Confession time. I was a pre-teen nerd. A geek before that was even a thing in this country. The main source of my obsession in the early 1980s was Doctor Who. And anyone who’s ever succumbed to this addiction will know that the TV show WAS NEVER ENOUGH.

The serials might have rambled on, largely without incident over 5 or 6 weeks, but I still needed more. As there was no such thing as a Betamax box set, the only other source came through the novelisations of the TV series, covering every single story from William Hartnell’s ‘An Unearthly Child’ up to the very latest Peter Davidson adventure.

Every week I would lie on the rough, odd smelling carpet in my local library scanning the several shelves dedicated to hardback, plastic bound Doctor Who books written mainly by Terrance Dicks. It didn’t matter that they more often than not turned out to be yet another interminable tale about a bad tempered septuagenarian grappling against an unpronounceable foe in an obscure dark ages setting. It was Doctor Who, that was enough. The beast was being fed.

The first of these novelisations came out in 1964 – a run of three books published by Armada books. It is an object of immense coolness, with a title even Russell T. Davies would have balked at for its brashness: Doctor Who in an Exciting adventure with THE DALEKS!

Flip the cover and you’ll find an added attraction – DINOSAURS! Kids of the ’60s you were truly spoiled. If the upcoming series 8 adventure Dinosaurs on a Spaceship turns out even half this good I’ll be a happy man.