Image © John Anderson, 1984

There was just a one-off appearance for John Anderson's Trakenites Times tapezine, which he billed as a ‘Dr. Who cassettezine’ and published in June 1984. John was the co-ordinator of the Sarah Sutton Fan Club and a member of the Derby Local Group of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society.

The solitary edition featured an audio interview with Colin Baker plus an interview from BBC Radio Derby featuring David Saunders, then the DWAS Co-ordinator, and a Trakenites Times reporter, Stephen Boa. The tapezine also featured original fiction by Andrew Thompson and items on such varied subjects as a history of the DWAS, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s long association with Doctor Who and the monsters of the Peter Davison era of the programme.

John ran a special promotion in the advertisement in Celestial Toyroom, offering a free ticket to either the Longleat or Blackpool Doctor Who Exhibition to the first person whose order was received.

A second issue was planned and was intended to feature a letters section entitled Talkout and an interview with Sarah Sutton, arranged through the fan club, but this never came to fruition and Trakenites Times folded after a single issue.

John Slater’s Tapezines in Focus section of The Logopolitan Issue 2 (June 1984) had this to say on the subject of Trakenites Times: “It’s competently edited – no clicks! The tape’s quite bassy which is annoying, but apart from that it would make a good commercial radio programme – not even the BBC play their own theme, advertise themselves and ask for contributions as many times as John [Anderson] does. Andrew Thompson provides three excellent articles, which as far as I’ve tried, I can’t pick to bits, which means in my opinion they’re excellent. Stephen Boa looks at the DWAS. It’s quite a good article but it tends to sound as if it’s read from one of the initial introductory forms. The major item is a telephone interview with the new Doctor, which unfortunately is rather uninformative and appears to have been recorded shortly after his succession to the role was announced. Also, the editor looks at the various theme tunes, which is rather dull, I’m afraid… Anyway, for a first issue it was very good and [those last comments] were nitpicking, really.”

Some months later, David Balston, in his Tapezine Zone section of Zero Room Audiozine Issue 7 (April 1985), suggested he felt somewhat shortchanged by Trakenites Times: “It costs £1.72 but is only a one-hour ’zine. Throughout was played a rather ropey copy of the theme from Computers in the Real World. And music completely drowned out Stephen Boa who was trying to give out David Saunders’ address, rounding off an article on the DWAS. The best feature was Colin Baker being interviewed over the phone, soon after the announcement that he was to become the new Doctor. The quality was surprisingly good, although it was obviously edited. Mr. Anderson played all the different variations of the Doctor Who theme and unfortunately this turned out to be very dull. The ’zine ended with the Doctor Who theme, played slow. And, just when you thought the ’zine was finally finished, up from nowhere comes an advertisement, again using the Leisure Hive theme.”