Doctor Who: An Otherstide Carol

Merry Christmas everybody!

I really fancied revisiting the Camfield Doctor, with Carol, and also add a little more to the characters of Lee and Sophie, so here's a brief little side trip that I hope you enjoy.

(Title card once again produced by Tara Colite)

Chris

Dec 2024

 

 
 
    Carol Williams wasn’t sure what to expect from a Victorian England market on Christmas Eve, but this one absolutely fit the bill.
    The Doctor had brought them here, almost on a whim, after his three companions had all got talking about their respective time periods and then when their respective birthdays were. Carol’s being late 60s and her birthday being New Year’s Eve, the Doctor had proclaimed that she was a ‘veritable Christmas Carol’, with a conservative glimmer of a chuckle, which everyone found slightly out of character.
    Lee and Sophie were from far in Carol’s future, both mid-2020s, which felt so futuristic to her. The topic had moved onto asking if they had flying cars as standard, and the like, but given their responses, Carol felt that maybe she agreed after all when the Doctor said that it wasn’t good to know too much about one’s culture’s future.
    They asked the Doctor about his birthday, to which he replied that it was on Otherstide Day, which, apparently, was kind of like Christmas Day, but more in remembrance of a revered (or sometimes reviled) historical figure who was one of the key architects of his society. But when pressed for more details, he was suddenly taken with a (conveniently distracting) idea to take them all to see Christmas before any of their times.
    So, here they found themselves, walking through a bustling market scene.
    Prior to doing so, they had all visited the TARDIS wardrobe and found themselves some subtle period garb, the Doctor managing to somehow find the exact same outfit as usual, but different colours again. This time his flamboyant cravat was a striped light blue, with a humbug shirt underneath. His overcoat wasn’t the usual dark greyscale with increasing hints of purple, but a deep dark blue. Very festive, she complimented.
    “First person to make comment about the smell of the period, loses.” Carol stated as they had left the TARDIS, Lee and Sophie both dramatically groaning. They hadn’t long travelled with the Doctor and Carol, and this was exactly the sort of thing they had been noting here and there, on prior hops.
    The Doctor, she noticed, was still favouring his cane somewhat after the events on Chot’L’A, but he made a point to hide it. But Carol knew and kept an eye on him regardless, as they wended their way through the market.
    The stalls were fittingly festive, but also mixed with regular fare. Meat and vegetables, but also roasting nuts, and homemade wooden gifts, gaudy paper decorations, and the like.               Somewhere nearby, but unseen, a brass band were playing carols.
    Trudging through the already foot-flattened snow, Carol walked alongside the Doctor as the other two explored ahead, watching as the marketplace heaved and bustled, adults working or shopping, with kids darting around between the grown-ups, like something out of a Dickens novel.
    “This is fab, Doctor, thanks for bringing us here.”
    “I can’t promise to celebrate your traditions at the exact time for you, but I do aim to try and indulge in them sooner or later.” He smiled, reflectively. “Time being relative, of course.”
    “Of course.” Carol replied, in a low mimicked tone.
    “Don’t let us forget your birthday, as it’s soon.”
    “Relatively, of course.”
    Carol wasn’t actually sure exactly how long they had been travelling together. 6 months, maybe? Lee and Sophie had joined them just a few weeks ago, making her feel comparatively well-travelled than either of them, even though, she noted, she was younger than both. Lee was mid-30s, and Sophie was 19, Carol not quite 18.
    This thought gave her a pang in her chest, reminding her that she and her boyfriend, Steve, were waiting for her to turn 18 so they could get married. He was just recently 19, a week or two before she hopped into the TARDIS, and they wanted nothing more than to get married and plan their future together.
    But, like her own sister, Carol had dreams of her own that, considering she was a village girl from the 60s, wasn’t as easy as it was for, say, Sophie in the 2020s. You either bucked the trend and fought your way towards a semblance of your career dreams, or you became a housewife, with aspirations of motherhood, like Carol’s mother. And her grandmother. And generations of mothers before her.
    Which was why, almost unthinkingly, carol had hopped aboard the TARDIS before thinking twice.
    Marie, her older sister of eight years, couldn’t have children, leaving Carol as the only one in the family who could continue the line. Which, yes, she wanted to do, but it was still bittersweet to leave behind her dreams of being an international interpreter or translator.
    It occurred to her then that she would want to go home soon; she couldn’t stay years and years and get old in the TARDIS, could she? She couldn’t imagine coming back being older than Steve, but always pretending to still be younger. Still, for now, Carol was happy to continue travelling; get it out of my system, she thought.
    A few steps ahead, Lee and Sophie had stopped at a stall that was selling roasted chestnuts, and as the Doctor and Carol stopped beside them, he started fishing in his pockets. “I’m sure I have some local currency in here.”
    As the vendor began dishing up a few bags for the four of them, a number of children who had been darting around nearby descended upon them en masse, all clamouring for some too.
    It was a tremendous racket and the Doctor, slightly overwhelmed by the bustle of small bodies and reaching hands, gave in and bought more off the vendor, subsequently passing them amongst the children to their great joy and cheer.
    And almost as soon as they had appeared, they children had all vanished amongst the stalls and bodies of browsers, much to the friends’ amusement and the vendors glee at having almost sold out so soon.
    “I’ll be finishing for Christmas early at this rate!” he exclaimed.
    “Quick question,” Lee asked him. “Are there any events happening later on round here? Like a fireworks display, or something.”
    “Fire what? Works, is it?” The vendor asked, scratching his head. “Maybe they got them things up round your norvven parts, mate, but we ent got posh stuff like that down ‘ere.”
    Slightly abashed, Lee smiled back. “Ah, yeah, that must be it – no worries!”
    The four of them wished the vendor a merry Christmas and parted company. “They haven’t invented fireworks displays just yet.” The Doctor told them. “Probably another 30 years or so, perhaps. Not even a tree to decorate – “
    “Not until 1947.” Carol interjected.
    “ ‘Not until 1947’, that’s right “ The Doctor parroted warmly. “Of course, there was that time in Manchester when I managed to bring one over myself. It was so heavy, me and the children had to – Ahem. “
    He stopped himself abruptly and there was almost awkward moment when Sophie looked like she was about to ask further, but Carol gave her a quick nudge and a ‘look’.
    “It would be fascinating to see what New York city looked like at this time of year.” She said, rolling with the hint. “I imagine the surrounding suburbs didn’t even exist.”
    “That, Sophie, is a very interesting idea,” The Doctor said, recouping his prior falter. “Maybe we should visit there next and find out. No time like the present. Perhaps - ” The Doctor paused again, this time patting at his large dark blue coat.
    “The TARDIS key has gone!”
 
