Image © Alan Hayes, 2024

As students at Woolwich Polytechnic Boys’ School in South East London, Paul Hewson and Alan Hayes were brought together through their shared interest in Doctor Who and cult TV. “Although Paul was a couple of years younger than me,” recalls Alan Hayes, “we were both preparing to leave school – Paul from the Fifth Year and me from the Upper Sixth – and the idea for what ultimately became Sonic Waves came to us at this time. We’d seen a small number of tapezines advertised in Celestial Toyroom, and that fired the idea, really. In a kind of fact finding mission over the next few months, we picked up a few issues of Zero Room Audiozine, UNIT Tapezine, The Logopolitan and CVE Tapezine to get an idea of what producing a tapezine might entail, and how we might go about planning our first issue. We considered that, while each of these titles had plenty going for them and certainly entertained us, we’d be able to produce something that was of equal quality and perhaps a little different. We weren’t over-confident, but we did think that we’d be able to compete from the off.”

There was a definite advantage in the fact that there were still relatively few tapezines available, despite the sudden boom in the numbers being produced. “If instead we had wanted to start up a new printed fanzine, we would have faced strong competition from the large number of well-established print fanzines available; the pages of Celestial Toyroom were positively flooded with adverts for them, each and every month,” Alan notes.

Editor Alan Hayes in the Sonic Waves 'studio'
Image © Alan Hayes, March 1986

Alan had previously edited two printed fanzines, one at 14 called Fury from the Deep, a “road accident of a fanzine” as he now describes it, plus two early issues of Shada, where he briefly inherited the editorship from Gary Russell. “I felt a bit out of my depth with Shada,” Alan admits today. “Fortunately, Gary came back on board and quickly shook things up and before long, Shada was deservedly doing well in DWAS Fanzine Polls. My perception was, until recently, that Gary had realised just how standards had dropped under my control, and stepped back in, dealing with the situation kindly and in an entirely gentlemanly manner. This, indeed, he did, but only recently I discovered from him that I’d been asked to edit the fanzine during a period where he would not be available to do so himself, so the plan was always that he would return. This was pleasant to hear, but at the time, I think I realised that I wasn’t sufficiently mature, knowledgeable or confident as a writer.”

By the time of Sonic Waves, Alan had also written for many fanzines including Inner Sanctum, Dynatrope, Steel Sky, Tara and Peladon and produced the Doctor Who Cassette Cover Project, which consisted of black-and-white line art cassette covers that he and several like-minded Doctor Who fans had drawn as they simply couldn’t bear their TV soundtrack cassettes to be wrapped in plain covers. This latter endeavour fed into the cover designs of Sonic Waves, with Alan designing them all, although some were less successful than others – Daleks doing impressions of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, anyone? At least he didn’t miss a trick with the third issue, the cover of which proclaimed “Alexei Who?” beneath a drawing that looked almost entirely unlike its subject, the actor and comedian Alexei Sayle. “I remember the drawing coming out so poorly,” reflects Hayes, “that I sneakily added the wording in the hope that it might subliminally make the purchaser overlook the quite pathetic resemblance to Mr. Sayle!”

Meanwhile, Paul Hewson brought his natural cocky showmanship to the party and his experience of acting in the Greenwich Young People’s Theatre (GYPT) stood him in good stead for presentation, readings and dramatic content.

In planning their first tape, Alan and Paul agreed that a vital consideration should be sound quality, which should be as good as possible. “One of the things we’d noted with the tapezines we sampled was that good material could often be spoiled by the technical quality of the recordings,” remembers Alan. “By the time we came to record, I had been on a day-release audio visual training course for a year and so I probably had a bit of an advantage in this area. However, the professional equipment I was using at work and on the course was not available to me, so Paul and I had to improvise with what we had and buy, as affordably as possible, what we didn’t.”

Unfortunately, this commitment to sound quality proved to be something of a double-edged sword, as after they had recorded over half an hour’s worth of material for the first issue (at that point called Sonic Force), the pair chanced upon a better recording method and together decided to re-record everything from scratch. Initially, recordings were made by speaking into an open microphone as backing music was played in live from a record deck. “Then I stumbled across a really cool, unexpected facility that my Sharp QT89 double-tape ‘ghetto blaster’ deck had,” Alan remembers. “Whereas most decks of this type would only allow you to play a cassette on one deck and record on the other, this one would do that, but it would also allow me to play cassettes in both decks simultaneously and I could record the combined output to an external recorder via the Line Out jacks. This meant I could pre-record the music onto one cassette, lowering the recording level at a pre-determined point so that I could later combine it with the speech, which I would record separately. As the speech could now be recorded without playing music in live, it meant that I could edit any fluffs out, too (and there were plenty!). When creating the mixed master, I’d have the speech tape cued up, play the music tape and release the pause to start the speech playing at the appropriate point. Thinking back, this was a terribly involved process, but it allowed me to effectively multi-track on the cheap and worked surprisingly well.”

