Image © Robin Craine, 1986

“A lonely figure walks on a lone, desolate planet, barren and sandswept.
The man walks towards the shining object lying in the sand.
He bends down to pick it up. It is a tape. UNIT Tapezine.”

UNIT Tapezine hailed from the North of England and quite rightly celebrated the fact. Brothers John and David Marsh of Pontefract, West Yorkshire, were at the helm for the duration of UNIT’s life, which spanned five 90-minute issues between May 1984 and April 1986. They had grown up in a household where Doctor Who was part of their way of life, as David Marsh fondly remembers: “John and I are twins, and we were brought up watching the show. We were often terrified, but refused to have the TV turned off. It was just magic to us.”

John Marsh takes up the story: “It was our dad that got us into Doctor Who initially. I can vaguely remember parts of The Invasion with Pat Troughton, particularly the Cyberman in the sewers. One Saturday, my dad said there’s a new Doctor Who on tonight, which of course was Jon Pertwee, so he was the one that I grew up with first. With its Earthbound stories featuring the Brigadier, to me the show was about an eccentric man fighting monsters on Earth every week. The Doctor going to other planets, etc, had no bearing on it for me. I thrilled at the prospect that there could be a Silurian under my very feet, or a Dæmon like Bok lurking in a churchyard, and of course the Autons were always on hand in Burton’s shop window, so I felt I was living in the very world of Doctor Who. We were obsessed with it.”

In common with many of their contemporaries, the brothers’ journey to producing their tapezine started with another such title arriving in the post, as David reveals: “John and I were intrigued by a tapezine called The Logopolitan. We were new to DWAS and fandom, so we sent off for the product. We liked the fact that it was ‘home-produced’ and we enjoyed the format. We felt we could at least manage something similar. With an outlet to air our opinions and creativity, we were inspired. With the greatest respect to The Logopolitan, had it been slick and highly polished to a professional standard that could have aired on the radio, we might never have decided to have a go ourselves.” John concurs: “It was no frills, just two fans expressing their views and articles on a standard tape recorder – it was unpretentious and we liked that. Keep it simple.”

John also recalls that they didn’t consider an alternative medium for their fanzine: “It never crossed our minds to do a printed fanzine, so it was never a case of either / or. We realised that a tapezine was something we could do and it would be cheap to produce.”

The cassette inlay of the first issue of UNIT Tapezine carried the handwritten legend, “Pertwee edition”, alongside a photograph of Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. David explains the thinking behind the decision to initially focus mainly on this one part of the series: “It largely came from my brother – a massive Pertwee fan – hankering after the halcyon days of an era that seemed long past. He also thought that, with tapezines largely being clip-illustrated, he might have some listeners offer some Pertwee audios to add to his (as then, tiny) collection of recorded soundtracks! Pertwee was ‘our Doctor’, though I had a particular fondness for Peter Davison, and still do – met the bloke; he’s a gem.”

Speaking on the same subject, John also noted his and David’s affection for the Pertwee era, and went on to suggest that the tapezine’s name was itself very much associated with that period of Doctor Who – and that this had also inspired the debut issue’s theme.

The Marshes later met the Third Doctor in person, as John relates: “Jon Pertwee came to Wakefield, which is only 20 minutes from where I live. It was a very small convention, probably only about 20 people attended, but it was very intimate and we got to spend plenty of time with the great man. He signed my Moon Boots and Dinner Suits book. He kept saying, ‘Where are the twins?’ so we made a bit of an impression on him. To say we were thrilled is an understatement. He had a very strong grip with his handshakes!”

Included on Issue 1 of UNIT Tapezine were an original, self-contained drama entitled Land of the Daleks and reviews of the UNIT Years, The Curse of Peladon and Carnival of Monsters, as well as a combined review of The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors. Further stepping beyond the Pertwee era theme were a review of the 1960s Dalek films and another that considered the then newly-arrived Sixth Doctor. There were also interview excerpts from TV magazine programmes featuring Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant and Anthony Ainley, and a feature in which John revealed what he would do if he was Doctor Who’s producer.

However, the issue would be blighted somewhat by technical gremlins: “I remember being excited by the process of producing something we both considered as a kind of ‘album’, but we’re acutely aware that we had a few sound issues,” David admits. “That wasn’t going to stop us – two enthusiastic Who fans – getting our voices heard! We had two standard tape recorders. One was used to record the vocals, and the other would play any effects or audio clips – which were recorded externally with a plug-in mike – onto the master tape. This high-tech stuff was all done in our bedroom! Initially, duplicates of the master tape were made via a cable running from one tape recorder to another. The internal ‘listening’ system of the recorder making the copy was not brilliant as, in quieter moments, the automatic ‘ear’ would raise the levels to try to pick up sound, which caused a lot of hiss. We rectified the audio trouble in Issue 2 with new equipment and a machine that could copy tape-to-tape, which basically copied exactly what was on the master tape without any auto adjustment. We did, however, only charge 20p for that first issue (a 40p charge was made for each of issues 2, 3 and 4, and 50p for Issue 5). Orders were good, perhaps around fifty – I think we covered the advertisement costs.”

