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On This Day (USA) - 16 September



The Tomb of the Cybermen: Episode 3 premiered on BBC One in 1967 at 5:50pm BST, watched by 7.20 million viewers.

The tombs are revealed to be a trap. The Cybermen have risen from their centuries long hibernation and are intent on converting the humans into a new race of Cybermen.


The Ribos Operation: Part Three premiered on BBC One in 1978 at 6:31pm BST, watched by 7.90 million viewers.

 Birthdays
Janet Ellis will be 69 - credited as Teka in The Horns of Nimon

Janet Ellis MBE is a British television presenter and actress, who is best known for her four year period as a presenter on Blue Peter.

She was born in Chatham in Kent, but with her father Michael being a soldier  he was stationed during her childhood at various places in England and Germany. Accordingly, she attended seven schools, including, from the ages 13-17, Richmond County School for Girls.

She studied, from age 19, at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Her first television appearance was a bit part in The Sweeney. Her big break came in 1979, when she played Teka in the 1979 Doctor Who story The Horns of Nimon. She was the regular presenter of the Clive Doig-produced BBC TV children's programme Jigsaw.

Ellis joined Blue Peter on 28 April 1983, and during her four year stint, co-presented with Simon Groom, Sarah Greene, Peter Duncan, Michael Sundin, Mark Curry and Caron Keating.

She has three children, all born in London: Sophie Ellis-Bextor (born 1979), Jackson Ellis Leach (born 1987, Hounslow) and Martha Rose Leach (born 1991, Hammersmith).

Ellis presented the daytime Open Air for the BBC and a large range of programmes on topics such as gardens, cars, holidays, cookery and childcare. She is a frequent contributor to children's charity Scene & Heard. She presented the 2005 series of The Great Garden Challenge for Channel 4. She has been a regular panelist on Five's The Wright Stuff since 2002.

In more recent times she has become an established author, with books published including Two Roads (under the name of her grandmother, Jo Winter), and The Butcher's Hook. She is also co-author of How To Get Married Without Divorcing Your Family with Caron Keating.

She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to charity and theatre.


Bella Emberg (died 2017 aged 79) would be 87 - 4 credits, including Mrs Croot in Love & Monsters

Bella Emberg (born in Hove, Sussex, England, UK) is a British actress probably best known for her appearances on The Benny Hill Show and The Russ Abbot Show, where she notably played Blunderwoman. She has also appeared in Softly, Softly and Z Cars.

Her professional debut was in weekly repertory in Ryde on the Isle of Wight in the summer season of 1962.

She made a guest appearance on The Basil Brush Show and has featured in Doctor Who a number of times. In the 1970s she had uncredited roles in the Third Doctor serials Doctor Who And The Silurians (as a nurse in episode 6) and The Time Warrior (as a kitchen maid in episode four). In 2006 she was seen in the Tenth Doctor adventure Love & Monsters, where she played Mrs Croot. A second appearance as Mrs Croot was recorded for The Runaway Bride but cut before transmission. She played the part of Aunt Barbara in the second series of the CBBC programme Bear Behaving Badly in 2008, the third series in 2009, and the fourth in 2010.

Revised biography from the Wikipedia article, licensed under CC-BY-SA


Bill Meilen (died 2006 aged 73) would be 92 - credited as Froyn in The Daleks' Master Plan

The Welsh-born actor started performing at an early age on stage and appeared in numerous British TV productions.

He had a small role in the 1965 Doctor Who episode Counter Plot

He died of cancer in Vancouver, Canada.


 Deaths
Timothy Bateson (died 2009 aged 83) - credited as Binro in The Ribos Operation

Timothy Bateson  was a British actor. The son of Dingwall Bateson, a solicitor later knighted, he was educated at Uppingham SchoolUppingham,Rutland and Wadham CollegeOxford.

Bateson's stage credits included the first British production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot in 1955 at the Arts Theatre in London in a production directed by Peter Hall.

He appeared in many film, television and radio productions including Brother CadfaelDoctor Who (in the serial entitled The Ribos Operation), Dad's Army and Labyrinth.

He also provided the voices for several characters in the children's TV series TUGS (1988).

Biography from the Wikipedia article, licensed under CC-BY-SA


David Woolliscroft (died 2005 aged 63) - credited as Xeron in The Space Museum

Extra in The Space Museum and several other Doctor Who sotries

Also known as David Cleeve

Works include Then Churchill Said to MeTwo PeopleBless Me FatherAffairs of the HeartMicrobes and MenUpstairs, DownstairsZ Cars


Simon Gipps-Kent (died 1987 aged 28) - credited as Seth in The Horns of Nimon

Simon Gipps-Kent was a British actor,  noted for his numerous appearances as a child actor in the 1970s. He appeared in the 1979 Doctor Who story Horns of Nimon.

His television credits include: the 1973 BBC television adaptation of M.R. James' Lost Hearts; The Tomorrow People; Edward the Seventh (playing young Edward), a role he played again in the BBC's The Prince And The Pauper; Great Expectations ; To Serve Them All My Days; V for Victory, an episode of the 1978 TV series Enemy at the Door; A Traveller in Time and the Southern Television serials, Midnight is a Place and Noah's Castle. Gipps-Kent also had a speaking part in Quadrophenia.

For a time he also played Kenton Archer in the BBC radio serial The Archers. His last television role was in the pilot episode for the comedy series Blackadder in 1982. 

He died of a morphine overdose in 1987.