During this period, Sonic Force was renamed Sonic Waves and Paul started to become disenchanted with the project, finding it considerably more long-winded, time-consuming and demanding than he had at first anticipated. For this reason, Paul walked away from Sonic Waves about halfway through the recording of Issue 1. Without a doubt, the forced re-record for quality reasons contributed to Paul’s departure, as Alan reveals: “Boredom set in and, in all honesty, Paul had a creative, imaginative spirit about him and I don't think that doing things over and over really was really him. He also wasn’t as single-minded about Doctor Who as I was at the time, and he quickly found other things with which to fill his time – his amateur dramatics, punk rock and Adam and the Ants, and more besides. Maybe he was expecting wild parties, booze and excitement from Sonic Waves? No such luck! However, the decision to re-record definitely caused something of a flashpoint, and sadly, our friendship dissipated rapidly and didn’t get back on track until Facebook came along. Sad, really. He was always great fun to be around – he shines brightly.”

Now the sole editor of Sonic Waves, Alan Hayes slowly built a team of regular contributors from all over the United Kingdom. “Fortunately, my main collaborators, Jim Mortimore and, later, Jean Riddler, were very local to me and invaluable to the project and, even more so, to my sanity,” Alan says.

Right from the start, Sonic Waves boasted a healthy mix of contributors including Robert Franks, co-editor of the well-regarded printed fanzine Dynatrope, Darren Field and Darren Sevket (another Plumstead local). Despite it being a first issue, the editors also managed to rustle up a letters section consisting of contributions from Richard Clarke, David Hamilton (no, not that one) and Matthew Sweet (yes, that one!). This was helped in no small amount by Alan taking out advertising space in the September 1984 edition of the DWAS newsletter Celestial Toyroom, some three months prior to the first issue's publication. The advert advised that DWAS members watch out for Sonic Waves, promising it that would not be "just another audio tape magazine - we think it's going to be something rather special," before asking for articles and audio letters of a high technical quality. Hiss would not be entertained...

Sonic Waves always ran instrumental music tracks to accompany features. Many of these were original compositions produced by Jim Mortimore, including two new arrangements of the Doctor Who theme which were heard at the beginning and end of each issue (the first used for issues 1-3 and the second for 4 and 6) and the Sonic Waves Mediatheme, for the Sonic Waves Media Magazine in 1987. Jim also created atmospheric pieces which were used to link items, running underneath continuity announcements. Jim occasionally worked in tandem with Owen Parker on these pieces and the pair also scored short dramatic works for Sonic Waves. These pieces were recorded using a Tascam 244 four-track portastudio recorder and employed synthesisers, effects units and drum machines. Jim Mortimore remembers this as being his way of pushing the editor towards more complex editing techniques: “Writing music, editing shamelessly stolen pre-existing music and making teeny-weeny-mini-adventures on portastudio were my only hope in a cold and lonely universe of convincing Alan that he was wrong, wrong and thrice-damned wrong, that the whole project should have been done on multitrack right from the off, and why the hell didn’t he just do as he was told anyhow? Alan, being Alan, listened politely and carefully to everything I said and then did exactly what he wanted anyway. And naturally enough, the product suffered not in the slightest.”

Meeting Colin Baker at The Beck Theatre in December 1986
Image © Alan Hayes, 1986

