Dear Great Uncle Peter (short story)
Dear Great Uncle Peter was the eleventh short story in the Short Trips anthology Short Trips: The Ghosts of Christmas. It was written by Neil Corry. It featured the Fourth Doctor and Leela.
Summary[[edit] | [edit source]]
Alex Parlour can't wait for Christmas. His mother spends the day before Christmas preparing for the big day. Alex's big sister Lucy tries to keep him out of trouble.
The next morning, Alex is surprised to see his mother and sister acting as if it's a normal day. When he goes downstairs, he sees that all the gifts have been unwrapped. His mother and sister claim that Christmas was yesterday, but Alex has no memory of it.
The Doctor and Leela appear at the door, accompanied by several children and their parents. The other children have also lost their memories of Christmas day. The Doctor explains that this is due to alien influence. Each child received a supposed mobile phone from a relative that actually is a device that stole their memories. One of the neighbour children is out of town, and the Doctor tracks a signal to his house to find another phony mobile phone. The Doctor and Leela follow the signal to a hill, with Alex and his father join them.
The Doctor points his sonic screwdriver at the hill, and it turns into the aliens' spaceship. Two aliens come out of the ship and have a dialog with the Doctor, though Alex and his father can't understand the aliens. The aliens stole the memories of the children, and they invite the Doctor to share in their profit. He instead disables their ship. They run off, chased by Leela and Mr Parlour, while the Doctor and Alex search the ship for the device that can return the children's memories.
Leela and Mr Parlour capture the aliens; the Doctor and Leela take the aliens as prisoners. The children get their memories of Christmas back.
Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Fourth Doctor
- Leela
- Alex Parlour
- Lucy Parlour
- Mrs Parlour
- Richard Parlour
- Sarah Jenkins
- Lyn Tyler
- David Winslow
- Roger Livesy
- Paul Thomas
- Paula Thomas
- Peter Morani
Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Madame Nostradamus once knitted socks for the Doctor.
- Leela mentions the Sevateem.
- Alex gets a Wii for Christmas.
- Leela thinks Lucy has the eyes of a Horda.
- Peter Morani likes to talk about Venezuela.
- Carl Wilton and his family are away for Christmas.
- Lucy thinks football is demented.
- Leela has a knife in her boot.
Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- This story was reprinted in Short Trips: Re:Collections.
- This story is told as a letter written by Alex to "Great Uncle Peter".
Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]
to be added
