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{{ImageLink}}
{{Infobox Individual
{{Infobox Individual
|image      = Bambera main.jpg
|alias      = Seabird
|species    = Human
|job        = Captain
|job2        = brigadier
|job3        = general
|affiliation = UNIT
|origin      = [[Zambia]]
|mother      = Kofi Bambera
|father      = Winifred Bambera's father{{!}}Father
|brother    = Winifred Bambera's brother{{!}}Brother
|spouse      = Ancelyn
|child      = Ancelyn and Winifred Bambera's children{{!}}Children
|in-law      = Fontayne
|first      = Battlefield (TV story)
|appearances = {{appears}}
|actor      = Angela Bruce
|bts        = Behind the Scenes at UNIT - Brave New World
}}
'''Winifred Bambera''' was a member of [[UNIT]] in the [[United Kingdom]]. She commanded [[UNIT-UK]] and had multiple encounters with [[the Doctor]], mainly in his [[Seventh Doctor|seventh incarnation]].


== Biography ==
=== Early life ===
Winifred's father was called [[Kofi Bambera]]. Both he and her grandfather had served in the [[British Army]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Birds of Passage (novel)|Birds of Passage]]'')


|image = [[Image: Bambera01.png|250px]]
As an eight-year-old in [[Zambia]], Winifred Bambera once played with a lost [[leopard]] cub in [[Musi-O-Tunya National Park]]. [[Winifred Bambera's brother|Her older brother]] tried to rescue her from the cub's mother and was badly mauled. Bambera used [[Winifred Bambera's father|her father]]'s [[rifle]] to protect her and her brother from the mother and was later beaten by her father as punishment. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Downtime (novelisation)|Downtime]]'') A boy named [[Chikulu]] was once snatched from her village. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Haunt (audio story)|Haunt]]'')
|individual name = Winifred Bambera
 
|alias = Brigader Winifred Bambera
In 1975, her father was the Secretary of State for Defence. When discussing the racist politician [[Harry Whateley]] with [[Ian Gilmore]], Bambera's father said he feared what her generation would live through if Whateley won. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Birds of Passage (novel)|Birds of Passage]]'') Years later, Gilmore would lecture a class at [[Sandhurst]] that Bambera was in, telling them to keep an open mind.  ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Battlefield (novelisation)|Battlefield]]'') Gilmore deemed Bambera "the brightest young officer Sandhurst ever spat out". ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Rogue State (audio story)|Rogue State]]'')
|race = [[human]]
 
|home planet = [[Earth]]
=== Career with UNIT ===
|home era = [[20th century]]  
==== Early career ====
|appearances = [[DW]]: ''[[Battlefield]]'' <br> [[NA]]: ''[[Head Games]]'' <br> [[NA]]: ''[[The Dying Days]]'' <br> [[BFA]]: ''[[Animal]]''
By [[1995]], Bambera was serving as a [[captain]] in [[UNIT]] under [[Charles Crichton|Brigadier Charles Crichton]]. That year, she was called to assist in the fight against the [[Great Intelligence]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Downtime (novelisation)|Downtime]]'')
|actor = [[Angela Bruce]]
 
}}
Bambera was later promoted to [[brigadier]]; she knew of the [[retirement|retired]] [[Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart]] but not of [[the Doctor]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[Battlefield (TV story)|Battlefield]]'')
 
Early into her brigadier rank, Bambera was a figure of awe to female UNIT recruits and had a reputation as a hard martinet among seconded officers. The stress of the job had given her a drinking habit. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Battlefield (novelisation)|Battlefield]]'')
 
==== International missions ====
{{section stub|Info from ''[[The War Factory (audio story)|The War Factory]]'' needs to be added}}
In [[1997]], Brigadier Bambera was fifteen days into an operation in the [[Zambezi valley]] when she was called back to [[Geneva]] to take charge of a discreet nuclear missile disposal. She took command of squads from the [[Third Light Recce]].  ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Battlefield (novelisation)|Battlefield]]'') During this [[Carbury Incident|mission]] in [[Carbury]], she met the [[Seventh Doctor]] and [[Ace]] at [[Lake Vortigern]] and worked with them and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart against [[Mordred]], in the course of which she fought alongside [[Ancelyn]]. Following Mordred and [[Morgaine]]'s defeat, Brigadier Bambera went off with Ace, [[Doris Lethbridge-Stewart]] and [[Shou Yuing]] in [[Bessie]] for a "girls' day out". ([[TV]]: ''[[Battlefield (TV story)|Battlefield]]'') She and Ancelyn married shortly after. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Excalibur of Mars (short story)|Excalibur of Mars]]'')
 