One of the absolute scoops for Sonic Waves was A Letter from the Doctor, which debuted in Issue 1 and became a regular feature. Alan Hayes takes up the story. “Just after Paul left the project, an idea struck me – what if I sent blank cassettes with return envelopes to a variety of Doctor Who cast and crew members? Perhaps they might record a message for the listeners or a greeting that I could turn into a jingle? I duly sent off some cassettes via the Doctor Who Production Office in Shepherd's Bush, not really believing that any would find their way back to me. Just days later, a packet arrived on the mat at my home, containing a cassette that I had sent to the then current Doctor, Colin Baker. Initially, I imagined it had simply been returned blank, but as soon as I played the tape, my heart skipped a beat. Colin had not only recorded a message for Sonic Waves listeners, he had also recorded a lovely personal message to me, wishing me the best of luck with the project and saying that he would be happy to record further messages for Sonic Waves. He was as good as his word and, over the space of two years, recorded a series of wonderful messages especially for my humble little endeavour. He would discuss what he was currently working on, his thoughts on the stories that had been broadcast, and his plans for the future. He even recorded one message in his dressing room prior to going on set to record his last scene as the Doctor (not that he was aware of this at the time). I feel immensely indebted to Colin for his exceptionally generous and enthusiastic help with Sonic Waves. Such a kind and warm-hearted man.” Other tapes sent out that were returned recorded came back later from Cyberman actor David Banks and visual effects maestro Mat Irvine, who even recorded himself giving listeners a “Sonic Wave”!

Another regular inclusion in Sonic Waves was the Trivia Section, which offered novelty items such as soundtracks of television trailers from around the world for Doctor Who stories, commercials related to the series, vintage news and other programme items, such as the announcement of the death of William Hartnell from 1975 and Tom Baker’s appearance on Animal Magic from 1979. These proved to be among of the most popular inclusions on the cassettes, which Alan remembers as being “mildly irritating considering the hard work that had gone into everything else!”

Large parts of Issues 1 and 2 were given over to guest panel soundtracks recorded by Daniel Cohen at the BBC’s 1983 Longleat Doctor Who Celebration (coincidentally, an early Zero Room also featured material from this event, from an alternative recording source). These featured the reminiscences and anecdotes of actors including Jon Pertwee, Peter Davison, Nicholas Courtney, Janet Fielding, Mark Strickson and Sarah Sutton. “While these recordings were undoubtedly of interest to many listeners,” Alan Hayes comments, “I soon realised that such items were a bloody lazy way to fill a tapezine and as a result I sought to commission as much original content for subsequent issues as I possibly could. On reflection, this was the right decision, not least because looking back, I now see that many other audiozines were using similar recordings at around the same time, something I had not then been greatly aware of. If fans were buying a selection of tapezines, they were probably having regular feelings of déjà vu.”

Advertised in the December 1984 Celestial Toyroom, Sonic Waves Issue 1 was actually unleashed a few weeks earlier, with contributors receiving their copies in November. Five months passed before the publication of the second issue and Doctor Who’s fortunes at the BBC took a major nosedive during this time. This led to the editor rounding off Issue 2 with an angry rant about the BBC’s cancellation of Doctor Who which somewhat overshadowed the otherwise very decent content such as a short dramatic piece, dripping with atmosphere, which was ironically entitled Crisis Point.

The effervescent Jean Riddler at a Sonic Waves recording
Image © Alan Hayes, March 1986

Important additions to the Sonic Waves writing team in this issue were Jim Mortimore, a next-door-but-one-neighbour, who had previously helped with music and would later write official Doctor Who fiction for Virgin, BBC Books and Big Finish, and Jean Riddler, a fan with a bright and bouncy personality who today is part of the hugely successful Staggering Stories podcast team.

The third issue of Sonic Waves was released three months later in May 1985 and was entirely set aside for reviewing aspects of Season 22, which had just been transmitted. As such, it was the first of two special issues of Sonic Waves, the other being Issue 5. Yet more writers joined the fray, including Tim Ryan, Steve Watts, Robert Cook (another Dynaptrope co-editor and neighbour of Robert Franks) and Trevor Phillippo. Tragically, Trevor would die of a brain haemorrhage less than two years later in February 1987, aged just 25. “When I learned of Trevor’s passing, I regretted having been such a stickler for recording standards, as I had insisted on him taping his The Mark of the Rani review three times over, sending it back to him the first two times. He had the patience of a saint. A lovely, gentle chap,” Alan comments.

The Sonic Waves 3 reviews came thick and fast, with the whole season discussed in minute detail over an hour and a half, with time still allowed for Colin Baker’s A Letter from the Doctor along the way, in which he reflected upon the season and commented on the disappointment he felt at the suspension of production on the following series of Doctor Who.