 
    The four had decided to split up.
    The Doctor and Sophie went one way, while Lee and Carol went the other. Impressively, the street urchins had scattered and were now nowhere to be seen. No one.
    Scouring their side of the market, checking round stalls, and getting funny looks here and there, the Doctor and Sophie found themselves moving out from the perimeter of the marketplace and down some of the wider streets.
    As they did so, Sophie flushed a little as she thought back to the moment that she almost made things more awkward earlier. She knew that, even though her three companions all had English accents, the Doctor wasn’t exactly human, and not from Earth. Carol had to explain that to Sophie and Lee pretty quickly after he almost died recently, and would have done if they hadn’t got him to safety. That faint glow that surrounded him as they placed him in the healing chamber, which had quickly subsided, looked like his body was healing itself somehow, although she couldn’t help feel that if they had been any slower in starting the machinery working, something bad may have happened.
    He was such a mystery to her, and it was clear that he’d had some prior emotional trauma and was working hard to dal with it. Carol had mentioned a few things here and there, but it felt like gossiping somewhat, so they never really went into detail about it.
    The Doctor had his secrets, Sophie noted, and she couldn’t begrudge him that, considering that she had her own that she kept to herself.
    The street that they had started down was a stereotypical Victorian street scene to Sophie, one which she imagined maybe still existed in the streets of some contemporary London towns. Sophie, being from the ‘leafy suburbs’ of New York had seen depictions of Victorian Christmases in old movies and artists impressions, not to mention the German Christmas markets of her time that existed solely to attract yuletide visitors, but this was the real thing!
    Here in this wide back alley street, the snow was less compacted by footfall, and had built up at the sides of the streets, except where doorways of some shops where it had been cleared to the side.
    The pair observed a man looking as though preparing to close up for the day, taking in a small advertisement blackboard from the beside the doorway and entered the shop after him. It was a bakery and the smell of fresh bread lingered, but probably not as much as it had this morning.
    “Ever so sorry, squire,” the baker said, as they entered. “sold the last loaf twenty minutes ago, so we’re closing early before the birds arrive.”
    “The birds?” Sophie enquired.
    “ ‘Ello, American entcha?” The baker smiled broadly, clearing his throat a little as if to affect a more presentable accent for her. “We rarely get the foreign round ‘ere. Maybe continentals wiv their posh Fro- er, French accents! But, yeah, birds - goose - every year, I close up a bit early, so as the poor lot can get their Christmas geese cooked in time for Christmas dinner. This place will be steaming tomorrah.”
    “That’s very commendable,” The Doctor said. “How charitable. Thankfully, we’re not here for bread, but hopefully, some information. You see we’ve had an important item purloined from us and we rather need it back.”
    “Ah, them urchins, probably. They’re little buggers, they are.” The baker asserted. “I mean, they don’t mean no harm really, just they like to try their luck. From the poor house or the orphanage, most of ‘em. I suspect they’ve made their way back there, what with the evening coming on.”
    “Yes, well, I garnered their attention a little earlier, and I believe that they may well have picked my pocket. The orphanage, you say? Could you direct us?”
    The baker happily acquiesced and, guiding them outside, pointed further along the street.     “Down to the end, turn right, then immediately left; the poor house and the orphanage are next door to each other, poor bleeders. Be careful, mind. Them what’d rob yer get bigger than the urchins as it gets darker.”
    The Doctor thanked him and wished him a merry Christmas. “And to you too, Squire,” The baker smiled. “Probably gonna be a quiet one since the missus passed last summer. Gonna be too busy cooking them geese tomorrah, but it’s Christmas, ennit, so it’s nice to know that the poor folk will have warm bellies.”
    The Doctor and Sophie bade him farewell and made their way further down the street.
 