The [[Eighth Doctor]] and [[Bernice Summerfield]] warned Brigadier Bambera of an impending invasion by the [[Ice Warrior]]s in [[May]] 1997 and she quickly accepted that this man was the same Doctor that she had met in [[Carbury]]. Whilst she dealt with the situation, Ancelyn evacuated [[Elizabeth II|Queen Elizabeth II]] and [[Prince Philip]] to [[Canada]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Dying Days (novel)|The Dying Days]]'')
 
According to one account, Bambera and Ancelyn separated due to their respective duties keeping them apart. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Rogue State (audio story)|Rogue State]]'')
 
A year after the incident on Carbury, Bambera led a mission in [[Valge Maja]] to capture arms dealer [[Roman Krojač]]. The mission went wrong and a UNIT operative, [[Bragg (Rogue State)|Bragg]], was killed, which Bambera blamed on herself. Bambera was subsequently recalled to [[UNIT Central Control]] in [[Geneva]], being accompanied by internal security officer Sergeant [[Jean-Paul Savarin]] to her annoyance, and wrote her resignation letter en route. She was offered a promotion to command [[UNIT-UK]] by Dame [[Lydia Kingsley]], which she rejected however accepted a final mission to guard a shipment of Soviet-era canisters to England that Krojač was targeting. Krojač succeeded in stealing four of the canisters, though Bambera was able to plant a tracker on him, and the boat's sirens awakened the [[Chuchuna]] stored in the last canister. After Savarin brought the creature down in the [[Port of London]], Bambera used her tracker to lay a trap for Krojač however he unleashed the rest of the Chuchuna from the stolen canisters. Bambera led UNIT forces to contain them in the [[Millennium Dome]] and had them sent into hibernation using CO2. Afterwards she accepted Lydia's offer to lead UNIT-UK and appointed Savarin her second-in-command. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Rogue State (audio story)|Rogue State]]'')
 
==== Commanding UNIT-UK ====
{{Section stub|Information from ''[[The Frequency (audio story)|The Frequency]]'', ''[[Haunt (audio story)|Haunt]]'' and ''[[The Last Line of Defence (audio story)|The Last Line of Defence]]'' needs to be added}}
Following a tip-off from her newly appointed [[scientific advisor]], Dr [[Louise Rix]], Brigadier Bambera and Sergeant Savarin investigated [[Caverhurst Seedbank and Research Facility]], discovering caterpillars had been engineered which could reverse ageing process until nothing remained. Ordering the facility firebombed to prevent them getting into the world, Bambera and Savarin tracked down a shipment that had left the facility and destroyed it. They deduced from documentation with the shipment the scientist behind the experiment was Doctor [[Winston Grange]] and returned to the facility in time to save Rix from him. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Time Flies (audio story)|Time Flies]]'')
 
Bambera was ordered to provide security for the launch of a British space station from an entity claiming to be the mind of deceased astronaut [[Helena McNamara]]. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Dark Side of the Moon (audio story)|Dark Side of the Moon]]'')
 
During one incident whilst Bambera was Brigadier she was aided by the [[Eleventh Doctor]], who asked her to keep his involvement out of the official report. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Prequel to Geronimo! (audio story)|Prologue - Clara]]'')
 
In [[1999]], Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart had a meeting with Brigadier Bambera to discuss being brought back into the fold in some way. Bambera refused his request. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Danger Men (novel)|The Danger Men]]'')
 
By [[2001]], Brigadier Bambera had twins with Ancelyn. That year, she investigated influences of the [[Land of Fiction]] on [[Earth]] and was joined by Benny, from an earlier point in her history, and [[Roz Forrester]]. She briefly saw [[Dr. Who (Land of Fiction)|Dr. Who]], mistaking him for the Seventh Doctor. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Head Games (novel)|Head Games]]'')
 
In 2001, Brigadier Bambera investigated threats to secret experiments UNIT was funding at [[Margrave University]]. On the Seventh Doctor's instructions, she enrolled Ace and [[Raine Creevy]] so they could go undercover and greeted the three travellers when they arrived at the university. She showed the Doctor the experiments and interrogated [[Scobie (Animal)|Scobie]], an radical animal rights activist caught sabotaging the facility. She did not like the Doctor appearing to agree to the demands of the [[Numlock]]s that Scobie had summoned to aid his cause, but parted company on good terms after the Doctor defeated them. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Animal (audio story)|Animal]]'')


