Image © David and Andrew Myers, 1983

WOTAN – or Who Observation Tape ANalogue – was the third Doctor Who tapezine to be produced, following Dr. Who: Tapezine and Zero Room Audiozine. In total, four issues and a supplement were made by brothers David and Andrew Myers of Enfield, Middlesex, over a period of eleven months, with the first tape debuting in November 1983.

“My earliest memory of Doctor Who is of Death to the Daleks and the giant root,” reveals David Myers. “Doctor Who was usually on in our house and Andrew became a big fan in about 1976. However, I didn’t really become a serious fan until 1981 when the last episode of Logopolis totally blew me away. After that, it was a case of subscription to Doctor Who Monthly, reading all the novels and looking forward to any repeats. I think that year, we had Full Circle, The Keeper of Traken and of course, The Five Faces of Doctor Who. What an introduction!”

The Myers brothers’ exploits in Doctor Who tapezines can be dated back to when they joined the DWAS after they attended the BBC’s Twentieth Anniversary celebration event at Longleat. Before long, they had ordered and been impressed by David J. Howe’s Dr. Who: Tapezine and decided to attempt something similar themselves – and thus WOTAN was born, as co-editor David Myers recalls: “I had an interest in tape recorders and editing and Andrew was – and still is – a creative writer, so we set to it. However, what we didn’t have was very good equipment; a shoebox cassette recorder, an old record player and our Dad’s Sanyo music centre was all that we had. I also had sound effects records, Radiophonic Workshop LPs and lots of musical stings and sound effects from the Kenny Everett radio shows.”

David and Andrew put together the first issue of WOTAN in late summer and early autumn of 1983 and submitted an advertisement publicising it, for inclusion in the November 1983 edition of Celestial Toyroom. “The first issue was an hour and a half long,” David recalls, “and included comedy in the form of Fingers and the Doctor, reviews of the 15th and 20th seasons and, among other things, a reconstruction of an episode of Terror of the Autons starring Andrew and myself – oh dear! We had quite a good response from this first issue, so we immediately set about doing the next one. We were now in contact with quite a few other fans, such as Sheldon Collins and Kevin Gardner – and they were willing to send us copies of old Doctor Who stories on audio. It was also at this time that I bought a ‘ghetto-blaster’-type tape recorder which gave quite good results.”

As David and Andrew set about bringing together a second issue, they made a decision that would set WOTAN apart from all other tapezines, in that rather than each new issue being numbered, they would instead be sequels, each carrying the WOTAN name as part of a new title. The first of these was to be Son of WOTAN, which would be released in February 1984. It included a look at the National Film Theatre’s Doctor Who weekend, a review of The Five Doctors and an archive feature on Carnival of Monsters. Two features on Son of WOTAN – a recording of Gavin Scott’s feature from the BBC’s Did You See programme and a ten-minute reconstruction of Pyramids of Mars Part 4 by the Myers brothers – came in for some negative feedback. Otherwise, reaction from listeners was generally good; people quite liked it and ‘sales’ were still quite healthy.

May 1984 saw the publication of the third issue of WOTAN, this one being titled House of WOTAN. “This was probably our favourite issue,” says David. It proved also to be the best received, ‘selling’ more than a hundred copies. As a result of the growing listenership and popularity of the first two WOTAN issues, which were produced entirely by the two brothers, the third featured items contributed by listeners, and these were included on the cassette along with – for the first time – clips from old television episodes.

“Making over one hundred copies of WOTAN for people took up a lot of time, but it was still fun,” David remembers. “I would like to think that maybe, just maybe, certain people were inspired by us to have a go at their own tapezines – I’m thinking of The Logopolitan, CVE and the Marsh boys at UNIT Tapezine in particular.”

The final issue, The WOTAN File, proved itself to be more of a struggle. After discussions between the DWAS and the BBC, advertising conditions were changed with regard to tapezines. David Myers remembers that the editor of Celestial Toyroom sent the advert for The WOTAN File back, pointing out a number of changes that were needed to bring it into line with the new rules. Only once these alterations had been made could the advertisement be published: “The CT editor really messed us about with the advert, saying we couldn’t claim we had clips and we couldn’t ask for any money for the tape, postage and packing, meaning people now had to send us a tape and a stamped addressed envelope. Some of the tapes and return envelopes that people sent us were of such poor quality that we had to dispose of them and pay out for the postage, packing and cassettes ourselves.”

Consequently, the release of The WOTAN File was delayed by one month, with the advertisement appearing in the October 1984 edition of CT rather than the intended September one. However, this proved to be only one of the problems with this fourth issue, as David Myers recounts: “By this time, Andrew was working and I was leaving school and looking for a job, so we couldn’t give as much time to the project as before. The articles overran, so we had to cut back on our archive on The Seeds of Death. One of the contributors let us down, so we got John Slater [of The Logopolitan tapezine] in at the last minute to do a piece on The Evil of the Daleks. It was all a bit difficult.”

The situation with the archive for The Seeds of Death prompted an unusual solution that resulted in an announcement to the effect that listeners could send a C-60 cassette and a stamped addressed envelope to receive the full archive of this story. Take-up could have been better, as David remembers: “That archive extra is long gone. We offered it, but I recall only one person asked for it and I didn’t keep the tape.”

In the fullness of time, David and Andrew were to re-evaluate the whole project and the fourth issue would prove to be their swansong in tapezine production.