Adam Vanger, brilliantly comical as Sonic Waves' Second Doctor,
turned up in costume at the 1986 Leisure Hive convention
Image © Alan Hayes, 1986

“Midway through the tapezine’s run, Daniel Cohen – whom I had met through Jim Mortimore, the pair playing together in a New Romantic band, Utopian Dream – approached me with an idea and offered me the chance to include original comedy sketches in Sonic Waves,” Alan remembers. “Right from the start, I had been keen to keep listeners on their toes, hopefully unable to predict what the tapezine would deliver, and to my mind, this was ideal and would also address the concerns I had that Sonic Waves was perhaps a little too straight-laced.” The sketches – which began in Sonic Waves Issue 4 with Doctors in Distress (a spoof on Ian Levine’s charity single designed to ‘save Doctor Who’) on Side 1 and The Doctors’ Schooldays on Side 2 – proved very popular with most listeners, although a few complained that the comedy was not to their tastes. The team comprised Daniel, Adam Vanger and Steve Watts, and their skits would feature in all subsequent Sonic Waves issues, even the Media Magazine, in which they commenced the ultimately never-completed series documenting the adventures of Highness Royale, a Chandleresque 'private dick' who sounded suspiciously like the then Prince (now King), Charles – Mission to Magma.

January 1986 saw the publication of Sonic Waves 5, dubbed ‘The Leisure Hive II Special’, a joint venture with the committee of the Leisure Hive conventions and planned in early 1985. Sonic Waves was given exclusive rights to present edited soundtracks of the guest panels at the Leisure Hive II convention to be held in Swindon, Wiltshire, over the August Bank Holiday weekend of 1985. This was clearly too good an opportunity to miss, but unfortunately for the editor, Alan Hayes, he would indeed miss it due to a combination of terminal shyness and the daunting prospect of starting his first proper job on the Tuesday after the convention. All was not lost, however. “The wonderful Jean Riddler kindly volunteered to be Sonic Waves’ roving reporter in Swindon,” Alan explains. “She took a portable recorder to the convention and did a tremendous job interviewing cast, attendees and organisers alike, her natural effervescence bringing everything she recorded wonderfully to life. Frankly, she did a far better job than I would ever have done – she was quite brilliant. It is impossible not to like Jean and therefore people were delighted to have her microphone thrust under their noses!”

Nicholas Courtney, John Leeson and Ian Marter
were among the guests at Leisure Hive II
Image © Alys Hayes, 1985

Listener Keith Musselwhite was surprised when he realised that his Leisure Hive II exploits had come to the roving reporter’s attention: “When I first met her, Jean thought I was weird because I could quote huge chunks of her Sonic Waves articles. She referred to me twice on Sonic Waves 5 without naming me. Firstly, I was the person that started the Five Doctors quote-a-long and was going ‘Vworp vworp!’ in the video room on the Friday night of the convention. I was also the person she mentioned as saying that John Levene’s singing had improved since Recall UNIT! Along with three of my questions making it onto the guest panels on Sonic Waves 5, I have many reasons to be especially fond of that issue.”

The recordings of guest panels were edited from video recordings made by the organisers. This issue was being worked on concurrently with Issue 4, but was advertised and released three months afterwards.

After the release of Sonic Waves 5, with work and social commitments limiting the time available to work on Sonic Waves, and a growing concern that before long the audiozine would be repeating itself in terms of content, Alan decided that perhaps the time had come to wind it down. “I was still very much in love with Doctor Who, but I was beginning to find Sonic Waves more work than play, due in large part to the increasing amounts of time I was having to spend duplicating listeners’ copies. Much as I enjoyed producing Sonic Waves, I thought I’d done pretty much all I could with it and so I took the decision to bring it to an end. However, I was determined to go out with a bang.” This was achieved by producing an unprecedented double issue lasting three hours, over the course of which there were occasional doom-laden interruptions from a particularly throaty Vogon (from Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – in reality, the editor), issuing warnings of the imminent destruction of Sonic Waves. Out to save the audiozine from the Vogons were Messrs. Cohen, Vanger and Watts’ comedic and argumentative Doctors, a rescue which was always doomed to abject failure.

Sonic Waves 6 contained the usual mix of features, only in far greater abundance than usual, with submissions from regulars like Matthew Sweet and Tim Ryan, and newcomers such as Alan Barnes (later of Doctor Who Magazine and Big Finish), Martin Holder and Nicholas Briggs (now BBC Dalek and monster voice extraordinaire and Big Finish Producer), plus a special feature contributed by Cyberman actor-turned-author David Banks and an entertaining interview with the BBC Visual Effects wizard Mat Irvine.