The duplication of incoming orders for Doctor Who fans tended not to interrupt John and David’s work on new issues – particularly once they had upgraded to the double-tape deck – as they were very well organised. David elaborates: “All our articles were written weeks, if not months, before a new edition was recorded so the impact of recording or tying up our equipment fulfilling orders didn’t hinder us. We’d just write stuff until our orders from the previous edition were fulfilled.”

While contemporary reviews of Issue 1 did allude to the sound issues, the comments generally tended to be framed constructively, and they didn’t seem to significantly spoil anyone’s enjoyment, as John recalls: “Feedback from customers was positive as far as I can remember. We knew we had to improve the sound quality, although people seemed to be very forgiving.” David’s recollections chime here, too: “Feedback was good: we seemed to be considered a bit different to other products on offer – maybe it was the northern accents. I remember one girl saying we had sexy voices!”

UNIT Tapezine quickly built a reputation for its no-nonsense approach, and for being perhaps more forthright and opinionated than most other tapezines. This was not an intentional editorial choice, as David notes: “I’m not aware we deliberately tried to be anything other than what we were. ‘Say it as you see it’ was our motto.” John elaborates on the subject: “I don’t think there was a conscious idea behind our more informal approach to presenting UNIT, other than that we wanted to steer away from ‘intellectualising’ about the series. Our articles weren’t particularly in-depth or analytical – we just said what we liked and didn’t like at the time.”

The decision-making process on UNIT was shared between the Marsh brothers. John casts his mind back and considers how the tapezine ticked behind-the-scenes: “If I remember correctly, it was mainly a joint editorship, although ultimately I had the executive decision! I don’t recall any disagreements as such. David would say he wanted to do a certain thing or review and I would have my ideas, too. Over a 90-minute issue, I think there was ample time to accommodate what we both wanted to include. Any disagreements would appear in the conversations we had within the issue itself, such as when I ‘toasted off’ the Peter Davison era and David said after the article had finished that he disagreed and thought Peter was good. My views about Davison were quite strong, but I must confess I’ve warmed to his era since then. Other than that, David and I were pretty much on the same hymn sheet.”

David, similarly, recalled no great problems surfacing during the planning and recording of UNIT: “The dual editorship seemed to run smoothly as I recall. I did most of what tech work was involved, such as putting clips and articles together onto the master tape. The running order of articles was largely down to the balance and sound of the finished edit. Usually we’d alternate articles, later interspersed with Robin Craine and Paul Martin’s contributions, so it didn’t sound overly weighted, with the same voices dominating the ’zine.”

“Robin was a customer of UNIT [who wrote into the letters section, Brigadier’s Battleground] and he seemed to enjoy the first edition. He had been attracted by the home-produced story Land of the Daleks, which he said boasted a ‘stunning impersonation of Jon Pertwee’,” David remembers. “Robin was interested in writing fan fiction and, with his friend Paul, asked if he could supply material and maybe the odd article. We were happy to oblige him, as it gave us less to think about and we were happy to have him on board. He had a great voice for audio, softer than our accents, and we thought he complemented the overall sound and balance of the ’zine very well.”

Based on the Isle of Man, Robin and Paul would send their material on cassette to the Marsh brothers in Pontefract. They worked quickly, producing an original audio drama – The Rebellion on Quaras – in time for it to be included in UNIT Tapezine Issue 2 (August 1984), and the pair would go on to contribute further stories as well as review features. Robin recalls how they put their recordings together: “Paul and I weren’t blessed with a Big Finish recording studio – in our situation, it was two lads, a creaky old tape recorder with single mic and a trusty BBC sound effects LP. Ha! But, we did have quite a bit of enthusiasm – it was fun at the time to be entering the heady world of Doctor Who fandom.”

Robin and Paul went on to produce two further two-part audio dramas for UNIT, and these were included on Issue 3 (The Space Fugitive Part 1), Issue 4 (The Space Fugitive Part 2 / The Vengeance of Grezal Part 1) and Issue 5 (The Vengeance of Grezal Part 2). A further story, The Ultimate Conquest, was planned for Issue 6, but was, ironically, ultimately not produced.