'''Brigadier Winifred Bambera''' was part of [[UNIT]] in the [[Great Britain|UK]].
By [[2004]], the commanding officer of UNIT was [[Ross Brimmicombe-Wood|Colonel Ross Brimmicombe-Wood]]. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Coup (audio story)|The Coup]]'')


===Meeting the Doctor===
==== Promotion to general ====
Promoted to [[general]], Bambera was in [[Peru]] when several [[Silurian]] nests became active across Britain and they attempted an invasion of the country. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[United (audio story)|United]]'')


Along with the 7th Doctor, Ace, The Brigadier and UNIT she fought against Mordred when he and his knights came across a dimensional gateway in Carbury, and would fight alongside the knight [[Ancelyn]]. ([[DW]]: ''[[Battlefield]]'')
According to one account, in [[2020]] Bambera was listed as 'missing in action' after the [[Sea Devil]]s attacked a classified military post on the South Wales coast. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[At Childhood's End (novel)|At Childhood's End]]'') Another account claimed by the [[2020s]] she was still a general at UNIT. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Signs and Wonders (audio story)|Signs and Wonders]]'')


===Ice Warrior Invasion===
=== Later life ===
The [[Eighth Doctor]] once tried to invite Bambera and Ancelyn to [[Christmas]] dinner at [[the Brigadier]]'s house, but they were holidaying in [[Avalon (The Shadows of Avalon)|Avalon]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Faithful Friends: Part 3 (short story)|Faithful Friends: Part 3]]'')


She was part of the resistance when the [[Ice Warrior]]s invaded the United Kingdom in [[1997]]. ([[NA]]: ''[[The Dying Days]]'')
Later in her life, [[The Doctor (Good Companions)|Merlin]] sent [[Excalibur]] to Ancelyn in order for him to use it to stop [[Phobos]] and [[Deimos]] from drifting away from [[Mars]]. Ancelyn broke his foot in a [[football]] match and told Bambera to go in his place. Bambera met Benny on Mars, and together they were informed by a hologram of Merlin as to how to use Excalibur. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Excalibur of Mars (short story)|Excalibur of Mars]]'')


===Margate University===
=== Undated events ===
Bambera would later join forces with the [[Eighth Doctor (The Last of the Daleks)|Eighth Doctor]] to defeat the [[First Rani]] who was posing as vice chancellor in a university. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[What If? (feature)|What If?]]'')


She next meets [[Seventh Doctor|the Doctor]] in [[2001]] with his new companion [[Raine Creevy]] on her first trip to the future. The three of them along with UNIT defeated an alein plot at Margate University.&nbsp
At some point, Bambera was taken to the [[Black Archive]] by UNIT to have her record as a companion of the Doctor taken. She was photographed standing next to Ace. Her memories of the visit were subsequently erased and she was sent on her way. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Day of the Doctor (TV story)|The Day of the Doctor]]'')
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bambera, Winifred}}


===Her Future===
=== Other realities ===
She later had twins with Ancelyn. ([[NA|<u>NA</u>]]: ''[[Head Games|<u>Head Games</u>]]'').
[[Angela Bruce (in-universe)|Angela Bruce]] portrayed in an adventure with the [[Eighth Doctor (The Last of the Daleks)|Eighth Doctor]], portrayed by [[Richard Griffiths (in-universe)|Richard Griffiths]], and the [[First Rani]], portrayed by [[Kate O'Mara (in-universe)|Kate O'Mara]], titled ''[[Network (in-universe)|Network]]''. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[What If? (feature)|What If?]]'')


{{Start box}}
== Personality ==
{{Succession box
Brigadier Bambera enjoyed making an impression, especially during moments which would be recorded for posterity, and liked seeing so many people under her command. She preferred to be called "sir" rather than "ma'am" and did not like the wings on UNIT's logo, making several complaints about them in the hopes of getting them removed. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Head Games (novel)|Head Games]]'')
|title=Head of the British division of [[UNIT]]
|current=Winifred Bambera
|before=[[Charles Crichton]]
|before-story=
|after=[[Brimmicombe-Wood|Ross Brimmicombe-Wood]]
|after-story=
}}
{{End box}}


==Footnotes==
== Behind the scenes ==
* In an early draft of ''[[The Zygon Invasion (TV story)|The Zygon Invasion]]'', Bambera played a major role, at one point mercilessly killing a [[Zygon]] who resembled her son. In the aired episode, her role was replaced with [[Walsh (The Zygon Invasion)|Colonel Walsh]].<ref>[https://twitter.com/mrpeterharness/status/1259554933604585474 Peter Harness' Twitter]</ref>