The strain of duplicating so many copies and then receiving demanding letters from listeners began to take its toll, as David recalls: “To be honest, I was starting to get a bit sick and tired of people sending me great long lists of audio stories to send them. I just didn’t have the time or inclination any more.”

In terms of editing quality, the final issue was arguably the best, but as David says, “We were really weary with WOTAN by this point – and frankly, it shows in the tone of our voices. We did think about producing a fifth issue, The WOTAN Zone, but with Andrew and me working by this time, it was never going to happen. Also, to be honest we were getting a bit sick of fandom and both left the DWAS soon after.”

“Despite the problems with the last issue, Andrew and I look back upon those days with great fondness and we are still big Who fans to this day!” says David. The final issue performed decently, reaching an audience of just under a hundred listeners.

The Tapezines in Focus section of The Logopolitan Issue 1 (February 1984) included a brief review by Michael Flint of WOTAN (1): “Some of the tape is poor quality, but I have worked out that in one case it is a tape of a tape of a tape of a record of a tape! This is made up for, though, by the effects, especially after each Fifteenth Season story review.”

Michael went on to evaluate the next two issues in The Logopolitan 2 (June 1984): “Despite a rather shaky first issue, WOTAN got 1984 off to a good start with Son of WOTAN. The humour and the quality are better and they review The Five Doctors excellently and also the [National Film Theatre] thing… They review Carnival of Monsters, which unfortunately I found a bit tedious, probably because I have a full copy of the story and going against popular opinion I’m afraid I don’t like it that much. House of WOTAN is even better, reviewing the two Auton stories, and also it has outside contributions. Andrew Lewis’ Prisoner article is very good. I played it over and over again and I’m really annoyed I didn’t record the series at the time it was repeated. However, to do it justice – The Prisoner – it would need a tapezine of its own. Geoffrey Connal’s review of Interface 3 is good but slightly drowned out by music, apparently added by Messrs. Myers and Myers (you can tell that because the music stops at a different time to the hiss of Geoffrey’s tape). One more review is David Cowham’s look at the Pescatons record, which is so adequately represented that I no longer want to hear a full copy.”

John Marsh, speaking in the Brigadier’s Battleground section of UNIT Tapezine Issue 2 (August 1984), was full of praise for the third issue: “House of WOTAN has lots to offer the Doctor Who fan. There are two excellent reviews of Spearhead from Space and Terror of the Autons, which make this ’zine one of the best I’ve heard in a long while. The sound quality of the ’zine is excellent – very well produced. Reviewed are Interface 3 and that Channel 4 series, The Prisoner. Very good. I particularly enjoyed Fingers and the Doctor, which I found to be very humorous. House of WOTAN is definitely one of the best tapezines around at the moment, and if you haven’t ordered a copy, do so – it’s very well worth it. I await number four eagerly.”

Commenting in The Tapezine Zone section of Zero Room Issue 7 (April 1985), David Balston counted himself as a fan of the Myers’ output: “WOTAN is always well produced, has some very good and sometimes unusual incidental music, and has a very different [style] of presentation. WOTAN 4 even had Dave and Andrew singing the links! One thing that most ’zines seem to suffer from is the dreadful reviews syndrome, in which [they] feel obliged to review everything that moves. Fortunately, WOTAN’s Five Doctors review was very good, probably because I agree totally with it. The message was, why not enjoy this piece of nostalgia and not just pick holes in it. Fingers and the Doctor is WOTAN’s continuing satirical serial. This is unusual and is often very amusing... and quite well acted out... Unfortunately, every silver lining has a cloud, and in WOTAN’s case, it is its archives, [the kind of feature] which seems to afflict most tapezines. It is just a simple retelling of the story, illustrated with a few well-chosen clips. Still, these are still a lot better than the boring Marvel equivalents, although they are still an easy way of filling up space... Finally, the mock letters page of WOTAN was really hilarious. I think you’ll enjoy it.”

In the years after he co-produced WOTAN, David Myers has worked mostly in retail for Waitrose and Howards TV shop in Enfield, and for the Co-op in Grimsby, where he now lives. Beyond the retail sector, David also spent 15 years as a black cab driver in London. An avid reader, he enjoys the works of Stephen King and devoured all the Doctor Who books published during the wilderness years. He is also a fan of Star Trek and has remained a Who fan, even though he has moved away from fandom.

Some tapezines could possibly be accused of being a little too po-faced from time to time – my own Sonic Waves included, certainly in its early days – but this is hardly a criticism that could be aimed at the Myers brothers. They wanted to make WOTAN fun to produce and also to listen to – and with a healthy regular listenership in treble figures, clearly they succeeded. With comedy being a strong part of the WOTAN mix, and that comedy generally hitting the spot, David and Andrew produced a distinctive tapezine that is well-remembered to this day despite its short, eleven-month lifespan.

In between the amusing comic exploits of Fingers and the Doctor, WOTAN’s reviews were well-written and the Archives well-produced – even if the latter may seem rather superfluous when approached from a modern perspective. Of course, back in the pre-home video days, when fans relied on their connections to the audio and videotape trading market for their fixes of Doctor Who, to many listeners these would have been fascinating and valuable insights into stories that they thought they may never see or hear in their lifetimes.

All told, considering that WOTAN was one of the initial wave of Doctor Who tapezines, made at a time when tapezine producers like David and Andrew were still working out exactly what a tapezine was, their four issues still rate highly when compared to many of those which followed in their wake.

Alan Hayes