Sunday 29 June 2008

The writers of Dr Who understand my Dad's idea of heaven

My Father had his own views of how Heaven would be - I am trying to recall what tense he used and I think he was ambiguous . He had no doubts about it's existence but that it was centred around the person. It made sense to me instantly, far more believable then an old man up in the clouds. It wasn't hard to accommodate it along with all the other things I was believing at the time. This belief has lasted. As a belief it is one I am fond of. When Heaven happens is another matter, I think my Dad was talking about after death but I am not certain he was. He was, I suspect musing out loud and he was more interested in making me think, rather then being attached to what I did think (well not about this!).

The last few weeks I have finally got back into Dr Who. I left it emotionally more then a decade or two back. Accidentally I saw the Forest of the Dead and the Library and I was utterly entranced. I have seen subsequent episodes now which have all been good but this was in a different league. I read A LOT and I know what I likes! I don't have any pretensions of being literary, but this shone out as the most exquisite writing, scripting I have seen for a very long time. Sometimes even when you are not an expert in something but you come across excellence, you notice it. It shouts at you somewhere and sometimes there is a physical reaction, like a tingling or goosebumps. I knew nothing about Ice Dancing, would occasionally watch late at night mainly for the background music and then saw Torvill and Dean and knew they were in a different league. I have seen some nice furniture and then touched a craftsman made antique and KNOWN it's excellence without reference to a text book. These episodes did that to me. There were one or two lines which made my heart miss a beat.

The thing that entranced me though, was something else. It was a connection, a voice from the past or across the great mists of time. The thing I LOVED was the idea that a Father had placed his ill child in a library so that she wouldn't be bored/lonely and could continue to grow.