The third issue, released in December 1984, included a piece that John wrote and remembers fondly: “I think my favourite article for UNIT was my review of The Sea Devils, even though I kept mispronouncing Roger Delgado’s surname! I’d recently received the full audio of the serial (those were the days when Doctor Who audios were a big thrill!), so I was actually reviewing it from the audio and also from my memories as a seven-year-old!”

An announcement was made in Issue 3, in which listeners were given notice that the scope of UNIT Tapezine would be widened to include series other than Doctor Who. On the tape, David explained why they had arrived at this decision: “The reason why this change is occurring is because when your spare time is taken up by Doctor Who only, you tend to get a little bit stale, talking about the same subject. It’s to make life more tolerable for us and to provide a bit of variety for you. The tapezine will still be called UNIT, because we’ll still be 90 per cent Doctor Who-orientated. UNIT 4 will probably have a different theme tune and a different format.” The first taste of this innovation followed directly after the announcement – an archive feature about the Star Trek episode The Galileo Seven.

On each of the subsequent issues, a single feature was devoted to a non-Doctor Who subject, with Robin Craine reviewing The New Avengers – Cat Amongst the Pigeons in Issue 4 and Simon Urquhart taking a look at the debut episode of Blake’s 7, The Way Back in Issue 5. The promised new theme did arrive, replacing a selection from Peter Howell’s score to The Leisure Hive, which was much favoured by tapezine producers. Also, another innovation from Issue 4 onwards was the inclusion of background music to articles. Some Doctor Who incidental tracks had been used occasionally in the first three issues, whereas the music going forward was more from rock and pop sources.

During the production of the fourth issue, John was also working on an off-shoot tapezine entitled The Jon Pertwee Special (or, as he said, “Give My Regards to Pertwee”). This was fully written and the first side had been recorded but after being announced on Side 1 of UNIT Tapezine 4, the project was abandoned and listeners were advised of this fact on the other side of the same issue. John explains the tragic circumstances behind the decision not to continue with it: “The mooted Pertwee special didn’t materialise mainly because our uncle had been killed abroad and it resulted in our aunt coming to live with us – and so privacy was at a premium. In any case, I forgot about it leading up to Issue 5.”

The fifth issue proved to be the end for UNIT Tapezine, not that it was intended to be so, although John and David had planned to step down after finishing its production. This was, as John explained on Issue 5, because “work pressures have got the better of us and our once beautiful pastime of UNIT Tapezine-making has now had to come to close and it’s so very sad.”

The previously mentioned family tragedy and its repercussions played a part in John and David’s decision to retire, but there was more to it as John reveals: “As far as Issue 5 was concerned, I think we had a couple of other contributions from ‘fans’ [Simon Urquhart and Julian Burt]. At the time, we were in the process of starting up our own decorating business, so we weren’t as ‘hands on’ as we were initially, and we handed the reigns over to Robin Craine to become the new editor. Robin was very enthusiastic about UNIT, but I’m not really sure why we didn’t produce any more together. I don’t think we decided on a final ‘hurrah’ – it was just a case of putting it on the back burner and then not returning to it, really.” David tends to agree: “I don’t think there was a conscious decision to call it a day. Even now, my brother occasionally suggests a reboot!” [Bring it on! Ed.]

“Paul and I took over duplication and distribution for Issue 5,” says Robin Craine, “and then we were to assume the editorial post from Issue 6. We even recorded a ‘regeneration scene’ for the handover of editorship and this appeared at the end of Issue 5. However, we had got so much into writing the fiction, our 15-year-old fanboy mindsets decided the world of tapezines wasn’t enough – we wanted to write proper Doctor Who for television. So, with dreams of television work, convention invites, you name it, UNIT edition 6 hastily went into the ‘pending’ tray (it’s probably still there) and the brand vanished overnight.”

Looking back, John and David both hold a great nostalgia for the days of UNIT Tapezine. John: “Yes, I do remember those times fondly, not least because we became friends with Robin, although we haven’t been in touch for ages now. Producing a tapezine felt to me a little bit like being in a pop band or something and each new issue was our current album! Good fun.” David: “Very happy days. We made good friends, it was never a chore, and our audio collection grew massively, mainly thanks to a wonderful and generous guy called Alan Disdale.” Alan was involved in the North Essex Local Group in the 1980s and was hugely enthusiastic about Doctor Who and Cult TV in general. Sadly, he contracted asbestosis at work and died, much too young, in 1993.

