celestial toyroom part 3

[mike s]

i've come across a load of letters from the late seventies when i used to use 'swap shop in the DWAS Tardis77 mag one of which was from a fan who says he had various episodes on video. One episode he listed was "celestial toyroom' part 3 . now i'm not sure but i seem to remember there was some trouble about this fan his name Tony Atkinson , does anyone know about him ? is he worth following up ? i have his address as of 1978

[Fluff Not Alf]

Ah, how the memories come flooding back!

I too had correspondence with this individual who quickly became notorious. Clarence Anthony Atkinson. His letters were quite amusing, written in capital letters throughout. In fact, grammatically, he'd fit in quite well here. ;D

Somewhere I will still have a letter from him in which he claimed to have all sorts of things on VIDIO (sic) including all of Dalek Masterplan and, I kid you not, probably 25% or more of currently missing episodes.

He never had anything. Sometimes people would send him things for a swap, and he would then copy these out, acting as a sort of hub for others. TO be fair no money was ever solicited, but it was a shamelessly fraudulent way of boosting his own collection.

I think he did rip some people off by not returning swaps, and he was booted out of the DWAS in the early 80s.

[Greg H]

Its one of the sad things about the situation with missing episodes that it gives idiots like that massive scope to talk crap and make up tall tales.......... and generally confuse the situation.

[B Thomas]

Yep. Let this serve as an example to the young 'uns here that this sort of thing is nothing new...

In fact it is as old as all those ideas for episode recoveries currently being bandied about (again for the nth time)...