Issue 6 was advertised in Celestial Toyroom with a fake newspaper report speculating upon the demise of Sonic Waves. Content ranged from reviews of Doctor Who and the Silurians and Enlightenment and comedy from Daniel, Adam and Steve, to Home or Away – a dramatic reading by Jean Riddler – and informal looks at the The Who Shop, the Blackpool Doctor Who Exhibition and an account by the editor of a day on set during the recording of The Trial of a Time Lord at Television Centre. [Thanks for sneaking me in, Anthony. Miss you, chum. Ed.]

London Weekend Television publicity card signed by Geoffrey Bayldon
Image © Alan Hayes, 1986

By the time the recording process on Issue 6 was nearing completion, Alan changed his mind about a complete shutdown, thinking that there was perhaps still life in Sonic Waves. However, to keep it interesting for himself and the listeners, he decided to relaunch it as something quite different. When Sonic Waves rose from the ashes of that Vogon attack in March 1987, it was as Sonic Waves Media Magazine 1. The tapezine still featured Doctor Who to a minor degree, but widened its remit to cover television in general. Series under the microscope included The Omega Factor, Target, Phoenix Five, Supernatural and The New Avengers, and the writing team expanded to include telly experts Matthew Morgenstern and Shaun Brennan. With no slight intended to those esteemed contributors, the undeniable highlight of the issue was an extensive interview with Catweazle star Geoffrey Bayldon which was conducted at his home in Barnes, South West London.

The issue sold significantly less well than previous issues, its sales stalling in the high forties. This relatively poor showing was perhaps predictable as the editor elected not to advertise Sonic Waves Media Magazine beyond the pages of Celestial Toyroom. “If you dig out and dust down your mid-1980s CTs,” says Alan, “you’ll see adverts for a plethora of fanzines, the vast majority of which, quite unsurprisingly of course, feature Doctor Who from cover to cover. Occasionally, you’ll notice the occasional publication that drops an article or two into the mix concerning The Prisoner, Blake’s 7 or The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but aside from the trailblazing and excellent Time Screen and the short-lived Tara and Shadow Play fanzines, which explored television more broadly, there wasn’t a sufficiently established market within the DWAS at that time for the new Sonic Waves to tap into.” Despite an interview with actress Annette Andre of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) having been recorded in June 1987 for a second Media Magazine issue, the follow-up was ultimately abandoned and Sonic Waves disappeared without fanfare.

In its time, Sonic Waves achieved a high ranking of 19th in the DWAS Fanzine Poll of 1984, had a team of highly talented contributors, many of whom have since gone on to far greater things, and is known to have inspired at least three subsequent tapezine producers, Nick Goodman (Rayphase Shift), Keith Musselwhite (Meglos, Death Zone and DZFM) and Andrew Wink (The SFOW Express).

By the end of the run, with late adopters catching up via the Sonic Waves back issues service, each issue bar the Media Magazine had reached an audience in excess of a hundred listeners. In common with the way in which most tapezines were made and distributed, Sonic Waves was duplicated using the same equipment employed to originate the tapezine itself as Alan explains. “I had the facilities to copy cassettes at double speed, so it would ordinarily take me 45 minutes to run off a single copy of a 90-minute issue of Sonic Waves. However, after a few issues, I found the gaps between new issues would keep expanding because of the amount of copying I was having to do; people were asking for copies of the latest issue and often also the ones that preceded it. In some ways, it would have made sense to go down the path of professional duplication, but I soon realised that doing so would contravene the terms and conditions imposed upon audio fanzine producers by the BBC, who insisted that purchasers had to supply their own blank cassettes. Meanwhile, I couldn’t originate new material because the cassette deck was whirring away making copies. On reflection, the number of orders I had was just about manageable with the copying equipment and time I had available. In some ways, I was grateful that Sonic Waves’ success was relatively modest as I’m sure I would have suffered a nervous breakdown trying to fulfil a significantly larger stream of orders! The BBC guidelines were cunningly crafted to ensure that any tapezines that attracted high order volumes would find themselves faced with impractical constraints on the duplication process. While tapezine producers like myself were grateful for the blind eye the BBC turned towards us as we played fast and loose with their copyrights (not that profit was ever a motive), these guidelines undoubtedly hastened the demise of many a tapezine and Sonic Waves may well have survived for a while longer with a kinder set of rules to follow.”