But are John and David still Doctor Who fans? John is undecided... “Yes and no. Visually, it’s better than it ever has been, and, when Chris Eccleston took over, I thought it was great, and so too for the first couple of David Tennant’s seasons. After that, I think that it got too ‘up itself’, with so much complex foreshadowing of events and technobabble that I lost the plot. I’ll always watch it because it’s in my blood, I suppose.” David, meanwhile, isn’t so sure... “I still watch, but sometimes I wonder if it’s more to do with loyalty than anything else. I think there’s a massive overuse of the Sonic, so I’d say plenty about that if UNIT was still running!”

The first issue of UNIT Tapezine included an interesting opinion piece by John Marsh in which he stated what he would do were he to take over from John Nathan-Turner as producer of Doctor Who: “My first action would be to produce less stories, with more money being spent on each, like with the Pertwee era. I’d do much more location work, with some done on film. The story Kinda would have been much better visually if it had been done on location in a forest – and on film. Even though the sets were okay, they weren’t very convincing. I’d also aim to bring back the scary parts, even if it means terrorising little kids and abuse from Mary Whitehouse. Doctor Who got its highest-ever ratings in the Pertwee and early Baker years because of the horror impact. There would have to be more horror and guts in the productions as well as intelligent scripts – the scientific gobbledegook would have to be cut to a minimum. I’d cut the guest star policy because, in my view, the guest stars make the programme less science-fictionesque. For example, Beryl Reid, Rodney Bewes and Rula Lenska, etc, are too easily identifiable as themselves, and don’t look from other timezones or worlds at all... And as for the character of the Doctor, I’d pick a relative unknown, like Tom Baker was. I think John Nathan-Turner made a mistake in picking Peter Davison because his face was too familiar to be an alien. However, I thought Peter played the part as best as he could. The monsters would be much more violent and scary – no slow-moving things like those dreadful impersonations of Silurians, Sea Devils and even the Myrka in Warriors of the Deep. The monsters would definitely be a challenge to the Doctor. While we’re on the subject of monsters I’d let the Daleks go as I think they’re out of date and too slow moving. They’re hardly a threat if all you have to do is spin them around or cover their eyes to defeat them. I’d probably only make four adventures a season, actually, but of the highest quality, to bring back lost viewers, aiming for the 10-12 million mark. This could mean putting the show on at a later timeslot. The arguments against this are, if you did this, then the younger viewers would miss it and you’d lose the next generation of fans. This is unlikely, really, as most younger viewers watch plenty of horror on videos and violence on The Professionals, which is on at about nine o’clock, and Minder. There is no denying that these are popular with children. Anyhow, these views are my own – and no one else’s – and they are what I’d do if I became producer of Doctor Who.”

The Tapezines in Focus section of The Logopolitan Issue 2 (June 1984) included a brief review by Michael Flint of the debut issue of UNIT Tapezine: “UNIT is very cheap, apparently due to the hiss on the tape which doesn’t spoil my enjoyment at all. They tend to do a lot of reviews and these include The Twin Dilemma, clips of which don’t come out too well. They also review the two anniversary stories, The Three– and Five Doctors very well, and they also include interviews with the new Doctor, from the television. Anyway, John and David Marsh, whose voices I can’t tell apart, have a lot of potential and enthusiasm.”

UNIT Tapezine Issue 2 (August 1984) included some letters from various listeners, giving their reactions to the tapezine’s debut issue...

“I quite enjoyed UNIT, except for the tape quality… which was poor. Your story, Land of the Daleks, I’m afraid I found boring. Perhaps you ought to do a comedy sketch like [WOTAN’s] Fingers and the Doctor. Comedy, it seems, is much more popular. We should know, as we’ve had serious stuff like Land of the Daleks slammed.”

David Myers, WOTAN

“As for Land of the Daleks, I found that you were using some dialogue from Genesis of the Daleks and some clips of the Daleks [from Destiny of the Daleks], but other than that I could not help laughing at your not very good story – which I really liked.”

(Listener’s name not announced)

“I thought Issue 1 was a very competent first issue. There were some very good articles in it. I especially enjoyed the Three Doctors and Five Doctors review and your Season Poll. The tape noise didn’t spoil my enjoyment particularly and I look forward to Issue 2.”

Geoffrey Connal, CVE Tapezine

“I have just finished listening to UNIT Tapezine and found it very good. I was glad to hear so much material from the programme itself. I enjoyed listening to your tapezine. It’s a shame about the tape noise and the hissing and background noise, but it’s a good ’zine.”

