Sunday 8th March 2009, Marylbone, London

A short thunderstorm descends over the Cockpit Theatre. It belies the jovial mood inside, as 60 fans are bustling about cradling heaps of Doctor Who themed items for a clutch of celebrities to sign. This is the third or forth such Doctor Who event I've helped out at, and they are truly exhausting. But fun. And quite definitely utterly, utterly mad. Today, Matthew, I'm going to be a convention helper-outer.

We're late, because the train from home has taken two hours, including a sunny bus ride to Cheshunt and a tube journey avoiding a crippled Circle Line. We navigate our way through deserted London backstreets and in through a side door, and only then do we hear the bustle of familiar voices as Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks are giving a panel in the theatre auditorium. But there's not even time to sit and listen, as less than ten seconds into our arrival here, something bizarre happens. I spot a little old lady coming up behind us, looking a bit lost. Considering the outside chance that she may be a guest (and even if she IS just a lost little old lady, I like to help them as well), I enquire if she's alright.
"I'm looking for Dexter!" she says. Dexter is our friend who runs these things. So she IS a guest. And then I peer closer - sure enough, it's Meg the Serving Wench from "The Time Warrior", thirty five years on! The strangeness has begun.

"Let me tell you, I've been up all night with diarrhoea," explains Meg the Serving Wench, who is really actress Sheila Fay. It's quite a frank opening gambit as conversational set pieces go, but I smile and nod. She is in my absolute favourite bit of "The Time Warrior", and I resist asking her to go "I'll give you bread and cheese girl!" even though I want to. I take Sheila backstage and sit her down to pass the time while Barry and Terrance finish their panel. She takes the opportunity to drill through the event programme in a determined effort to find things she's done that aren't mentioned in her biog section. Meanwhile, Pik-Sen Lim (or "Pixie") aka Chin Lee from "The Mind Of Evil" has arrived! I want to go over and make sure she doesn't get lonely, but Sheila turns out to have worked with EVERYONE in showbiz, and is recounting to me the only two people she didn't like.

"Julie Walters and June Whitfield!" she announces. "Walters had Victoria Wood well under her thumb I can tell you. And Whitfield wouldn't speak to me!"

I eventually manage to escape up to the foyer for a breather, where I find P-Bal waiting for the amazing Katy Manning to slowly work her way through a long queue of fans wanting autographs. Katy's a blur of pure fun, with her mousy platinum blond-hair, ever-smiling wide mouth and slinky figure, forever darting round the table to pose with someone or other. She also seems like a child magnet, and various fans children clamber over and around her. One, "Eleanor from Brighton" is literally attached to her leg, simply hugging her. She exudes Manning Love. Meanwhile, P-Bal's eyes are ablaze. Pixie has inadvertently mentioned the colour copy of "The Mind Of Evil" that is sitting at home waiting for her to review prior to recording a commentary! Does the woman know the value of the information she has loosed? Only problem is, Pixie can't work her DVD player and has therefore only got to Episode 3 (although she has seen Episode 1 four times), so we can't confirm if Episodes 4 to 6 are in colour as well.
"She only lives down the road!" P-Bal marvels. "We could nip back with her, distract her with coffee, and grab it!"

It's soon time to usher Sheila and Pixie into the foyer for their mammoth signing sessions. Both are quite amazed at how many people want to come and get them to scrawl on trading cards with gold pens.
"You know those famous authors who do signings?" Pixie says. "We're like them!"

"Why are all these people men?" wonders Sheila. "There are no girls". It's true - I'd not noticed before. This is of course the time of day when it's time to meet The Fans, and most of them are familiar to me from previous events of this nature. In fact, I know many of them by name, albeit not their real names, but their adopted monikers. There's The Man With The Board, who has a blackboard sized bit of cardboard with around two hundred signatures around a centrepiece of the ten Doctors (he's screwed now they've cast an eleventh), "Martyn with a Y" and his Dad, Little "Eleanor From Brighton" and her Dad, the Man With The Polaroid Camera, and so on. After half an hour, though, Sheila is getting thirsty and there is no tea. We need tea for Mrs Fay! So I fight off the last of the fans and we tramp backstage with Pixie to find tea, seeing as how no-one else will make us one.

Tea Situation Backstage is dire. There's a box of tea-bags, a plastic cup, but no spoons. I locate a kettle, and prepare to sneakily use a gold marker pen to mash the brew. But Pixie is interfering, dipping her fingers into the boiling water.
"Don't worry, I have Teflon Hands!" she says. Nooooo, stop! You were in "The Mind Of Evil"! You can't go fishing your own teabag out! Terrance Dicks then wanders in and I take the opportunity to settle an age-old debate with my other half. He has always insisted that the thing in the Second Doctor's pocket in "The Five Doctors" is a firework being used as a prop to represent something space-age - a "Galactic Missile". I'm SURE it's actually *supposed* to be a firework, and that he says "Galactic Glitter", for which I've long been scorned. Ha! Here's a way to finally disprove him! I ask Terrance, who probably now thinks I'm mad, but nevertheless confirms that I'm right! Hurrah! Terrance then tells me he just spotted the DVD Files edition of "The Five Doctors" in a newsagents and bought it to watch! Surely he must have a few dozen copies of that story knocking around his house already?

Up in the foyer, Katy Manning has finished her signing but is still buzzing around manically talking about Ruby Wax and Liza Minelli. I say I bet she's great at parties.
"Oh no darling I'm not," she insists. "I get really nervous." It's hard to credit.
"I have to pause before I go in," she explains. "Working out which Katy I'm going to be. I just don't know."
For a split second she looks a little sad. Then she grabs a child for a quick hug, spots Christopher Barry and goes to give him some hugs too. That's one delighted old man five seconds later.

We take Katy backstage and after sitting next to the marvellous Timothy Coombe during his autograph session I pause briefly to escort Sheila Fay to the outer door so she can go home. She keeps asking for my full name and saying "I'll remember you!" Where she thinks she's going to come across me is anyone's guess - I keep telling her I'm not likely to crop up in "The Bill" anytime soon. She gives me her address in case I find a DVD of something she's written and - somewhat superfluously - her phone number as well.

"But don't ring before 10am, I won't be up." she adds. As a parting shot, she then gives me an update on her diarrhoea situation. And then she is gone.

Backstage, I find Sheila's neck scarf which she's left behind, and have a photo taken with Katy. Katy gets her payment for the days joy-giving, but is surprised - we suddenly realise she genuinely didn't expect to get paid! She was happy to swoop in, meet lots of people, and promote her one-woman show a bit for free. It's almost time to go, and I consider swanning out with Meg The Serving Wench's scarf on, but I might look a bit stupid (pink's not my colour). It's been a weird old day, from finding out that someone dared to ask Katy if the rumours about her and Jon Pertwee ever becoming intimate were true (she's keeping tight-lipped), to overhearing Chin-Lee recommending the Cream Teas in Ilford to someone, and trying to reign in Tim Coombe (who had an anecdote for every pleb, and another one flagrantly mentioning his colour copy of "The Mind Of Evil" to anyone that listened. Has everyone got it apart from me?) Hard work though it is, the day might even be some bizarre Doctor Who themed-dream. Only, like the boy in "The Snowman", I still have the scarf...