2063
The site was empty, no longer the red brick building, and no sturdy walls that had been its foundations for many years. The ground was flat and even, everything cleared away, no sign at all of what had been before, its history, its significance.
Two women in their thirties carried a box of supplies toward the empty space and placed the heavy load down onto the ground. In the hot summer sun, they felt the strain more easily and were happy to release the weight. The younger of the two, a tall light-browned skinned woman with sunglasses perched on her nose, sat down on the ground, not worrying about the dust that was accumulating around her shorts. There was a lot of work to do and the days ahead would be busy, but for that moment, she wanted to take a breather, relish in the solitude before a hectic dig.
"Are you alright, Alexandra?" the shorter chubbier woman asked as she hovered above her friend.
Alexandra laughed. "Sorry, was I day-dreaming again? I'm not going mad, I promise. It's just, this place, its special somehow."
The other woman smiled. "Certainly is. We wouldn't be digging it up if there wasn't something important buried down there. Question is what is it and who are UNIT and why are they so interested?"
"I don't just mean the conspiracy that's always hung over this place like an eerie shadow. For me, there's a personal connection. This used to be the old Coal Hill site, where the school was before it got destroyed."
The woman's eyebrow rose. "You're a dark horse, you never told me about it. So, are you caught up in any of the conspiracies?"
"Not me, no, but I might know of some people who were."
…
2013
In the playground of Coal Hill School, under the shelter of a nearby tree, protecting them from the fierce sunshine, the teachers and pupils and parents gathered around a plot of land with their headmaster Mr. Coburn standing at the front, leading an assembly. Stood beside him were an elderly couple, holding hands and smiling as the head-teacher addressed the crowd.
…
1963
"Not gone outside yet?" Ian said as he peered around the door to the history classroom and caught Barbara Wright fixing a ladder on her tights.
"Minor malfunction to deal with first," she said flashing a quick smile and to Ian's amusement, a bit of leg at the same time.
He averted his merry gaze. "I'll wait here and escort you outside, there's quite a crowd forming."
"Who'd have thought burying a time capsule would get everyone so excited? Let's just hope we're here in fifty years to open it."
She finally completed her task and linked arms with the science master by the door. "Well then, what have you chosen to bury?" She gave him a stern glance, knowing full well the type of thing he'd choose was bound to be anything but serious.
"Ta-da!" Ian said, producing his Coal Hill tie. "A nod to the school and something of personal value to me- even has some leftover tea stains."
Barbara ran her fingers over the tie and sniffed it. "And the whiff of sulphur too. I'm surprised you wanted to part with it, I know how fond of it you are."
"I have a spare one, but I'll have to be extra careful, I'd hate to lose that one as well."
Barbara laughed, only Ian would put something in the capsule that he had another copy of in his own wardrobe. "Well, I'm putting something much more practical. As an historian, it's important for future generations to know what it was like to live in previous eras. So, I've got a class timetable, a newspaper from today, and my history homework set for this weekend."
Ian laughed. "I'm sure the kids of 2013 will be riveted."
…
2013
Mr Coburn signalled for Ian to take centre stage at the front of the crowd. "Now, we have an important speaker with us today. Not only is Dr. Chesterton our beloved chairman of governors and of great importance to the school, but he was also one of the very teachers who buried the capsule back fifty years ago, along with his wife Barbara."
Barbara frowned and spoke aloud to the crowd. "He just buried the capsule, not me if you don't mind, Headmaster."
Mr. Coburn laughed at his wording error and looked apologetically at her. "I'm very sorry about that. Everyone, this is Dr. Barbara Chesterton, she was a history teacher here fifty years ago and together she and Dr. Chesterton buried the capsule we are eagerly about to open."
"Get on with it!" Courtney Woods shouted from the crowd.
Ian gave a stern look to Courtney and then cleared his throat. "Thank you, Headmaster. Pupils, teachers and parents, this is a very important day for me and my wife and we are honoured to be here to share this day with a new generation. When we buried the capsule we took little thought to ever opening it, but here we are, lucky to have reached this lovely year and ready to look inside and have a bit of a giggle at what was left behind. Coal Hill School is a very special place indeed, and a capsule can't tell us of every wonderful thing that happens here, but it's a good start, so let's get on with it and make the past come alive."
…
1963
The selected pupils had been chosen to leave an item in the capsule and had formed a queue by the tree where a dug out plot of land was waiting.
Susan reached the front of the queue, the last of the pupils to leave a token, and she looked happily at Ian and Barbara.
"What have you chosen for us, Susan?" Barbara asked.
Susan giggled. "Well, at first I did think about something to commemorate the walking on the moon."
Ian and Barbara glanced at one another and Susan could see from their reactions that she'd messed up the years again. She quickly corrected herself, saying it was of course a joke and hoped they didn't pay too much attention to her mistakes. She glanced behind her a few times, looking out onto the road as though looking for something or someone. In the distance, behind a parked car, she seemed to stare apprehensively at a figure hiding, an old man with white hair, wearing some kind of dark cape. Ian didn't notice, too busy focusing on the capsule, but Barbara had spotted the man, and had seen Susan's reaction. She shook off the feeling of something peculiar and focused her attentions back on the job at hand. She asked Susan to place her chosen item into the box.
…
2013
There was a cheer from the crowd as the box was lifted to the surface and the mud and earth wiped away from the top. It was placed on a small table at the front of the gathering and Barbara had the honour of being the first to look inside. The box was opened and she carefully reached inside and pulled out the first thing she could find. She held up an old dirty Coal Hill tie and laughed to herself, before looking at her husband fondly.
"It's Dr. Chesterton's school tie," she said loudly. "Just as he left it."
Ian pulled out another item, an old cricket ball with a photograph of the 1960's school cricket team beside it and started showing it around the crowd. He then pulled out some old coins from before England had changed over to the decimal system. Barbara pulled out an old tin of custard with very old labelling.
"Pudding anyone?" she said, amused by little memories of the simple things of the past.
Finally, Ian pulled out a small 1960's radio device, similar to the one Susan had with her on the day they'd visited the junkyard. Seeing the device in front of him, he felt choked, he'd not thought about Susan for a long time. He looked over at Barbara and could tell she was feeling the same, many memories of their travels filling their minds. Suddenly as he held the item in his hands, there was a crackle of noise and everyone jumped back startled. He could hear some kind of bleeping like an alarm and wondered what it was.
"Must be picking up stray frequencies," he said to the crowd, but looking at the device, and from much experience with Susan, he knew there was more to it than that.
…
1963
Susan placed an old radio into the time capsule and smiled. "They'll know what we used to listen to music on," she said but as she lowered the device into the capsule, she tried to disguise a bleeping noise coming from it, like a signal of some kind. She looked over her shoulder again, out toward the road and the old man hiding behind the car. She then smiled innocently. "All done," she said.
"Get on with it!" a boy shouted from the crowd.
Barbara walked over to him and folded her arms. "Louis Woods, it'll take as long as it takes or would you like to spend the day writing lines instead?"
He shuffled on the spot with annoyance. "No."
"Then be patient, one day you never know, your grandchildren may go to this school and you yourself might go along to see the unveiling of items from the capsule."
Louis laughed. "I'm not having kids, never!"
She smirked and then stepped back into the crowd of her fellow colleagues as the headmaster lowered the capsule into the ground and some other teachers began to fill up the hole. She watched as Mr. Chesterton started shovelling earth into the ground, noticing his shirt was clinging to his back in the warm sun.
…
2013
Barbara and Ian bowed before the crowd as they placed all the items back into the capsule, ready to be re-buried. They were a bit concerned about the radio from Susan but knew she must have buried it for a good reason and they wanted to trust her.
"Time to place our own 21st century capsule into the ground along with the old one," Mr. Coburn said eagerly. "I'm putting in a flash drive with all photos of the school as it is now, so very exciting. Let's just hope in fifty years there's still something to show the photos on." He let out a loud over-enthusiastic laugh but no-one joined in, too familiar with Mr. Coburn's attempts at humour.
Next, Courtney Woods stepped up to take her turn, joined by her grandfather Louis. Barbara's eyes widened at seeing the older man. "Mr. Woods, we meet again," she said. "What was that about not having children?"
Louis laughed. "Things never work out the way you expect them to."
Courtney seemed cross by this revelation as she glared at her grandfather. "You was never gonna have kids?"
Louis hushed his granddaughter and was eager to avert the many prying eyes. "Well it's very nice to be back here today, that's for sure. Coal Hill's a great school- I've got good memories, well mostly."
He and Courtney lowered some items into the box and then re-joined the crowd for the rest of the celebration.
"Here's to Coal Hill and the next fifty years!" Mr. Coburn chanted as he lowered the capsules into the ground. "Long may it last!"
Ian placed his arm around Barbara's shoulders. "Are you alright? You look a little sad?"
She dabbed her eyes with a tissue and then nuzzled him. "Oh it's just all the memories Ian, especially of Susan, and the place we first met, and of course meeting the Doctor because of it. Like Louis said, life doesn't work out the way you expect, does it?"
Ian kissed her on the top of the head. "No, sometimes it works out better."
…
2063
Alexandra and her team uncovered the first items left behind in the earth on the old Coal Hill site of which once had been the garden area, sheltered by a beautiful old tree. She found two boxes, capsules caked in soil and she gently opened them, pulling out an array of items.
"What have you got there, Alex?" her friend asked, peering over her shoulder.
"Time capsules it looks like."
"That can't be what we've been looking for."
Alexandra smiled. "No, but this is just as interesting." She pulled out two photographs, one from each capsule and held them close to her, looking intently at the faces on the old pictures.
"Who are they, old teachers?"
Alexandra smiled and gently ran her fingers over the faces of Ian and Barbara. "Yes, but they were more than that. They were my great-grandparents. I never met them but there were many photographs of them around my dad's home. The stories never ended; there were so many adventures to tell."
Her friend reached into the capsule and pulled out some other items. "Do you think this thing we're looking for is to do with them?"
"Anything's possible." She took the radio device from her friend and stared at it hard, gazing over the details of the antique item. She dropped it suddenly when it let out a loud whirring noise. "What the hell?"
But before there was a chance to examine the radio, a shadow descended over them and they stood up slowly, looking up in astonishment at the space-craft hovering above them.
"Dr. Chesterton," a male colleague said fearfully as he approached her. "What's going on? What's that thing?"
Alexandra gulped but at the same time felt a strong sense of adrenalin and a thirst for adventure. "I don't know, but something tells me history has a way of repeating itself."