Andrew Johnson

Commenting in The Tapezine Zone section of Zero Room Audiozine Issue 7 (April 1985), David Balston delivered his verdict on the first three issues of UNIT Tapezine: “Issue 1 was a bit of a let down. It was proclaimed as a “pioneer in brilliant tapezines,” but was of a continual poor quality. It is edited by John and David Marsh and is introduced with the music from The Leisure Hive, which has a habit of cropping up in quite a few tapezines. Regular features include The Brigadier’s Battleground, which features reviews and letters, and Greyhound One, where merchandise and exhibitions are reviewed. The Dalek films were reviewed, unfortunately without a script – apparently [the writer] lost it. UNIT 2 was a great improvement: in fact it was quite well produced. However, in the Davison Years features it was obvious that the author didn’t like them at all and it was all very unfair. There was also an attack on Mary Whitehouse and it was suggested that if people don’t like something, then why don’t they turn off? A good point, but in the ever-continuing ratings battle, surely the BBC are more interested in people turning on? The home-produced play, The Rebellion on Quaras, was again very difficult to hear and didn’t sound very good anyway. UNIT 3 was much the same formula, only with the introduction of science fiction outside Doctor Who, with a retelling of The Galileo Seven, a Star Trek episode.”

UNIT Tapezine later received a one-line review from Roy Stevens on The Master Tape Issue 6 (June 1988): “UNIT Tapezine, although in stereo, does plod along a bit.”

Death Zone Issue 2 (August 1989) included a brief review of UNIT Tapezine, with Keith Musselwhite looking back to the early days of tapezines: “UNIT seemed to concentrate on stories that had either been released on record, like Genesis of the Daleks, or stories that had been repeated within the last six years or so, so that meant they had nothing unheard of, clips-wise.”

David Marsh works for the University of Leeds, where he is surrounded by books! He is also a photographer and part-time writer and has co-authored two books with John Edwards and Christopher Allen: Leeds – The Postcard Collection (2014) and Secret Leeds (2017), both from Amberley Publishing. His first novel, Flesh and Blood, was issued by Pegasus Publishers in November 2023. For many years, David has also been involved in amateur dramatics for the Carleton Theatre Group, Scireburnean Theatre Group, Brotherton and Byram Entertainers, and St Giles and St Mary’s Pantomime Society, both acting in and directing plays. He often performs in these productions with his brother John, but both have occasionally guested individually for other theatre groups in the area which sometimes struggle to attract male performers. He has a keen interest in local history, and a special fondness for his home town of Pontefract, particularly its 11th century castle.

John Marsh has been involved in amateur dramatics for something in the region of thirty years. He has featured in productions for many theatre groups during that time, in roles great and small, though he admits: “Most of the plays tend to blend into one memory really, but I remember in one play I had to pull a gun from out of my inside pocket and it got stuck! Eventually it came free but it seemed like an eternity to me! I’ve done a couple of Shakespeares with Carleton and vowed never to do another one. I find him very difficult to learn.” His first role was as Eric Birling in An Inspector Calls for the Carleton Theatre Group in Pontefract, a production which garnered favourable write-ups in the local press, complete with photographs – “I felt like a minor celebrity!” says John. He is also a member of two pantomime societies, generally playing the fool roles or appearing with his brother as a comedy duo. Professionally, he has worked in warehousing and is now a dog walker.

Of all the Doctor Who tapezines produced, UNIT Tapezine was perhaps the most distinctive. It would be fair to say, though, that it wasn’t the most analytical ’zine, and that equally it wasn’t the most slickly recorded, but the Marsh brothers’ ‘say it as you see it’ approach was without a doubt refreshing, unpretentious and welcome. If John and David weren’t keen on something, you’d know they weren’t keen on something, and they didn’t slather their opinions in sugary, overly conciliatory words. While this sometimes meant that the criticisms made weren’t as constructive or clearly reasoned as they might possibly have been, they were at least wholly honest, unvarnished and sometimes deliciously blunt. This was quite different to the approaches taken by most of UNIT Tapezine’s contemporaries, something which made the ’zine very appealing to listeners. John and David, as heard on the tapes, were true characters – entertaining, engaging, and full of opinions that they were not afraid to share. Their love of Doctor Who burst through the speakers in each and every issue, as did their brotherly respect and affection for each other. The recording quality, particularly in the early issues, was not without the odd problem, but to concentrate on hiss and odd acoustics would be missing the point of an entertaining, straight-talking tapezine that had a lot going for it. It’s a real shame that UNIT ended just as it was about to start a new era, flitting off to the Isle of Man to be edited by Robin Craine. You have to wonder just how UNIT would have been without John and David at the wheel – probably it would have been very different, and perhaps leaving it at those five issues, with those two great, characterful fans at its heart, was – in the end – the best course. You can take UNIT Tapezine out of Yorkshire, but perhaps it was a bad idea to take Yorkshire out of UNIT Tapezine!

Alan Hayes