    Lee and Carol had made their way to the other end of the market and were no further forward. They too had been attracting a little attention, looking like they had lost something as they sought to catch sight of a grubby child or two.
    “I’d be careful with looks like those,” came a firm but friendly tone. “Any number of ne’er-do-wells would be encouraged to take advantage.”
    Carol turned the man at the stall, the last one on the edge of the market. “Well, we’ve already had that, I’m afraid,” She said. “A friend of mine had his pockets picked.”
“Oh dear,” the man replied. He was a tall person; broad but not imposing. His outfit was slightly smarter than those of his fellow market stall vendors, and his accent only softly London, certainly by comparison of the cockney twang of most of them. He cut an appealing, if not slightly out of place figure, perhaps. If not for the festive fare he had for sale, he would have looked more suited to being a customer than a vendor.
    Lee took a moment to observe what was for sale. Intricate wooden carvings, with moving parts, beautiful wreaths of holly, and a row of snowglobes, which looked so intricate and ornate that Lee was surprised it was made in this era. But then, he thought, it was naïve to assume that everything complicated was made nearer his time. The sheer amount of ingenuity that the people of earlier times enjoyed was no less remarkable for the time and even more so since technology was less advanced. He held one aloft and gave it a gently shake, the snow forming a blizzard around the Jules Verne-esque futuristic domed cityscape.
    “Have you seen any kids loitering around, sir?” Carol asked the man.
    “It would be odd for them not to be skittering about the marketplace,” he said, his helpful tone belaying his not so helpful response. “The children are always around, looking for what they can find.”
    The older man in the stall next to them, who had been industriously working away at a wooden toy, suddenly loomed, a grumpy look on his face.
    “Don’t listen to ‘im. ‘es only bin ‘ere a day or two. Posh git wanting to know wossit like to slum it like the rest of us!”
    The tall man laughed. “Now, now Reg, you’ve more than made your money this past few days, if that gentleman hadn’t arrived yesterday with such a large order, you’d be here filling your quota until Christmas morning!”
    Carol and Lee watched their back and forth, as though at Wimbledon, not quite sure if this interaction was filled with friction, or simply banter.
    “Them urchins all live up the road at the orphanage.” Reg muttered. “Little blighters are trouble, but only so far as the world has made ‘em. Can’t blame ‘em, I s’pose.”
    Carol asked for directions and Reg provided them graciously, curbing his sharper tone ‘for the lady’. She thanked him and she and Lee started on their way. “Your friend,” the tall man called after them. “he’s not too shaken by his experience?”
    “Oh, no,” Carol smiled. “The Doctor’s fine. He’s dealt with a lot worse than being pick-pocketed. Merry Christmas.”
    “Haven’t we all,” the tall man said.
 

