and Paula Bentham, Kevin Davies, Peter and Jo Ware, Tom Spilsbury, Gordon Blows, Andrew Cartmel, Marcus Hearn, Mark Ayres, Richard Landen, Richard Marson, Patrick Mulkern, Nick Briggs, Robin Pritchard, Steve Cook ... and many, many more. The drink was free, the music was loud, and it was a superb evening. I met so many people from my life in the last 25 years it was untrue ... and slightly scary ... There was a massive cake that I couldn't see for people, and the celebrations were led by Nicholas Courtney, looking as dapper as ever - we all sang 'Happy Birthday' to Doctor Who Magazine and then downed glasses of Champagne to celebrate. Here's to the next 25 years.