“Looking back on Sonic Waves, there were good bits, bad bits and some completely embarrassing bits,” Alan comments, “but overall, I’m still proud to this day with what was achieved with, for the most part, very basic equipment in a small, practically triangular bedroom at the parental seat on Shooters Hill. If only I could have got rid of the annoying short wave radio interference from the transmitter up the road, although at least that did perhaps distract from my often awkward delivery style! Listening to the tapes today, I can hear my voice hovering between pubescent insecurity and plain terror for most of the time. I was a shy kid, lacking in confidence anywhere other than on the football pitch (yes, a sporty Doctor Who fan!), and yet I kept plonking myself in front of microphones, reading tongue-tied from the badly worded scripts I’d written, as if daring myself not to be a shrinking violet. I was no disc jockey and I knew it, but at least I tried. And I’m glad I did, as those four years hold so many happy memories: the laughs I had with Paul in those early days; spending many carefree hours with Jim as he worked on music for the tapes and never once complained about my complete lack of musical ability or insight; hearing each of Daniel, Adam and Steve’s comedy sketches for the first time; receiving regular audio messages from Colin Baker, the Sixth Doctor, and telling my parents that ‘this tape has come from Doctor Who!’; ‘discovering’ broadcaster Matthew Sweet, whose wickedly funny and brilliantly observed features for Sonic Waves marked him out to me as someone with real talent (though the idea I discovered him is completely ridiculous, of course!); and having a whale of a time with the delightful Jean Riddler, recording her wonderfully idiosyncratic articles and just enjoying her joyous company.”

Thirteen years after Sonic Waves ended, there was a twist to the tape!
Image © Alan Hayes, 2024

Many years later, Sonic Waves had an unexpected, small-scale revival when a group of mainly Salisbury-based Doctor Who fans got into a conversation with its editor on the now long defunct Doctor Who Technical Forum, having asked the rather odd question, “Are you the Alan Hayes?” It turned out that they were ardent Sonic Waves fans and "Contact had been made", though space viruses were not exchanged. This inspired Alan to digitise his master recordings of Sonic Waves and the Sonic Force pilot, archive them to CD-R discs, and make copies for these new friends. While compiling the discs, he decided to utilise several interviews he had conducted since the time of Sonic Waves as bonus features. Consequently, the soundtracks of video interviews with actors Laurence Payne, Nicholas Courtney, John Levene and Nabil Shaban were also digitised and featured on each Sonic Waves Special Edition. It was not long before Alan was producing new material for these CDs, including comedy skits by The Rejects, a group comprising Alan, his wife Alys, David Atkins, Jane Atkins, David Hamilton, Martin Holder and original Sonic Waves funster Steve Watts. Each of these was based on a particular film or television series, given a Doctor Who twist, for instance Kneejerker, a James Bond / Doctor Who spoof, or Big Brother, where the classic Doctors are all contestants in the Big Brother House. Arguably the most successful of these skits – artistically, for The Rejects were convinced no one ever listened to the skits! – was Where Are You From Exactly?, an improvised skit in which Steve and Alan mercifully lampooned the bizarre accent employed by Lewis Fiander as Professor Tryst in Nightmare of Eden.

In February 2012, nearly a quarter of a century after Sonic Waves had closed its doors, Alan unearthed his master tapes for a second time, spruced them up with modern software and reissued them in MP3 Audio format on a data DVD under the moniker Sonic Waves: The Official Digital Edition. The collection contained all seven issues along with a series of bonus interviews recorded for audio and video projects in the late 1980s. Also offered on the disc were ten incidental tracks forming Sonic Waves: The Original Soundtrack and a series of PDF files documenting the history of Sonic Waves, a full contents listing and scans of the original cassette covers and advertisements.

“The timing seemed perfect, what with Doctor Who’s fiftieth anniversary then being imminent,” says Alan. “Fans were looking to the past as well as the future and with the passing of three decades, Sonic Waves had unwittingly become a fascinating peepshow into fandom’s past. It captures the voices and opinions of a wide range of commentators and hails from a distant, exciting, but somehow more innocent era of Doctor Who fandom, which is quite different from today’s incarnation.”

