Chalky, Dufus, Shirt, Enigma, Lupine & Mavic Chen...

...Better The Devil's End You Know.

The organisers of two events at Epsom Funcottage – for K9’s birthday and with Carole Ann Ford & Wendy Padbury – had announced an event further afield, namely a ‘The Daemons’ reunion at its filming location, the village of Aldbourne. Despite having attended Aldbourne on two previous occasions (in 2003 & 2004), it was decided that a group trip was warranted, particularly as Third Doctor era fan Mavic Chen wanted to meet Sergeant Benton (in the person of John Levene). Also announced were Katy Manning and Richard Franklin.

“You are aware that Katy will hug Mavic Chen, and John Levene will swear in front of him ?”, Shirt advised Chalky.

A week before the event, the final guest was announced, Damaris Hayman, ‘white witch’ Olive Hawthorne.

The morning of the event dawned, and Chalky and Mavic Chen picked up Lupine and Enigma, and made his way to ‘Devil’s End’. Meanwhile, Dufus had reached Shirt’s, and after a short rest, they made their way to a local petrol station for Dufus to fill up, but fail to get any money out of a cashpoint. They then made for Aldbourne, following Dufus’ sat-nav. Their entertainment was initially Union JACK Radio, whose announcements were all delivered by the late Paul Darrow, and which every so often played an extract from a classic TV comedy show without any context. Eventually they decided to listen to Shirt’s ‘DW’ playlist on shuffle, meaning that they had a number of unseasonal offerings including “I’m Gonna Spend My Christmas With A Dalek” and Colin Baker’s attempt at “White Christmas” (from the ‘The Brothers’ Christmas spin-off album).

Finally, Dufus and Shirt reached central Aldbourne to find a distinct lack of parking spaces. There was one, but whilst letting someone else out, someone stole it. They therefore made their way towards the hall where the event was taking place, finally finding a space a short distance down a side road. Walking back to the hall, they found everyone (including Katy Manning) queueing in the road, all risking being run over. However, our friends nipped into a small supermarket in the hope of finding an ATM. Finding no cash machine, they were informed by staff members that the nearest cashpoint was several miles away. However, after a few seconds, one of the members of staff added “But you can get £50 cashback if you buy anything”. Dufus therefore bought a pack of chewing gum, getting the maximum cashback.

Moving back outside, they sat on a nearby bench to eat their packed lunches, as the queue had not started moving. After a few minutes, a familiar group appeared from further down the road – the other four. Shirt was the first to spot that Chalky and Dufus were wearing the same T-shirt, making a ‘Blinovich Limitation Effect’ joke, whilst an embarrassed Chalky looked for somewhere to hide.

The group finally all together, joined the queue outside the hall which had just started moving. After around ten minutes, they were all being given entry stickers, and made their way into the main hall. All then bought tickets for the raffle (the main prize being a signed ‘The Daemons’ print by Alister Pearson), before Chalky tried to get Mavic Chen to decide on how many actors he wanted in his photo on the green later. They then took their seats just in time for the opening ceremony in which the four actors were introduced, said a few words, and then it was time for everyone to make their way down to the green for the location visit. This was being done by the coloured spot on the entry stickers, which was supposed to be gold for all our friends, but actually varied from bronze to gold across their six stickers.

The gold group were to meet up at the War Memorial where Katy Manning would be speaking. The group made a semi-circle around the cross, waiting for Katy to arrive. Chalky and Shirt spotted Conrad Westmaas, Eighth Doctor audio companion C’Rizz, amongst the milling fans. Finally Katy arrived, and initially found it difficult to remember any filming anecdotes. However, moving onto the topic of CSO, she suddenly moved towards Chalky and Mavic Chen, grasping the latter by the hand and dragging him to the centre of the circle, whilst explaining to him about special effects, before giving him a gigantic hug. Shirt looked over at Chalky, and raised his eyebrows in a “told you” way. Mavic Chen made his way back to Chalky, still stunned by what had happened.

“Can I keep him ?”, Katy asked Chalky.

“How much ?”, joked Chalky.

