I thought it’d be appropriate for Sarah to go next to Lis’s autobiography
sarah jane smith
I’ve really gone and done it this time, I’m afraid.
For obvious reasons.
The manipulation and colouring is all mine.
And one day Sarah Jane went to the National Gallery, and Sky wandered off with Clyde and Rani… or had Sarah Jane wandered off from them? No matter. She followed a few twists and turns, sonic-lipsticked her way through some doors which may have read “staff only” because the kids really didn’t seem to be anywhere she could see…
And then she saw it, parked in a corner. She could almost have mistaken it for modern art, except, well… it was humming. Sarah Jane Smith knew that hum. She dreamed about it sometimes. A docent approached her and asked, with pointed politeness, if she was authorized to be there.
“Sarah Jane Smith, journalist.” She flashed an ID. “I’m doing a story on the unseen side of the Gallery. I was wondering if I might have a word with the curator about this piece? It’s very interesting.”
“Hold on a moment, I’ll fetch him.“
As soon as the docent was gone, Sarah Jane tiptoed up to the TARDIS door and knocked. “Doctor?” she called, trying to keep her voice down. A few more quick, urgent raps on the door. “Doctor, are you in there?”
“You know,” a voice intoned behind her, “there is an official policy against touching the art.”
Sarah Jane froze. That voice. That voice sounding out against the hum of the TARDIS— was this a dream after all? Had she fallen asleep? But no, she couldn’t have, she remembered waking up in the morning, driving here, looking at the art, losing the kids, every step of it.
“Oh, don’t worry,” that voice continued, “I’ve never been much for official policies, myself.”
There were already tears in her eyes when she turned around. It was and was not quite the face she’d expected to see, stooped and white-haired and older…
“And what’s a little harmless rule-breaking between friends? Eh, Sarah?”
Her hesitance vanished the moment he grinned.
Lis Sladen (1946- 2011)
Elisabeth Sladen was an English actress, most famous for her role as Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who, often described as the most popular companion ever, her character was the first proper feminist companion on the show and also the longest serving (1973-76) she returned for the 20th anniversary special (1983) and for an episode with David Tennant in 2005, before she was given her own spin-off show on CBBC (The Sarah Jane Adventures, 2007-2011)
Lis Sladen passed away exactly 4 years ago today (19th April) at the age of 65 and I just wanted to take a moment to say how much she meant to people, not just to me but to every child who watched her alongside the Doctor or in Bannerman road and she is so, so missed. Thank you for lighting up my TV screen Lis :)
“Except, of course, she was everything I could hope she would be. Charming, diffident, conscientious, giggly, determined, straightforward, a little crazy and enormously warm.” – David Tennant
“Tom campaigning for no new companion, ‘because no one could replace Sarah’,” – Elisabeth Sladen (The Autobiography)
“There she was on the TV screen, smiling and laughing and looking beautiful. How could she be gone?” – Brian + Sadie Miller
“Her doctor said, ‘We can’t cure it, but we’re going to throw everything we can at you to fight it as long as possible’ That fight lasted no more than two months. Lis died at the Meadow House Hospice in the early hours of Tuesday, 19 April 2011. She was 65 years old.” – Brian + Sadie Miller
After a long line of supposedly subservient female companions, Sarah Jane Smith was intended as the show’s nod towards the nascent Women’s Lib movement. I didn’t want to make a big thing of this, though, assuming the Doctor to be a more liberal thinker than 1970s Britons. As the only girl running around UNIT’s military set-up, Sarah Jane needed to make herself heard, but I figured this could be achieved simply by making her a strong character. Of course the writers occasionally had other ideas. In ‘Monster of Peladon,’ for example, the Doctor actually orders Sarah Jane to give the Queen the full ‘Women’s Lib’ lecture, no punches pulled. The irony of male writers getting a male character to ‘order’ a woman to talk about feminism wasn’t lost on me.
Elisabeth Sladen’s autobiography (via stephadoo)
