On Doctor Who and the Cave-Monsters

I’m less than certain what age I was when I first read Doctor Who and the Cave-Monsters by Malcolm Hulke, but I’m certain that I was less than ten. Aside from being beautifully illustrated (by Chris Achilleos), it’s still a page-turner now that I’m in my 40s.

The book has received renewed attention recently in the wake of Eleventh Doctor two-parter The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood, which draws on it to some extent.

Going back to it this week, however, the contemporary debate the book resonated with was the one over Stephen Fry’s BAFTA lecture comments regarding Doctor Who being a children’s programme. I agree with the Grand Tweeter on this, as it happens. And this novel(isation) is a fine example of the fact that Doctor Who is (a) primarily for children, and (b) wonderfully written.

First published in January 1974, clearly the author was writing for a children’s audience. I doubt Mac was overly distracted by the possibility of receiving irate green inks from the radical Grown-up wing of the William Hartnell Fan Club. Had he been, he’d have paused only long enough to strip down whatever munitions they’d shoved through Sir Terrance and his’ shared letterbox before providing a souped-up version to the nascent Angry Brigade.

No, Malcolm Hulke was writing for children. Wonderfully.

The famous bit is Chapter 8, Into An Alien World, in which we see our surroundings from a Silurian (whatever) POV. But this vital trope is there in the very Prologue, as the reptiles prepare for their ill-fated hibernation.

[Okdel] ‘In the zoo I have noticed how they touch each other, and put their limbs around each others’ necks’
‘Yes,’ said Morka, ‘and press their lips to each other’s faces! It is disgusting!’
Okdel turned to K’to. ‘But as a man of science, do you not find it interesting that a species exists so different from ourselves?’

‘Interesting,’ said K’to, ‘but I do not care to be near them. They also smell.’

It’s clear what Hulke is doing here: making us see ourselves as the Other. The sort of thing that today’s weary liberals might expect of the next Chris Addison tweet. But think. This is mere years after Enoch Powell almost said Rivers of Blood, the age of the Ugandan Asians, an age which makes our present-day pretending-not-to-be-racist chic seem enlightened. “Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters” was radical for early 70s adults.

And it was written for children.

It is strange that the TV version of this story, which was presumably tasked with including the watching parent-adults in the audience, should have offered scant motivation for, say, Miss Dawson, while the definitely-for-kids novel(isation) provides it:

In her heart Miss Dawson feared the moment when people would stop asking,‘Why don’t you get married?’ and replace it with the dread, ‘Why didn’t you get married?’

Perhaps such complications of life are supposed to be second nature to adults. And indeed they are; we know the general rules – but aren’t the kids lucky to be informed of them? It is so much a part of us that we forget, as each episode of Big Brother testifies.

Again, Major Ba[r]ker. On television he’s a bit of a cardboard cut-out numpty, and Hulke’s prose version gives vent to some elaborate silliness for the Doctor to puncture:

‘Why should Communists cause these power losses?’ said the Doctor.
‘They hate England, that’s why.’ Barker started to warm to his subject. ‘They train people to come here to destroy us.’
‘I see,’ said the Doctor. ‘Are these Chinese communists or Russian communists?’
‘There’s no difference between them,’ said Barker. ‘And if it isn’t them, it’s the fascists. Or the Americans.’

(Aside: Recall - kids book. 1974. With all due respect to the lovely JK, would she dare?) (Though the Major’s right about the Americans, of course).

But how has Ba[r]ker ended up like this? In the light of the Falklands, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Savile Report, read Hulke’s explanation and shiver:

...he saw himself one day in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, leading a group ofsoldiers who were trying to pin down an IRA sniper. The sniper had already shottwo of his men dead, and wounded a third. The Major carefully worked his men into a position so that the sniper was completely surrounded. Then he called upon the sniper to surrender. A rifle was thrown down from a window, and a man appeared with his arms raised. As Major Barker called on his men to break cover and arrest the sniper, shots rang out from a sniper in another building, instantly killing the young soldier next to Major Barker. Without a second’s thought, Barker aimed his revolver at the sniper standing with his hands up in surrender, and shot him dead. For that moment of anger, Major Barker had been asked to resign from the British Army and to find another job.

And remember, this was for kids. This is what kids my generation read in the days when we had Public Libraries in lieu of the Internet.

We read this young and grew up to become the more-or-less noble beings we became. Because 1970s Doctor Who was, like Aughties Doctor Who, for us – us kids.

It was Malcolm Hulke’s Doctor Who. For children. And wonderfully written.

Illustrations above from the wonderful On Target. And here, just for kicks, are a couple of foreign covers from The TARDIS Library: