It was a dark and stormy night as rain lashed down on the terraced houses whilst thunder rumbled overhead. Inside Magpie's electronics shop Mr Magpie, a tired and worn grey haired man was going over his accounts whilst one of the televisions in his shop ran the day's programming.
"So tune in again next week for more on the what's my line team," The broadcaster, a well spoken middle aged woman, said. "And that brings us to the end of programming for today so from all of us here at Alexandra Palace a very good night" She said before the program finished and the television went blank.
"Two hundred pounds overdrawn" Magpie said to himself as he tore the piece of paper he'd been using for his sums out of the notebook and crumpled it. "I need a miracle" He said as he threw it into the nearby bin.
Just down the street in one of the identical terraced houses a teenaged boy was reading a magazine whilst his mother sewed on her machine and his grandmother knitted as the radio played.
"He's a caution that one, he does make me laugh" The boy's mother said about the radio broadcaster just as her husband, a plump black haired man with a moustache who had a lot of medals pinned to his jacket, walked into the room.
"Oh our lord and master" The boy's grandmother said sarcastically as he entered the room.
"Rita I'm off out" The man said to his wife as he straightened his tie, ignoring his mother in law.
"Dad?" The boy asked, showing his father the advertisement for a television he'd been looking at for some time.
"Oh how many times son? We'll see" The man told him, looking down at where his son was sat on the sofa in front of him.
"But everyone's getting a telly dad, even Mr Galliger and the Bells at number sixty seven" The boy complained as he turned back to his magazine.
"Well perhaps we'll get one for the coronation" His father told him. The boy looked back at him excitedly. "If your lucky we'll see" His father added with a quick ruffle of his son's hair. "Don't wait up" The man then told his wife as he grabbed his hat and walking stick before heading out of the house.
"I heard they rot your brains, rot them into soup and your brain comes pouring out of your ears, that's what television does" The boy's grandmother told him jokingly.
Outside the storm was getting worse and lightning forked down from the sky as the boy's father walked through the rain, walking past Magpie's electronics store on his way just as a red bolt of light struck the store's television aerial. Inside the store Magpie had fallen asleep at his counter and did not see the television that had been left on standby suddenly switch back on to show the same woman broadcaster as before.
"Mr Magpie? Oh Mr Magpie?" She called as Magpie slowly reacted to the sound and woke up. "Oh oh can you hear me Magpie?" The woman asked.
"Yes?" He replied as he turned to the noise and looked confused when he saw no one there. "I must have been dreaming" He said.
"Oh no this isn't a dream" The woman told him.
"I'm going doolally then?" Mr Magpie said when he realised it had been the woman on the television calling them.
"Not at all sweetheart now are you sitting comfortably? Good then we'll begin" She said. Bolts of red electric shot out of the screen and wrapped around Magpie's face before it seemed to pull and stretch it towards it. The woman started laughing and Magpie grunted and yelled in pain.
Stepping out of the Tardis Rose smoothed down her bright pink poodle skirt that she wearing with matching high heels and light blue jacket with her hair held up by a pink headband.
"I thought we'd be going for the Vegas era? You know the white flares and the chest hair" She said over her shoulder.
"You are kidding aren't you?" The Doctor replied as poked his head around the open door. He'd stayed in his suit but had slicked back his hair in the fifty's style. "You wanna see Elvis you go for the late fifties, time before burgers, when they called it a pelvis and you still had a waist" He told her as he disappeared back into the ship. "What's more you see them in style" He added as the sound of an engine was heard. A moment later the Doctor left the Tardis on a dark blue scooter, wearing a white helmet and sunglasses with a pink helmet for Rose hanging on the handlebars. Rose laughed as he circled around her.
"You have a scooter?" She chuckled in surprise.
"Oh I have a whole garage" The Doctor replied as he pulled up just as another much more powerful and louder engine was heard coming from the Tardis. Peter pulled a wheelie as he roared out of the ship on a huge black motorbike. Wearing a white shirt under a black leather jacket with jeans that had rolled up cuffs and sneakers he had a black helmet on that had a clear visor which dropped down to his nose with reflective aviator shades on underneath it.
"A Black Shadow! He has a vintage Black Shadow!" He called enthusiastically as he lifted up the visor and turned to them. "Do you know how rare these bikes are!?" He added, indicating the bike he was sat on.
"Never had you for a petrol head?" Rose asked.
"Well when Humans get it right they get it right!" He replied with a broad grin.
"So?" The Doctor then asked Rose. "You going my way doll?" He asked her in an American accent.
"Is there any other way to do dadeo? Straight from the fringe rad!" She replied, also in an American accent, as she took out a pair of pink sunglasses from her jacket pocket before heading over to the Doctor's scooter.
"Ah! You speak the lingo?" The Doctor asked as he handed her helmet over.
"Yeah well me mum and Cliff Richard movies every bank holiday Monday" Rose replied as she put it on and climbed on the scooter behind him.
