My first proper cry

Perhaps I should not mention this, but......

Now, I'm a Doctor Who fan and my earliest memory goes back to when Jon Pertwee was playing the Time-Lord battling Daleks and the Master in the 1973 story 'Frontier in Space'. He was accompanied by Jo Grant, played by Katy Manning.

And so two stories later and episode six of 'The Green Death' (the one with the maggots in) and it was to that fateful early Saturday evening, 23rd June 1973, when I had my first proper cry. Yup, not as a child not getting my own way or being sent to bed early or feeling unwell. Jo Grant was leaving the Doctor to marry Professor Jones and go into the Amazon rather than continue her travels in the TARDIS in time and space.

What!? I cried buckets at the thought of never seeing Jo again. No one told me about this beforehand, I wasn't warned about heartache. Here I was a child of 7 years and 9 months and having my first loss in life. Jo was a big sister for me, asking the questions that I couldn't think up and I had affection for her.

And here is the really serious thing. We don't teach children heartache at schools, about loss and losing loved ones and how it affects us. This has bugged me for years, when friends or family die or move away, it hurts, in fact it hurts badly, we all know, don't we?

OK, Jo Grant isn't a real person, but Katy Manning is. Sadly, she never returned to Doctor Who, but listening to her on the DVD commentary that she has done on 'The Green Death' and yes, this 40 years and 6 months old guy still has a sob.

Just wanted to mention it, that's all. Out of my system now.....