W H Smith

W H Smith, sometimes referred to as WHSmith's, was a British retailer of books, magazines and stationery.

History

20th century

Susan Foreman looked for ballpoint pens in 1963. Though the shop did indeed sell them, she wasn't allowed to use them at Coal Hill School, where fountain pens were required. (PROSE: Time and Relative)

By January 1981, David and Chris regularly bought Target novels from the Darlington branch of WHSmith's. They would go upstairs to the book department, specifically the children's section. (PROSE: Fanboys)

In 1994, Ben Jackson and Polly Wright visited W H Smith. Polly looked at The Times. Later Ben and Polly both read the biography River Phoenix: A Short Life by Brian J Robb. (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People)

In 1996, the Fourth Doctor searched a W H Smith for a Christmas card. (PROSE: The Little Things)

Ace reflected that the books in Gilles Lemaitre's collection were the sort one certainly didn't find in the local W H Smiths. (PROSE: White Darkness)

21st century

Following the Dummy Massacre of 2005, in which Rose Tyler left Earth to travel in the TARDIS with the Ninth Doctor, (TV: Rose) S C Wallace responded to Doctor Who?'s request for sightings of Rose, reporting that they had seen her outside WHSmith, adding "and WOW! !". (PROSE: Have You Seen This Man?)

In July 2007, Luke Tillyard once bought some magazines from the shop. (PROSE: Salva Mea)

When the Tenth Doctor returned Donna Noble to Earth after she was drawn to huon particles in the heart of the TARDIS on 24 December 2007, Donna tried to phone her mother Sylvia Noble at a pay phone by a W H Smith. She attempted to use the shop as a point of reference to explain where she was. (TV: The Runaway Bride)

In the 2000s, Suki was supposed to meet Kelsey Hooper and Maria Jackson at W H Smith after their tour of the Bubble Shock! factory. This meeting never ended up taking place when Kelsey was caught by the Bane operating the factory. (TV: Invasion of the Bane)

At some point before or during 2009, Nina Rogers witnessed Ianto Jones tackle someone to the ground in WHSmith's. (PROSE: Consequences)

Following the 3W Institute Affair, a WH Smith was in the vicinity when Clara Oswald and the Twelfth Doctor parted ways. (TV: Death in Heaven ^[+]Loading...["Death in Heaven (TV story)"])

Graham O'Brien, Ryan Sinclair, and Yasmin Khan walked down a street in Essex that had a W H Smith in 2020. (TV: Spyfall)

Christine Summerfield recalled that W H Smith sold adult fantasy magazines. (PROSE: Dead Romance)

Undated events

At some point, the Ninth Doctor tried to buy an issue of Classic Rock with a Ł10 piece from a W H Smith. (PROSE: Have You Seen This Man?)

Behind the scenes

In the real world, W H Smith is a major British bookseller which has long sold Doctor Who books, magazines and videos. Their sales are so significant that they have been able to affect distribution of Doctor Who merchandise in a couple of ways.

The W H Smith seen in Death in Heaven was the one on Queen Street in Cardiff.

Exclusives

They have occasionally been able to issue "retailer exclusives", or particular packages available only at their stores. They sold at least three limited edition box sets of Doctor Who episodes for BBC Video — The Davros Collection in 2001, The Time Lord Collection in 2002, and The Dalek Collection in 2005.

They sold the BBC Children's Books set Doctor Who Vortex Collection, published in 2008, ISBN 978-1-40590-447-6. This set contained Void Vision Activity Book, Glow in the Dark Monsters Sticker Guide, Time Lord in Training, Quiz Book 3 and Decide Your Destiny: The Spaceship Graveyard.

They also had enough clout with BBC Books to influence book jacket design. In 1994, W H Smith refused to stock the novel Goth Opera based on its planned cover illustration, which portrayed Nyssa as a vampire with a great deal of blood on her clothes. Since W H Smith were the UK's largest book retailer, Virgin Books chose to address their concerns and airbrush most of the blood out of the cover image before publication.