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On This Day (USA) - 3 April



The Crusade: The Knight of Jaffa premiered on BBC One in 1965 at 5:42pm BST, watched by 8.50 million viewers.

Ian is knighted by King Richard and sent to rescue Barbara. The King's Chamberlain becomes suspicious of the Doctor and Vicki. Barbara makes a bid to escape from her kidnappers.


The Claws of Axos: Episode Four premiered on BBC One in 1971 at 5:15pm BST, watched by 7.80 million viewers.

With Axos poised to destroy the world, the Doctor appears to switch sides and allies himself with the Master. Together they plan to escape Earth, leaving it to Axos...


Whose Doctor Who premiered on BBC2 in 1977 at 8:22pm BST, watched by 2.00 million viewers.

The Eleventh Hour premiered on BBC One in 2010 at 6:21pm BST, watched by 10.08 million viewers.

Call Me The Doctor premiered on BBC Three in 2010 at 7:25pm BST

 Birthdays
Chrissie Marie Fit will be 40 - credited as Assistant in Rendition(TW)

Chrissie Marie Fit played the Assistant in the Torchwood story Rendition.


Joy Fitch will be 44 - credited as Zombie in The Christmas Invasion

Joyia Fitch was born in Wegberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

She is known for her work on The Horror Vault Vol.1 (2008), Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman (2005) and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004).


Edward Highmore will be 63 - credited as Malkon in Planet of Fire

Edward Highmore is an English actor.

He is known for playing Leo Howard in the 1980s BBC drama set in a boatyard, Howards' Way

In Doctor Who he played Malkon in the 1984 serial Planet of Fire

Highmore attended Guildford School of Acting.

He is the father of actor Freddie Highmore, who played Charlie Bucket in the 2005 film version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Edward and Freddie both played in Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story as father and son.


Peter Howell will be 76 - 42 credits, including Incidental Music for Revenge of the Cybermen

Peter Howell is a musician and composer, best known for his work on Doctor Who as a member of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Howell's musical career began in the late 1960s working with John Ferdinando in various psych folk bands including Agincourt and Ithaca. His psych folk work also included a musical version of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glassand a comedy musical entitled Tomorrow Come Someday. Howell and Ferdinando recorded five albums before Howell became a member of the Radiophonic Workshop. In 1970 he became a studio manager at the BBC and in 1974 he joined the Radiophonic Workshop with which he would associated until 1997.

His work on Doctor Who began in 1975 when he provided some accompanying incidental music for Revenge of the Cybermen and special sound for Planet of Evil. When John Nathan-Turner became producer of Doctor Who in 1980, he decided that the music needed to be updated and commissioned Howell to provide a new arrangement of the Doctor Who theme to accompany a new title sequence. Whereas the original arrangement of the theme (written by Ron Grainer) had been realised by Delia Derbyshire (and, originally, assisted by Dick Mills) using musique concr�te techniques, Howell arranged Grainer's theme on analogue synthesisers - primarily using a Yamaha CS-80 and an ARP Odyssey Mk3.

Howell's new arrangement first appeared in 1980 on The Leisure Hive, for which Howell had also recorded the incidental score, and was used throughout Tom Baker's final season on the programme as well as Peter Davison's tenure as the Doctor. For Colin Baker's first season in 1984, however there was a problem in transferring the music so the theme was slightly lower in pitch. This version continued to be used until Colin Baker's 1985 story, Revelation of the Daleks. Between 1980 and 1985 Howell also provided incidental music for ten stories of Doctor Who. In 1986, Nathan-Turner commissioned a new theme arrangement by Dominic Glynn which ended Howell's association with Doctor Who on television, although he did provide music for the radio series The Paradise of Death and The Ghosts of N-Space as well as a new version of his theme for use in the Big Finish audio dramas.

Aside from Doctor Who, Howell's Radiophonic Workshop work includes an album of original recordings in 1978 entitled Through A Glass Darkly (credited to Peter Howell & The Radiophonic Workshop) and "Greenwich Chorus", a piece which accompanied an episode of Jonathan Miller's popular The Body in Question which was controversial at the time for its use of the vocoder. Howell composed the theme tunes to The Machine that Changed the World (1992), a 5-part television series on the history of the electronic digital computer, to Robert Hughes' 1979-80 8-part series on Modern art (The Shock of the New), and to the Badger Girl and Spywatch series of the long-running BBC schools' programme,Look and Read. Howell was responsible for the BBC Video logo's music in 1985.

In recent years Howell's incidental music for the Doctor Who stories The Leisure Hive and Meglos has appeared on volumes 3 and 4 of the Doctor Who at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop compilation albums and much of his early folk material with John Ferdinando has also been re-released on CD.

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


William Gaunt will be 87 - 7 credits, including Orcini in Revelation of the Daleks

William Gaunt is an English actor,

He played Orcini in the 1985 story Revelation of the Daleks

After minor roles in series such as Z CarsThe Avengers, and Edgar Wallace Mysteries through the 1960s he gained a role as the super-powered secret agent Richard Barrett in the 1968 British espionage/science fiction series The Champions. He had also appeared in a recurring role in Sergeant Cork following policemen in Victorian London.

Between 1983 and 1987 he starred as harassed father Arthur Crabtree in the sitcom No Place Like Home. He subsequently made many guest appearances in other series such as Juliet Bravo. From 1995 to 1997, he starred in the sitcom Next of Kin opposite Penelope Keith. In 2010 he appeared in the Globe Theatre production of Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1. William starred in the 2004 Doctor Who audio series Dalek Empire III. He is currently appearing in the Channel 4 series Cast Offs.

He also made a brief appearance in the last episode of the series Airline starring Jack Ruskin (Roy Marsden)

In December 2011 he was seen in Episode One of the ITV drama Without You.


