WHEN I wrote last week about the lasting appeal of the 1960s there was a phenomenon from that era I missed out.

I didn’t actually think of it in the context of the article, but I obviously should have done since it celebrates its 50th birthday in a few days and is, if anything, more popular than it was when it started out.

I refer, of course, to the phenomenon that is Doctor Who.

I suppose I must be classed as a Whovian, a Whooey, or whatever it is they call fans of the show. I started at an early age, when Second Doctor Patrick Troughton was in the Tardis. My first definite memory involved an adventure in Atlantis with some strangely spooky fish people.

A series later, when I was in hospital following an operation on a lazy eye, I asked in vain for the bandages to be removed so I could watch the last episode of an adventure in which a couple of Cybermen – by far the scariest monsters in those black-and-white days – were wiping out the human crew of a space station one by one.

The thought I might damage my sight mattered far less to me than finding out whether the Doctor was able to save the day. Strangely enough, he did, as I found out years later when I saw the old episode on DVD.

I stayed a fan throughout the Jon Pertwee years but drifted away in Tom Baker’s time, not because of his influence but because I became a teenager. It was, back then, still a children’s programme.

But as time passed its viewers were increasingly older, long-term fans. Doctor Who became a “cult” programme rather than a popular one, and it’s claimed this contributed to the Time Lord’s ultimate downfall, not due to the Master or the Daleks but the BBC, which first suspended and then cancelled the show in 1989.

But you can’t keep a good Doctor down, and the series was brought back by Russell T Davies in 2005. I was dubious about this after a false start with a movie in 1996, but it proved a triumph, with more money, sharp scripts and for me the best Doctor of the new series, Christopher Eccleston.

Sadly he only stayed for one season, but successor David Tennant proved even more popular with most viewers and the programme went from strength to strength.

If it’s slipped recently that’s not been the fault of current incarnation Matt Smith. He’s done a good job, and gets the chance to prove his worth in the 50th anniversary programme, prior to regenerating into Peter Capaldi in the subsequent Christmas show.

How has Doctor Who proved so popular for so long? For the answer I think we must travel back in time, to the period covered in a drama-documentary on Thursday starring York’s own David Bradley as First Doctor William Hartnell.

It was at the very start of the Doctor’s adventures that a series of BBC folk made a series of decisions which, probably unintentionally, ensured his longevity. Due to budget constraints they gave him a police box instead of a fancy spaceship. But the Tardis could go anywhere, any time, and with an interior that you could do almost anything with, giving the writers almost endless scope for where the adventures could be set.

The Doctor’s own origins were made so mysterious at first that you could do almost anything with him too, including – and this was a Master-stroke, if you’ll pardon the Whovian pun – suddenly revealing he could regenerate and look like someone else, just when it became necessary to replace the lead actor.

Now we’ve a whole raft of 50th birthday programmes, culminating in Saturday’s anniversary adventure, which we’re assured will be a memorable TV event.

The trouble with that, of course, is it almost invites disappointment with the finished article; how can anything match the hype and the weight of five decades of expectation? Perhaps that will be the Doctor’s greatest challenge as he embarks on a new half-century.