Matt Dale, one half of TME, originally wrote this in 2017 for publishing on blog The Causal Nexus, who were running a series of articles on unsung fictional heroes in the Doctor Who universe. This article was used to celebrate the show’s anniversary on November 23rd.
Little seems known about the enigma that is the character of Reg Cranfield. Known mostly for walking past a junkyard in the opening moments of Doctor Who, Cranfield was much more… for, many years before the Marvel Cinematic Universe made crossovers fashionable, Cranfield was the glue that held the extensive BBC Expanded Universe together. This article at last lifts the lid on one of the most important figures in this shared fictional reality.
Born in 1902 in North Wales, Cranfield was raised by his parents on their family farm, which had been carefully cultivated by his grandparents ever since they moved there from their native home of Arizona (the family had also been seen in Paris in the 1570s, in England around the same time, and even as far back as the lost city of Atlantis). A quiet child, Reg Cranfield gained an affection for the farmyard animals, which was sadly seen as a weakness by the children of his village.
Although bullied relentlessly through awkward teenage years, young Reg refused to be broken and from these experiences gained a strong sense of justice and a desire to not only grow beyond his tormentors but to help those in need in future.
By 1920 Cranfield had left school and immediately enrolled in his local police force. As a Constable in rural Wales he was able to make a difference to his community, but still felt he was capable of more. After years of standing by his local village, and surviving two World Wars, in 1962 he requested a transfer to Shoreditch, which was quickly accepted, and was placed on a beat in the Totters Lane area. His love for sausage sandwiches soon became a source of affection in the local force, which became his new family. But things were soon to take a dramatic twist…
November 1963 was a turning point for PC Cranfield. On the day of Kennedy’s assassination, Reg was discovered to have been in the very area where schoolchild Susan Foreman disappeared, feared abducted by her family. This high-profile case created one of the earliest trials by media for any of those involved, even at a distance – and Reg was soon challenged by the public as to how he could have been so close to a major crime without witnessing anything and rescuing the schoolgirl. His competence called into question, PC Cranfield was placed on watch by his superiors. This affected Reg more than anyone would realise, and he slowly began to lose faith in his ability to fight for justice, while dreaming of the life he could have had if things had worked out differently…
…from our vantage point, of course, we can theorise what would have happened if the tangled web of time had led Reg down a different path, and he had stepped into the junkyard where Susan was last seen. For we know the likelihood is that taking those few additional steps would have caused him to be whisked away into a journey through time and space starting on the planet Skaro. In this timeline, it is here Reg would have met the Daleks and Thals, and used his policing background to broker a brief truce between the brutal enemies (soon after leaving Skaro, this truce would have broken down, leading to the Daleks quickly overthrowing the Thals and beginning a Galactic advance far earlier than they in fact would in the prime timeline). After trips to ancient China and the planet Marinus, the Doctor, Cranfield and Susan would have found themselves in ancient Mexico where, without the presence of a false Goddess, the locals would have quickly captured Susan and sacrificed her to the Gods. After their escape, a depressed and lonely Doctor would take Cranfield to the Sense-Sphere and the French Revolution. Neither Cranfield nor the Doctor had specific expertise in this area of history, leading to their inadvertently supporting Robespierre and changing French history forever, creating a more warlike France for the 200 years prior to Cranfield’s time. The two then travel to future Earth where they find a highly advanced form of Dalek successfully invading the Earth – although they make efforts to save the planet, these are ultimately thwarted due to the additional centuries of experience the Daleks had gained in warfare without the Thal setbacks of their early days. Cranfield would remain behind, having formed an unlikely relationship with one of the freedom fighters, but as the TARDIS dematerialised, a scorched Earth tactic by the future French would lead to the planet’s destruction.
Fortunately, none of this awful timeline came to pass.
In reality, Reg made a brief transfer into the prison service in 1965, where he felt his services as a ‘tough guy’, without the responsibility of decision making, would suit his skills best. After this, he enrolled in the Territorial Army. Although he had a shaky start, he was placed on the front lines during a plot to take over a missile installation in 1966. His experiences here, so close to the action, made him realise what a mistake he had made leaving the police force in the first place, where excitement was rarely far away.
By luck, around this time, the schoolteachers of Susan Foreman spoke out about their knowledge of the unsolved case. While their stories that Susan had left with her grandfather to explore China were treated by the press with some scepticism, it was enough to make Cranfield’s previous superiors doubt that they had treated him fairly. With the kidnapping theory dropped, Cranfield was welcomed back to Shoreditch police with open arms, and with a renewed sense of pride and justice, Reg worked harder than ever before, working his way up through the ranks, taking a Chief Constable’s position when it opened in Bristol, close to his native Wales. Along the way he even became involved in undercover work, posing as a workman in the Lillicrap factory for a time.
His fast progression did not go unnoticed. The British government were impressed by Reg’s determination, and his experience both in the army and an investigative detective, and invited him to use these combined skills to become part of UNIT in the 1970s, their newly formed organisation investigating alien activity on Earth. Reg was present during both the Cybermen invasion and the Silurian incursion. During his rare moments of downtime from UNIT, he travelled where possible, and would find himself in situations such as being present in a cafe during a hold-up and during investigations into the death of one Mary Antrobus.
The activities in UNIT exhausted Reg, however, and he requested a leave of absence, which took him back to his home town of Llanfairfach, where he effectively took retirement back on his family farm. But the shadow of his past was never far away, and just two years later experiments carried out by Global Chemicals created an incident in which UNIT was forced to intervene. Although UNIT saved the day, the Cranfield farm was effectively destroyed by Global’s work. Devastated, Reg left his beloved village once again, moving to Lancashire and setting himself up as a vet, finally finding his true calling in life, spending time with the animals he loved so much.
Reg Cranfield passed away in 1983. He left behind no family, but had affected many lives over the years in England and Wales. He will always be remembered fondly.