Without a doubt, the most memorable feature of Sonic Waves is the editor’s deathly outburst about the cancellation of Doctor Who, to be heard – or better, avoided – at the end of the second issue. It’s memorable for the wrong reasons… The anger, disbelief and outright indignation can be heard in Alan Hayes’ voice right from the start where he notes that the listener “will have noticed by now the lack of music. Frankly, the following doesn’t lend itself to such treatment. The reason for such action is no doubt obvious. Today, February 27th, the BBC announced the suspension of Doctor Who.” It’s as if a monarch or other respected public figure had died, but perhaps he was taking his lead from the end credits of Part 4 of Earthshock. He continued, “It goes without saying how sad, cheated and angered I feel at this ludicrous and pointless betrayal, a betrayal of us the fans, not to mention the public, the world, but most of all an undoubted kick in the vitals for Colin Baker. The equivalent of three months’ screen time and he’s as good as rejected, cheated, his good intentions, enthusiasm and his energy all betrayed… The BBC is cutting its own throat – they used to have respect for their productions. Over the last few hours, that has obviously vanished.” At this point, it becomes clear that Alan had already telephoned friends and had become convinced of the various conspiracy theories that were circling and offers listeners “the truth”. John Nathan-Turner not returning? Tick. Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant quitting in disgust? Tick. Eighteen months a lie? Tick. Alan then suggested listeners write to the BBC, the national press and various fan bodies, recommending that, “if you can write ten letters under pseudonyms, do it! Do anything you can… Save Doctor Who!”

“It’s a deeply embarrassing diatribe,” admits Alan sheepishly today, “but it does in some way capture the shock and exasperation felt by Doctor Who fans at the time of the 1985-1986 hiatus, recorded as it was on the day that the announcement had been made on BBC News. Everyone I spoke to in fandom around that time was bewildered, angry and disbelieving – Doctor Who was an irreplaceable part of our young lives and the BBC’s decision to cancel it was, to us, indefensible, unprecedented. With my emotions running high, I realised that in Sonic Waves I had the perfect, ready-made soapbox – a microphone, a cassette recorder and an audiozine just about to be distributed. I should really have taken a breath and reconsidered, as I’ve been living it down ever since! Despite this, it is in some ways incredibly funny without meaning to be. Thank goodness I can laugh at myself!”

Commenting in The Tapezine Zone section of Zero Room Issue 7 (April 1985), David Balston appeared fairly happy with the first two issues: “Sonic Waves has the most amazing rendition of the Doctor Who theme, by James Mortimore. They also have a nice little message from Colin Baker in the letters section, which contained people reading their own letters on tape. The original aspect of this ’zine was the Trivia Section, which played such things as the Web of Fear trailer where Patrick Troughton talks to the viewers, and various other trailers, the Keep Australia Beautiful advertisements, and the unused Doctor Who theme, first heard on Zero Room 4. Sonic Waves 2 is also extremely good, and is probably the first ’zine to comment on Michael Grade’s ludicrous 18-month suspension [of] Doctor Who. ”

Death Zone Issue 2 (August 1989) included a brief review of Sonic Waves, with Keith Musselwhite looking back to the early days of tapezines: “[After the first few tapezines were issued,] then came the biggie, in the form of Sonic Waves, which started in November 1984. Sonic Waves was perhaps the big turning point in the style of tapezine production. It was so professionally produced that you would have thought it had been produced by a professional fan or group of fans. In fact, its standard has yet to be matched in either quality, quantity or sound control. I wish I had your machine, Alan Hayes, what I wouldn’t do for it!”

Some considerable time after Sonic Waves had ceased publication, it received an unexpected review in Spotlight (Issue 15, April 1996) and even took to the cassette cover for what proved to be the final edition of this tapezine. Editor Elaine Bull remarked, “Well-known among a certain group of elite listeners is the Doctor Who tapezine, now deceased but not forgotten, Sonic Waves. To its credit it produced six issues of mostly interesting listening and [featured] a rather addictive group of chaps, with their own sense of daft humour based around Doctor Who. They performed a four-part saga called The Doctors’ Schooldays, a Davros sketch and also a University Challenge sketch. Daniel Cohen, Adam Vanger and Steve Watts are the chaps behind the sketches, though I’m not entirely sure who’s who, as such, but it is noticeable that Troughton and Pertwee were one and the same person as there were moments of transition which were slightly hindered by the person responsible laughing. However, each character [in The Doctors’ Schooldays] was carefully crafted. Mr. Hurndall is a tetchy tutor who tries and doesn’t always succeed in controlling his slightly unruly class. Troughton is a likeable boy who unfortunately, through no immediate fault of his own, attracts trouble and gets blamed for it. Pertwee’s a constant, slightly big-headed boy, who is not scared of standing up for himself or Troughton with the old Aikido. Schoolboys Baker and Davison are quiet, bar the acknowledgement that they’re in the class. [These impressions are] good though far, far too brief. Professor Baker is a slightly more manic version of the Sixth Doctor, while still resembling the voice of Colin. [Everything] is over-exaggerated but this makes it all the more funny. Delgado and Ainley make a good double-act, with Ainley seeming the more in command. [Headmaster] Mr. Cushing, who seems to have a thing about the name Edward and enjoys soft-centres and matchstick craft, is also extremely absent-minded but does resemble some characteristics of the movie Doctor. I never heard Sonic Waves during its reign – it’s only within the last few years that I’ve had the opportunity to listen to them. I wonder if Mr. Cohen, Mr. Vanger and Mr. Watts continued their sketches or whether they, like the old Doctor Who, is sadly just a thing of the past?”

