Winifred Bambera
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
Early life
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
Early career
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
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In 1997, Brigadier Bambera was fifteen days into an operation in the Zambezi valley, Zimbabwe, 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
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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
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
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
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)
Personality
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
- 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]
