Target Tales 1: The School on the Hill

We are Target Who.  We are a small group of Doctor Who fans scattered across the globe that are working together in a common cause.  Fate has enabled us to purchase thousands of mint condition vintage Doctor Who books and we wish to place them where they are needed most - in our budget cut schools.   We write here as a group, but occasionally we will write in the 1^st person.  This is one of those times.  Target Tales will be an occasional series of posts by individual members.  Doctor Who fans reading might have similar tales to tell.

In my childhood I attended a combined Infant and Junior school that sat on the top of a large cul-de-sac hill.  For seven years I walked that up and down that hill, occasionally sliding down in winter.  We never seemed to have snow days back then.   As children in the 1970’s we were obsessed with Doctor Who.  At playtime we would pull our coats over our heads and hold out an arm, shouting ‘Exterminate’ as we chased each other around.  We would line up and silently stomp around pretending to be cybermen. (Do children still do that?)  During those summers past our playground was invaded by aliens of every kind and we defeated them all.  They were joyous, happy days.

Inside school I was a reluctant reader - apart from comics.  Comics were cool!  A page full of pictures with only a few sentences scattered around the page.  Not books though.  Page after page of nothing but text - shudder!  No thank you!  They were far too much hard work to read.  

One day in quiet reading, I was sent to the library to change my book.  I reluctantly shuffled there and as I looked at those shelves full of paperback torture devices, my eye caught upon a colourful target symbol.  The spine read ‘Doctor Who and the Cybermen.’  I can still see the moment now as I pulled it out and looked at the cover.  The man on the cover was neither of the Doctor’s I had seen on television.  The cybermen looked different too from those that were marching round in caves recently.   I opened the book and started to read …

When my teacher came to hurry me back to class, she found a boy sitting cross legged on the floor, completely engrossed and oblivious to the outside world.  I had discovered the magic that hides between the pages of a book and I was sharing an adventure on the Moon.  At the end of that wonderful, life changing book, there was a list of other titles in the series.  Eventually I read them all, and I’ve never stopped reading.  Adams, Austin, Bronte, Christie, Conan Doyle, Defoe, Dickens, Hardy, Poe, Pratchett, Shelly, Stoker, Tolkien and many, many more.  This book started the chain that has filled my life with pleasure.  I hope our crazy scheme can have the same effect on other children too.

I’ve often walked past and looked up at my old school many times over the years, but I’ve never walked back up that hill.  One day I shall go back.  Yes, I shall go back.  And that day is soon...

If you have your own Target Tale to tell please tell it as a comment on this post.  Thank you.