    Quite fortuitously, Carol and Lee managed to find the Doctor and Sophie outside the orphanage, looking for way in.
    They shared their findings with each other and decided to try and peer through one of the windows of the imposing building. Carol being the slightest, the Doctor urged her to take a leg-up from him and she managed to haul herself high enough to peer inside. It looked like a large dormitory, with drab grey beds lining opposing walls, There were children throughout the room, playing in various groups, or conspiratorially huddled together, presumably showing off the fruits of their day’s looting.
    Carol dropped down and explained what she saw.
    “Right then!” The Doctor announced and marched round the corner to a pair of double doors, which he brazenly flung open and entered.
    His three companions hurriedly followed.
 

    Inside was barely warmer, but sheltered from any cutting wind that might arise.
Carol and co, caught sight of the Doctor’s coattails as her turned the corner and then through the door to the dorm.
    The prior cacophony of excited children turned immediately to hush as they spotted the four enter the room.
    For a moment the hush hung in the air, before the Doctor finally announced. “Somebody has my key and I would greatly appreciate it being returned!”
    The hushed pause continued as the children, possibly around twenty of them, all drew together and huddled into a group.
    “We’re sorry, mister.” One of the bigger boys spoke up. “We was just trying to get by.”
    One of the smaller girls spoke up. She looked like she hadn’t bathed in a week, but her bright blue eyes lit up her face. “Mrs. Aldershot said that Father Christmas couldn’t visit us this year, so we’ve bin trying to help and get her some money for him and his elves.”
    Carol’s heart gave out at the sense of helplessness she felt for them. Orphaned children in her time had difficult lives as I was and she could only imagine such a scene as what now stood before her, only previously seen in black and white movies, was really like in this day and age. How many of these children would reach adulthood? Or far beyond that? Straight to the poor house next door, she imagined.
    As the Doctor approached them, anther child, an older girl, appeared from the group and, TARDIS key in hand, shame-facedly handed it to the Doctor. “We’re really sorry.” she said.
    “I understand.” The Doctor said to her softly. “If this had any monetary value – and wasn’t so important to me, I would have certainly allowed you to keep it and sell on, but I’m afraid, it’s just a dull old key to our carriage.”
    He rubbed her hair encouragingly.
    With that, he turned and began to leave. Carol approached whispered something to him, which made him, almost dramatically for him, spin on his heels back to the children. “Don’t worry, children!” He announced. “Christmas is not lost!”
 

