Although The Doctor’s family is a mystery in the TV series it is nothing of the sort in these stories. My whole objective was to fill in the blank pages. And so I make no apology for building a real family background for The Doctor. He talks about his family and childhood in the stories. In the Theta Sigma stories his father features regularly. And in 2007 I launched the Marion and Kristoph stories which told the love story of his parents and proved that it is well time the mystery was unveiled.

It has been mentioned in both sets of stories that his mother died when he was only six years. Revisiting that traumatic event in his life seemed like an opportunity to explore what makes him tick and unpeel another layer of a 1,000 year old Time Lord with a lot of heartache hidden at his core.

So try to imagine the six year old boy who would one day be the greatest of all Time Lords! Of course, he was much like any other six year old boy. Except a lot lonelier, living behind the gates and walls of the Gallifreyan Embassy. That, at least is how I imagined him. There is a huge blank page to write about his early life. The only clue there seems to be about young Time Lords was The Tenth Doctor’s comment in Smith and Jones that Time Lord children played with Roentgen bricks. And that was probably an exaggeration.

So at six years old he loves his mum and dad and likes to play on his swing in the embassy garden. What else can you expect of a six year old? Having The Doctor as an adult being the one who told his six year old self that his mother was dead was an idea that came up as I wrote the story. It brought the paradox full circle and gave a certain closure to both versions of him.