A few minutes later, and it was time to move to the churchyard where Richard Franklin was waiting. He spoke enthusiastically about filming in Aldbourne, and it became clear that he believed that all the attendees were locals.

All too soon it was time to move on.

“Who’s next ?”, asked Richard.

“Damaris, by the pond”, he was told.

“Well don’t throw her in !”, Richard quipped.

“Well as she’s a White Witch she’d float”, quipped back a fan.

Damaris kept the group entranced for ten minutes, until it was time to make their way back to the Green, and Benton himself.

Despite Mavic Chen standing right in front of him, Mr. Levene’s first sentence contained a swear word, meaning that Shirt almost called ‘house’ on his ‘Guest Bingo’. Following a few anecdotes about ‘The Daemons’ and a lot of moaning about his life, John’s session came to an end.

All attendees made their way back to the hall, with Chalky and Mavic Chen stopping for Chalky to take a photo of Mavic in front of a Bessie replica. However, before he could do so, John Levene swept in, and positioned himself next to a starstruck Mavic.

“You can’t have a photo of Bessie without Benton”, he told them, before insisting that Chalky be in a second shot.

Other group members then got their photos with Bessie (sans Levene), before making their way into the hall. Browsing the stalls, Shirt was excited to find a large box of signed photographs for £5 each, the majority being signed “To Shirt”. He therefore spent a long time sorting through them and identifying DW stars that he had previously met but not got a signed photo from – finally leaving with photos of David Morrissey, Deep Roy and Robert Ashby, and a DW wristband for Mavic Chen. Meanwhile, John Levene was having to wait for Mavic Chen to finish in the one toilet.

There was then a very interesting talk by the Aldbourne Heritage Centre, before it was time to return to the Green for photographs. On arrival, finding the guests not there yet, they decided to visit the Heritage Centre which has a ‘The Daemons’ exhibit, whilst taking photos of the village’s TARDIS and Dalek bins. On returning to the Green, they joined the photo queue, but on reaching the front Chalky and Mavic Chen had to move to one side as they only wanted three of the four guests. Photos were then taken of Lupine and Shirt in Bessie with the UNIT guests, with Damaris in her motorised wheelchair alongside, and a UNIT Land Rover and the Church in the background. They were then waiting for Mavic Chen and Chalky to have theirs taken. To one side, Enigma was taking her own photos.

Back to the hall again, Chalky and Shirt had a chat with Conrad, whilst they waited for the guests to make their way back for autographs. It turned out that Richard Franklin had forgotten to bring his photographs for signing with him. Chalky and Mavic Chen queued for both UNIT soldiers in Mavic Chen’s autograph book (bought for him by Uncle Shirt). Shirt was queueing only for Damaris, getting her to sign his copy of ’The Daemons of Devil’s End’ that he had bought at Whooverville. Enigma wanted everyone, and therefore took the longest. The photos had started being put out, but Shirt’s took ages to be put out, and Mavic Chen and Chalky’s being almost the last to be taken took even longer. Realising this, Chalky and Mavic Chen went back to the village green, where Mavic played in a nearby playground, returning just in time for the drawing of the raffle, where it became clear that the second prize of a Third Doctor Sonic Screwdriver signed by the guests was preferred by the majority of attendees.

It was then time for the closing ceremony, in which Katy waxed lyrically about Damaris.

“I hope that I’m like Damaris when I’m her age”, commented Katy.

“What, in a wheelchair ?”, mumbled Mavic, causing great hilarity amongst our friends.

The event concluded, it was time for one more visit to the Green, where a couple of photos were taken at the Blue Boar/Cloven Hoof.

It was now time to go home, and as Dufus needed to go straight home, Shirt was to be joining the others in Chalky’s car. Having picked up all his stuff from Dufus’ car, and bid him farewell, Shirt crammed himself into the back seat with Enigma and Mavic Chen. The journey back was taken up with listening to the radio, and a 45 minute monologue on ‘Star Wars’ by Mavic Chen based on YouTube videos that he had watched. Eventually they arrived at Chalky and Tigger’s, where after some wonderful burgers, they all went their separate ways.

[PL]