Alan Hayes went on to write several books including Two Against the Underworld – The Collected Unauthorised Guide to The Avengers Series 1 (with Richard McGinlay and Alys Hayes) and Dr. Brent’s Casebook – An Unauthorised Guide to Police Surgeon (with Richard McGinlay). He has also edited a trilogy of charity anthologies, Avengerworld – The Avengers in Our Lives, Tis Magic – Our Memories of Catweazle and Playboys, Spies and Private Eyes – Inspired by ITC. He runs several websites including Randall and Hopkirk (Declassified), JSFnetGB and this one. He also co-produced a series of reconstructions of lost Series 1 Avengers episodes for StudioCanal, lending his voice as narrator to four of these. The reconstructions have been released on DVD and Blu-ray in the United Kingdom and Germany. He is struggling to come to terms with the fact that his Sonic Waves days are nigh on forty years back...

Jim Mortimore wrote six Doctor Who novels for Virgin Publishing and BBC Books (Lucifer Rising with Andy Lane, Blood Heat, Parasite, Eternity Weeps, Beltempest and Eye of Heaven), three Cracker novelisations, as well as Farscape, The Tomorrow People and Babylon 5 novels. He has written several Big Finish Doctor Who audio dramas including the highly regarded The Natural History of Fear. Jim is also a talented artist and musician who has scored several audio dramas and issued many albums (please see https://jimmortimore.bandcamp.com).

Matthew Sweet is a respected journalist, broadcaster, author and cultural historian. A graduate of the University of Oxford, he has written several books including Inventing the Victorians (2001), Shepperton Babylon – The Lost Worlds of British Cinema (2005) and The West End Front (2011). He regularly appears on BBC television and radio and on Channel 4, often interviewed about television and film history. He has presented a growing number of Doctor Who documentary and interview features for the series' DVD and Blu-ray ranges.

My somewhat shallow reason for buying Sonic Waves in the early weeks of 1985 – the hope that it contained clips from one of my favourite stories – was soon put to shame, for its rock solid, friendly and refreshingly moderate tone, in an era of angry, malcontent fans, quickly drew me in. Ninety minutes later, helmsman Alan Hayes almost apologises for the prototype nature of the tape, despite the end product being a finely constructed programme of entertainment. Early contributors are fiendishly difficult to come by. There is no hint of compromise here.

There was an instant air of confidence, self-sufficiency and, dare I say, maturity. Original music graced all six issues. Whilst others attempted episodic and sometimes slightly clunky attempts at a full Doctor Who story, Team Sonic wisely offered more doable, thought-provoking monologues and musings instead. When we reached Issue 4, there was such talent on tap that it was possible to pull off some comedy sketches with aplomb (the wonderfully surreal The Doctors’ Schooldays). The writers of this original material never tried the same trick twice and kept the audience on their toes.

Alan was backed by a memorable and very quotable team. We had the fledging Matthew Sweet, whose trademark waspish dry wit leaves you in no doubt he was destined for great things; the cheeky charm of Jean Riddler; Jim Mortimore, who sprinkles the listener with praise, rebuke and mischievous technical observations about any given story with the languid abandon of a benevolent Roman emperor holding court at a party; and gentle Alan, who gives them all room to shine and whose articles are shot through with a love of the programme. One other Sonic resident cannot go unmentioned – the Doctor himself, Colin Baker, who graces each issue with a personal message. Much credit is rightly given to Colin for this generosity, but the tapezine’s editor has to be saluted for the sheer nerve and diplomacy for bringing it about. Hindsight of Colin’s troubles to come give his warmth and optimism in these messages a bitter irony.

Believing in better, never complacent, paced to perfection, and ending leaving the audience wanting more, Sonic Waves is, for me, the seminal tapezine.

Nick Goodman