"Oh Cliff, I knew you mother would be a Cliff fan" The Doctor said with a sigh. Rose took hold of the Doctor's waist as he revved up the scooter and set off whilst Peter dropped his visor back down and kicked the Black Shadow off after them.
"Where we off to?" Rose shouted to the Doctor above the noise of the engines.
"Ed Sullivan's TV studio Elvis did Hound Dog on one of the shows, there were lots of complaints, bit of luck we'll just catch it" He replied.
"And that would be TV studios in what? New York?" Peter called over as he rode the Black Shadow besides them.
"That's the one!" The Doctor replied just as a double decker red bus drove passed on a crossroad in front of them. Stopping to let it past they all looked their surroundings for the first time. They had arrived in a suburb of terraced house which had red blue and white banners hanging between them along with Union Flags all over the street. Rose and Peter laughed as they realised the Doctor's mistake whilst the Doctor's grin dropped in disappointment.
"Digging that New York vibe" Peter chuckled.
"Well this still could be New York I mean this looks very New York to me, Londoney New York mind but," The Doctor said.
"What are all the flags for?" Rose asked, spotting all the patriotic decoration.
Inside one of the houses in the street the Doctor, Rose and Peter were on, the boy his mother and father were all watching their new television.
"Smashing! Smashing ain't it?" The father said as he stood up and turned down the volume. "You'd have thought they was in the room with you! Hey?" He said as he looked down at his wife and son, who were both sitting on the sofa quietly. "Fair do's Tommy you had a point, new television" He told his son. But Tommy was looking upwards at the ceiling. "There that should cheer you up a bit Rita? Give us a smile then hey?" Tommy's father then asked his wife.
"I can't, nothings the same any more not with her," Rita replied, sounding scared and upset.
"Stop going on about it" Her husband told her.
"But her face Eddie, what happened to her? That awful face" Rita said.
"I said stop it!" Eddie suddenly shouted. A tapping noise suddenly sounded from upstairs.
"She's awake, I think she's hungry?" Rita said quietly.
Outside on the street Magpie was making a delivery of a television to one of the streets residents.
out of his van.
"There you go sir! All wired up for the great occasion" He said to the man enthusiastically as the man's sons carried it into their house.
"Great occasion? What'd you mean?" The Doctor asked as he walked past with Rose and Peter as they all took off their sunglasses. Having just parked the scooter and Black Shadow nearby along with their helmets they had noticed the delivery and gone to find out what the commotion was about.
"Where you been living? Out in the colonies?" Magpie asked him as he closed the black doors of his van. "Coronation of course" He added.
"What coronation's that then?" The Doctor asked.
"What'd you mean?" Magpie asked, sounding confused. "The coronation" He said, making it sound obvious.
"It's the Queen's, Queen Elizabeth" Peter told the Doctor as he and Rose waited for him to realise when they were.
"Oh! Oh is this 1953?" The Doctor asked.
"Last time I looked, time for a lovely bit of pomp and circumstance, it's what we do best" Magpie said with a smile.
"Look at all the TV aerials? Looks like everyone's got one" Rose said as she looked around the houses. "That's weird my nan said tellies were so rare they all had to pile into one house" She added.
"Not around here love, Magpie's marvellous tellies only five quid a pop" Magpie told her and Peter whilst the Doctor walked up the street a little.
"Oh but this is a brilliant year! Classic! Technicolour! Everest climbed! Everything off the rations! A nation throwing off the shackles of war and look forward to a happier and brighter future!" He said as he came back over to them, saying the last part in a posh old fashioned British accent.
"Someone help me please! Ted!" A woman's voice shouted as the front door of a house was flung open halfway up the street. Two large men in suits were dragging a man draped in a sack into a waiting black car where a third, more skinnier man was waiting. "Leave him alone! That's my husband!" The man's wife shouted as she appeared in the doorway. The Doctor, Rose and Peter immediately ran over to the commotion.
"What's going on?" The Doctor asked the skinnier man seriously as the draped man was bundled into the back seat of the car. Tommy, his house opposite the commotion, had also come running up.
"Oi what are you doing!?" He shouted as he ran from his house whilst his mother stood at the open doorway.
"Police business now got out the way sir" The skinnier man ordered the Doctor.
"Who'd they'd take? Do you know him?" Peter asked Tommy.
"Must be Mr Galliger" Tommy replied as the men all climbed into the car before it started to move away, leaving Mr Galliger's wife crying at her doorstep. "It's happening all over the place, they're turning into monsters" Tommy added just as his father had strode out of his house.
"Tommy! Not one word! Get inside now!" Eddie shouted to his son.
"I'm sorry I better do as he says" Tommy quickly told the Doctor, Rose and Peter before returning to his house.
"Come on" The Doctor told his companions as they rushed to their transports. Throwing back on their sunglasses and helmets they quickly kicked the scooter and Black Shadow into life and raced off after the car.