    “I really don’t want to continue to trend,” Lee said as they crew finally re-entered the TARDIS. “But, wat’s going on? What are you up to?”
    “Just a few short hops, Lee.” The Doctor told him, energetically working at the console controls. “It’ll be quicker just to show you.”
    And off they went.
 
    The morning before Christmas Eve, the TARDIS reappeared by the marketplace as it was setting up for the day.
    The Doctor and Sophie exited, unseen by anyone in the vicinity and made their way straight to the man with the wooden toys. “Good morning, sir, are you Reg?”
    Bemused, the wizened ageing man looked the Doctor up and down. “Yeah?”
    “I would like to purchase 25 of your wooden toys please.”
    “I ent got 25! You want me to just build right here and now?”
    “Gracious, no – but I would like to collect them tomorrow before you finish.”
    Reg was about to complain, muttering about wood and tools being expensive, but the Doctor fished around in his pocket and extracted a handful of sovereigns. “Will this much do?”
It was one of the few times that year that Reg smiled.
 

    “Did you see the other guy, with the snowglobes?” Carol asked, as the Doctor and Sophie hurried back into the TARDIS.
    “No; was I supposed to?”
    “Oh, no; I just thought maybe he might have an item or two you may have liked.” Carol shrugged. “Where now?”
 
    With an expertise that the Doctor nowadays tried to avoid doing, for fear of being observed by anyone scouring the vortex for him, the TARDIS reappeared once more on Christmas Eve.
He and Carol hopped out, greeted Reg who grumbled that they were late and that he wanted to finish up half an hour ago, but passed over the sack of toys and received a Christmas gift of a few more sovereigns. Two smiles in two days!
    Carol looked for the tall man, but his stall was now empty and he was nowhere to be seen.     She silently wished him a merry Christmas, and she and the Doctor left once more.
 

    “How do I look?”
    After a few hours wrapping the toys for the children and returning them to the sack they had arrived in, the Doctor was ready to make a delivery.
    Carol wasn’t sure, but she could have sworn his dark red overcoat had been blue earlier. And less velvety.
    “You just need a big red hat and you’d fit the picture.” Sophie laughed.
    “Although I think Father Christmas wore green in this period, didn’t he?” Lee queried.
    The Doctor slung the sack over his shoulder. “This will have to do.”
    The four found themselves in the darkened hallway of the orphanage and each of them crept out as silently as they could, opening the door to the children’s dorm with a creak.
    For the next few minutes, each of them made their way, presents in hand, depositing one at the foot of each bed.
    The Doctor, with the last gift in hand, as his three companions made their way to the exit, placed the gift at the foot of the final bed, and looked up to see the little girl from earlier looking sleepily at him. Her little face had been washed and her blue eyes almost shone in the gloom.
    “Thank you, Father Christmas.” She said with a smile, her voice full of sleep.
    “Ah.” The Doctor took a beat, swallowed, and smiled softly. “Ho ho ho, little girl. Have a lovely day tomorrow.”
    And, with that, he was gone.
 
    The baker started his Christmas morning quietly and dutifully. No fanfare, no celebration. He was, however, cheered that his busy day preparing food for others was going to be so well received by them. That was what Christmas was to him. He was sure that Maggie would be up there and proud. He missed her, but her memory lived on.
    He wasn’t long into beginning that there was a rap on the front door. Way too early for any recipients to come collecting. Carol singers maybe?
    He opened the door to Carol, Lee, Sophie and the Doctor. “Need to some help?” Carol smiled.

And what a scene it was: the bakery was hot and busy, the windows misted up as a Christmas scene would require. People full of Christmas cheer, five individuals with nowhere better to be and no need but to help each other and give the gift of goodwill to people who were also in need.
    The tall man could see this scene from across the street, his stall the only one present in the market square, sticking out like a sore thumb.
    Satisfied that everyone was safe, he departed and somehow disappeared into the stall, which then magically faded away with a strange wheezing and groaning…