<ref name="BF-Bambera">http://www.bigfinish.com/news/The-Return-of-Brigadier-Bambera</ref>
== Footnotes ==
{{reflist}}
{{NameSort}}


<references/>
[[Category:20th century individuals]]
[[Category:20th century individuals|Bambera]]
[[Category:21st century individuals]]
[[Category:21st century individuals|Bambera]]
[[Category:Human biological mothers]]
[[Category:UNIT officers]]
[[Category:UNIT human officers]]
[[Category:Allies of the Seventh Doctor]]

Latest revision as of 21:37, 24 March 2024

Winifred Bambera was a member of UNIT in the United Kingdom. She commanded UNIT-UK and had multiple encounters with the Doctor, mainly in his seventh incarnation.

Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]

Early life[[edit] | [edit source]]

Winifred's father was called Kofi Bambera. Both he and her grandfather had served in the British Army. (PROSE: Birds of Passage)

As an eight-year-old in Zambia, Winifred Bambera once played with a lost leopard cub in Musi-O-Tunya National Park. Her older brother tried to rescue her from the cub's mother and was badly mauled. Bambera used her father's rifle to protect her and her brother from the mother and was later beaten by her father as punishment. (PROSE: Downtime) A boy named Chikulu was once snatched from her village. (AUDIO: Haunt)

In 1975, her father was the Secretary of State for Defence. When discussing the racist politician Harry Whateley with Ian Gilmore, Bambera's father said he feared what her generation would live through if Whateley won. (PROSE: Birds of Passage) Years later, Gilmore would lecture a class at Sandhurst that Bambera was in, telling them to keep an open mind. (PROSE: Battlefield) Gilmore deemed Bambera "the brightest young officer Sandhurst ever spat out". (AUDIO: Rogue State)

Career with UNIT[[edit] | [edit source]]

Early career[[edit] | [edit source]]

By 1995, Bambera was serving as a captain in UNIT under Brigadier Charles Crichton. That year, she was called to assist in the fight against the Great Intelligence. (PROSE: Downtime)

Bambera was later promoted to brigadier; she knew of the retired Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart but not of the Doctor. (TV: Battlefield)

Early into her brigadier rank, Bambera was a figure of awe to female UNIT recruits and had a reputation as a hard martinet among seconded officers. The stress of the job had given her a drinking habit. (PROSE: Battlefield)

International missions[[edit] | [edit source]]

This section's awfully stubby.

Info from The War Factory needs to be added

In 1997, Brigadier Bambera was fifteen days into an operation in the Zambezi valley when she was called back to Geneva to take charge of a discreet nuclear missile disposal. She took command of squads from the Third Light Recce. (PROSE: Battlefield) During this mission in Carbury, she met the Seventh Doctor and Ace at Lake Vortigern and worked with them and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart against Mordred, in the course of which she fought alongside Ancelyn. Following Mordred and Morgaine's defeat, Brigadier Bambera went off with Ace, Doris Lethbridge-Stewart and Shou Yuing in Bessie for a "girls' day out". (TV: Battlefield) She and Ancelyn married shortly after. (PROSE: Excalibur of Mars)

The Eighth Doctor and Bernice Summerfield warned Brigadier Bambera of an impending invasion by the Ice Warriors in May 1997 and she quickly accepted that this man was the same Doctor that she had met in Carbury. Whilst she dealt with the situation, Ancelyn evacuated Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip to Canada. (PROSE: The Dying Days)

According to one account, Bambera and Ancelyn separated due to their respective duties keeping them apart. (AUDIO: Rogue State)

A year after the incident on Carbury, Bambera led a mission in Valge Maja to capture arms dealer Roman Krojač. The mission went wrong and a UNIT operative, Bragg, was killed, which Bambera blamed on herself. Bambera was subsequently recalled to UNIT Central Control in Geneva, being accompanied by internal security officer Sergeant Jean-Paul Savarin to her annoyance, and wrote her resignation letter en route. She was offered a promotion to command UNIT-UK by Dame Lydia Kingsley, which she rejected however accepted a final mission to guard a shipment of Soviet-era canisters to England that Krojač was targeting. Krojač succeeded in stealing four of the canisters, though Bambera was able to plant a tracker on him, and the boat's sirens awakened the Chuchuna stored in the last canister. After Savarin brought the creature down in the Port of London, Bambera used her tracker to lay a trap for Krojač however he unleashed the rest of the Chuchuna from the stolen canisters. Bambera led UNIT forces to contain them in the Millennium Dome and had them sent into hibernation using CO2. Afterwards she accepted Lydia's offer to lead UNIT-UK and appointed Savarin her second-in-command. (AUDIO: Rogue State)

Commanding UNIT-UK[[edit] | [edit source]]

This section's awfully stubby.

