My Doctor Who obsession - as you would expect - involves watching the old episodes (pre 2005) as well as the new. Inevitably, this also involves investing in DVD's of the "Classic" series (as it's now called) to watch them.

One of such investments is a box set called "Mannequin Mania" and that comprises of two Jon Pertwee (Third Doctor) episodes: "Spearhead From Space" and "Terror of the Autons" - both stories concerned with an alien entity called the Nestenes. [Incidentally, the Nestenes and Autons were the very first story of "New" Who in 2005.]

The protaganist's servants are called Autons - mannequins made of plastic - that are controlled by the Nestene conciousness. [Hence the title of the boxset!]

This story - when originally aired - led to my second only fright from Doctor Who...

The year is 1970. It was January 1970 actually, when Spearhead from Space first aired. I had just turned 9 years old and as far as I can remember, I had watched every single episode of Doctor Who. [My Dad told me that he used to sit me on his knee to watch it when I was little (I was almost 3 years old when it started) and I've watched every single episode since. I stopped watching it from my Father's knee when I was 34. (Not really!)]

Anyway, it's 1970, there are no video recorders, no CD's, very few audio cassettes around (they had only been invented in 1968 and were still expensive), so if you wanted to watch Doctor Who (or any other programme, for that matter) you had to watch it live. There were no repeats either - so once you had watched it, it had gone forever (or it seemed at that time). So, if you watched a programme in those days, you paid attention.

This particular fright (as it were) wasn't actually a fright at the time that the episode aired. I remember watching the programme with my usual attention and enjoying it as we did in those times. However, it wasn't until the next day that I got scared.

Doctor Who always aired on a Saturday then, usually after the football results at around 5:15pm. It was followed by something like The Generation Game in those days - which was just about enough time before bedtime.

Sundays were all about the Sunday Roast, usually a large joint of beef with roast potatoes, veg, Yorkshire puddings and onion gravy (most of this was home made or home grown). Sunday afternoons were then committed to either going off out with Mum & Dad to parks (in the summer) and visiting towns for what my Mum used to call "window shopping" in the winter.

When I say towns, it was usually just Cheltenham! Window shopping involved walking around Cheltenham Town centre, literally looking through shop windows for an afternoon, before returning home for tea, which would always be beef & onion sandwiches (from the left over Sunday joint).

Also bear in mind that in 1970, there was no Sunday shop opening. No-one (except churches and pubs) opened on Sundays at all in those days, so Cheltenham Town Centre was pretty quiet, with hardly anyone around.

Wind back now to Saturday's Doctor Who. The particular episode (I think it's episode 3) featured what is now a very famous and much talked about scene (a scene that was echoed in the first of the "New" Doctor Who episode "Rose" in 2005). It's the scene where the shop window dummies "come to life" (because they are really Autons), crash through the shop windows and start randomly killing people on the street.

Fast forward then back through to Sunday and there we are strolling through a deserted Cheltenham Town centre, looking in shop windows at the goods and chattels for sale. Good and chattels of course, include shop windows with dressed mannequins in them.

For some reason, the thought hit me that these dummies may well be Autons! As I recalled the previous day's episode, it was a woman pointing towards the dummy that made it come to life!! And there was my Mum, innocently pointing out (and pointing to) one of these dummies to my Dad!! Well, I didn't want the Autons to come to life, so I literally hit my Mum's arm down (to stop her pointing) and insisted that we go home. Now. Right now. Absolutely no amount of pursuasion, shouting, talking to or otherwise could convince me that these weren't Autons and that we had to go. I never told them why we had to go - we just did.

And so we left to go home. Me, considerably relieved as the dummies didn't come to life. I never did give my parents an explanation of that day and the incident was eventually forgotten, although a few night's sleep were disturbed waiting for the Autons to turn up - which they never did, of course.

Got away with it.... this time.