A HIGHWAY OF DEMONS by Whispering Jack

PRELUDE - Tardis Landing

It started with a word.

"Tardis"

The Tardis landed back on earth last night, a return that revived many long-forgotten memories of a past life when the boys were young.

Back then, the major domestic task entrusted to me was to pack them off to bed at night but not before a half hour's dose of The Doctor and friends, a ritual often followed by storytelling that ended when sleep captured and entangled both of them in dreams of far away planets set under the lights of many distant moons.

The storytelling was difficult at first but I managed to get it right; the root of my success being the credibility of the story lines achieved by recalling events of a past in which I was always an integral part of every plot. My role was normally one of subservience to the great Time Lord, a wise being whose identity underwent dramatic changes from time to time.

The spice of every tale was that we were always led down untrodden paths of distant worlds but the quest forever remained the same. A searching for The Holy Grail under the guidance of the Doctor with the assistance of an assorted group of humans, animals, alien beings and mechanical creatures some of which were part animal, part robot.

The Holy Grail?

There was only one thing this strange cast of individuals could conceivably be seeking in the distant reaches of the universe of my creation. This was a place where time moved in a mysterious and eternal circle into a dimension where the prize always went to the worthy and what could be more worthy than the winning of the Melbourne Football Club's 13th premiership?

There were problems on the journey. My assumed personal acquaintanceship with The Doctor was put to test when the incumbent Time Lord turned up in town to appear before his adoring fans at the Southland Shopping Centre one Saturday morning. We went off to meet Tom Baker and discretely lined up in a queue for his autograph. The Doctor was here to save the earth but nobody was supposed to discover that I actually worked with him.

Thankfully, as we closed in on the good Mr. Baker he winked in our direction. It was enough to convince the lads. I took a photograph, he signed their autograph books and we were soon out of there. Hush, hush. Our secret was kept intact.

The same Doctor was also instrumental in shaping their musical tastes. Have you ever seen the cover of Dylan's Blonde on Blonde? There was just enough resemblance between Tom Baker and the Great Troubadour complete with scarf to convince them that they were one and the same person. Soon they were being serenaded off to bed with sounds of harmonicas wailing and an out of tune voice screeching "Ramona" deep in the background.

This opened a fertile oasis of story lines as we moved from tales of the Rainy Day Women who triumphed over evil Daleks (with casings striped black and white and voices resembling twittering magpies) to the Tambourine Men who stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains in their vain attempt to save some distant planet from destruction.

How did this tie in with the winning of a football premiership?

Well, I admit I had some difficulty in establishing in their minds an understanding of what it meant to win a grand final. After all, it was the early 'eighties and these tackers barely knew what it meant to win a game let alone to savour a premiership victory. So the story had to start back in time.

Before they were born when I really did travel with the Doctor on the Tardis ...

A HIGHWAY OF DEMONS by Whispering Jack PRELUDE - Tardis Landing

The Doctor was really here to save the earth but nobody was supposed to discover that I actually worked with him.

Classic Mr.Whispering! this without doubt will be my fave blog.

Looking forward to the next installment.