Information from The Frequency, Haunt and The Last Line of Defence needs to be added

Following a tip-off from her newly appointed scientific advisor, Dr Louise Rix, Brigadier Bambera and Sergeant Savarin investigated Caverhurst Seedbank and Research Facility, discovering caterpillars had been engineered which could reverse ageing process until nothing remained. Ordering the facility firebombed to prevent them getting into the world, Bambera and Savarin tracked down a shipment that had left the facility and destroyed it. They deduced from documentation with the shipment the scientist behind the experiment was Doctor Winston Grange and returned to the facility in time to save Rix from him. (AUDIO: Time Flies)

Bambera was ordered to provide security for the launch of a British space station from an entity claiming to be the mind of deceased astronaut Helena McNamara. (AUDIO: Dark Side of the Moon)

During one incident whilst Bambera was Brigadier she was aided by the Eleventh Doctor, who asked her to keep his involvement out of the official report. (AUDIO: Prologue - Clara)

In 1999, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart had a meeting with Brigadier Bambera to discuss being brought back into the fold in some way. Bambera refused his request. (PROSE: The Danger Men)

By 2001, Brigadier Bambera had twins with Ancelyn. That year, she investigated influences of the Land of Fiction on Earth and was joined by Benny, from an earlier point in her history, and Roz Forrester. She briefly saw Dr. Who, mistaking him for the Seventh Doctor. (PROSE: Head Games)

In 2001, Brigadier Bambera investigated threats to secret experiments UNIT was funding at Margrave University. On the Seventh Doctor's instructions, she enrolled Ace and Raine Creevy so they could go undercover and greeted the three travellers when they arrived at the university. She showed the Doctor the experiments and interrogated Scobie, an radical animal rights activist caught sabotaging the facility. She did not like the Doctor appearing to agree to the demands of the Numlocks that Scobie had summoned to aid his cause, but parted company on good terms after the Doctor defeated them. (AUDIO: Animal)

By 2004, the commanding officer of UNIT was Colonel Ross Brimmicombe-Wood. (AUDIO: The Coup)

Promotion to general[[edit] | [edit source]]

Promoted to general, Bambera was in Peru when several Silurian nests became active across Britain and they attempted an invasion of the country. (AUDIO: United)

According to one account, in 2020 Bambera was listed as 'missing in action' after the Sea Devils attacked a classified military post on the South Wales coast. (PROSE: At Childhood's End) Another account claimed by the 2020s she was still a general at UNIT. (AUDIO: Signs and Wonders)

Later life[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Eighth Doctor once tried to invite Bambera and Ancelyn to Christmas dinner at the Brigadier's house, but they were holidaying in Avalon. (PROSE: Faithful Friends: Part 3)

Later in her life, Merlin sent Excalibur to Ancelyn in order for him to use it to stop Phobos and Deimos from drifting away from Mars. Ancelyn broke his foot in a football match and told Bambera to go in his place. Bambera met Benny on Mars, and together they were informed by a hologram of Merlin as to how to use Excalibur. (PROSE: Excalibur of Mars)

Undated events[[edit] | [edit source]]

Bambera would later join forces with the Eighth Doctor to defeat the First Rani who was posing as vice chancellor in a university. (PROSE: What If?)

At some point, Bambera was taken to the Black Archive by UNIT to have her record as a companion of the Doctor taken. She was photographed standing next to Ace. Her memories of the visit were subsequently erased and she was sent on her way. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)

Other realities[[edit] | [edit source]]

Angela Bruce portrayed in an adventure with the Eighth Doctor, portrayed by Richard Griffiths, and the First Rani, portrayed by Kate O'Mara, titled Network. (PROSE: What If?)

Personality[[edit] | [edit source]]

Brigadier Bambera enjoyed making an impression, especially during moments which would be recorded for posterity, and liked seeing so many people under her command. She preferred to be called "sir" rather than "ma'am" and did not like the wings on UNIT's logo, making several complaints about them in the hopes of getting them removed. (PROSE: Head Games)

Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • In an early draft of The Zygon Invasion, Bambera played a major role, at one point mercilessly killing a Zygon who resembled her son. In the aired episode, her role was replaced with Colonel Walsh.[1]

Footnotes[[edit] | [edit source]]