Michael Hayes (died 2014 aged 85) would be 95 - 3 credits, including Director for The Androids of Tara

Michael Hayes was born in Barking, Essex, but was evacuated to Harrogate during the Second World War. Initially an theatrical actor, his first main role was in Falkland Cary's play Burning Gold, before becoming a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

He first married in 1955 to actress Mary Chester, during which his daughter Alisoun was born. Once settled at the BBC (initially as a studio manager in the World Serivice), they divorced and he married Jane Phillips in 1963. Later, he became a floor manager for television productions, rising up the ranks to become a director. In 1971 he moved out of London into Kent with his family.

In 1978 he directed the Season 16 story The Androids of Tara, with initial misgivings over what he thought was merely "a children's show with dodgy effects". However, he agreed to do so due to his friendship with head of serials Graeme MacDonald and producer Graham Williams, and got on well with Tom Baker, the two becoming friends and leading to the director to work on two more stories, The Armageddon Factor and then the first story to utilise overseas locations, Paris in City of Death, during which he made a 'Hitchcock' appearance as the shifty-looking passenger wearing a cloth cap and carrying a metal case seen exiting the train at the Metro station Boissière after the Doctor and Romana; he also dubbed the voice of a gendarme who tells the Doctor that the Mona Lisa has been stolen.

Other works include Skorpion, All Creatures Great and Small, Prince Regent, The Standard, When the Boat Comes In, Rooms, The Onedin Line, Oil Strike North, Churchill's People, Play for Today, Thirty-Minute Theatre, The Sextet, Take Three Girls, Jenny IV, The Wednesday Play, The Promise, The Troubleshooters, The Jazz Age, Theatre 625, A Flea in Her Ear, Boy Meets Girl, Thirteen Against Fate, The Spies, Sherlock Holmes, Cluff, Detective, First Night, Maigret, BBC Sunday-Night Play, Moonstrike, A for Andromeda, An Age of Kings

He is survived by his three children, Alisoun, Kelly and Patrick, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.


Timothy Bateson (died 2009 aged 83) would be 98 - 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


Andrew Keir (died 1997 aged 71) would be 98 - credited as Wyler in Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.(Aaru)

Andrew Keir  was a Scottish actor, who rose to prominence featuring in a number of films from Hammer Film Productions in the 1960s. He was also active in television, and particularly in the theatre, in a professional career that lasted from the 1940s to the 1990s. He is most remembered for starring as Professor Bernard Quatermass in Hammer's film version of Quatermass and the Pit (1967). He also originated the role of Thomas Cromwell in Robert Bolt's play A Man for All Seasons in 1960.

He played Wyler in feature film Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.. 


Peter Hawkins (died 2006 aged 82) would be 100 - 12 credits, including Dalek Voice in The Daleks

Peter Hawkins  was an English actor and voice artist. He was one of the first voices of the Daleks and the Cybermen working on at least 48 episodes of Doctor Who.

Hawkins' long association with British children's television began in 1952 when he voiced both Bill and Ben, the Flower Pot Men. In 1955–1956, He voiced Big Ears & Mr. Plod from The Adventures Of Noddy. He also provided all the voices for the animated series Captain Pugwash, The Family Ness, The Adventures of Sir Prancelot, The Adventures of Tintin, and Bleep and Booster, the latter of which was a regular feature of Blue Peter in the 1960s and early 70s. 

He was also the original voice of Zippy on Rainbow during the first year of its run (1972). Hawkins was the original voice for the character of Frankie Mouse in the fourth radio episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, originally broadcast in March 1978.


Hugh Burden (died 1985 aged 72) would be 111 - credited as Channing in Spearhead From Space

Hugh Burden  was an English actor and playwright.

He played Channing in the 1970 Doctor Who serial Spearhead from Space

He was educated at Beaumont College and trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and RADA. He then appeared on stage in repertory theatre in Croydon and in London's West End before military service in the Hampshire Regiment and the Indian Army from 1939 to 1942.

Other roles include  The Avengers (1963) and The Mind of Mr. J. G. Reeder (1969).

Film appearances include One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942), The Way Ahead (1944), Fame is the Spur (1947), Malta Story (1953), Funeral in Berlin (1966), Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971) and The Ruling Class (1972).

He also acted in radio plays and was known for readings of the works of authors such as T. S. Eliot and Evelyn Waugh. He also wrote several television and stage plays and was an Equity council member.


 Deaths
June Brown (died 2022 aged 95) - credited as Eleanor in The Time Warrior

June Brown is an English actress with a long television career. 

She had small roles in Coronation Street as Mrs Parsons (1970); in the Doctor Who story "The Time Warrior" as Lady Eleanor (1973/74); medical soap Angels; history-of-Britain Churchill's People; long-running comedy drama Minder; police soap The Bill; and cult sci-fi series Survivors. She also had a bigger part as Mrs Leyton in the costume drama The Duchess of Duke Street (1976), and played Mrs Mann in Oliver Twist (1985).

She starred in the wartime big band comedy Ain't Misbehavin (1997), and played Nanny Slagg in the BBC's big-budget production of Gormenghast in 2000. She had a number of small roles in several famous movies, appearing as the grieving mother of an undead biker in British horror flick Psychomania (1971), as well as Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), Straw Dogs (1971), Murder by Decree (1979), Nijinsky (1980), The Mambo Kings (1992) and the hugely successful Mr. Bean movie spin-off Bean (1997).

In 2006, Brown appeared as Aunt Spiker at the Children's Party At The Palace, an all-star event to celebrate the Queen's 80th birthday. In 2010 Brown took part in the annual Christmas special for Strictly Come Dancing.