Claudia Marwood

Claudia was a young widow whom the Eighth Doctor spent time with in England in 1976. When the Doctor told Deborah Castle about being with Claudia on 28 May 1976, he paused before deciding to call her a friend. (PROSE: Father Time)

Marnal included Claudia on a list of the Doctor's companions, arranged in order of when the Doctor travelled with them. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles)

Behind the scenes

Claudia Marwood.

The mentions of Claudia in the novels Father Time and The Gallifrey Chronicles are a reference to Portia Da Costa's 1997 erotic novel The Stranger, published by Virgin Books under their Black Lace range of books after the Doctor Who license expired. It features the rich 42-year-old widow Claudia Marwood who has sex several times with a wounded and amnesiac stranger, later revealed to be named Dr. Paul Bowman. The character is described as wearing a velvet Edwardian frock coat, skittish about the word "doctor", potentially telepathic, and carrying a golden fob watch that says "Paul". He also recalls events similar to that of the 1996 TV Movie.

The Stranger was also implicitly set in the same year the novel was published, as a soft-sequel to the 1996 TV Movie. Father Time rectons this, but can be explained away as a distortion of time as it takes place in the Post-War universe.