Delia. Delia Derbyshire, that is. Odds on if you’re a Doctor Who fan, you might know who she was. If not, here’s a brief summary:
Delia Derbyshire
Delia Derbyshire was responsible (along with Dick Mills) for realising (making) the original Doctor Who theme tune in 1963. A chap called Ron Grainer wrote it (on one sheet of manuscript paper, apparently) but Delia was the one that actually put it all together and made it the best theme tune across all of space and time.
Me, Me, Me!
Delia was also the person that initiated my love of electric and electronic music.
I vaguely remember bits of a Tomorrow’s World segment (broadcast in December 1965) about The BBC Radiophonic Workshop and the Doctor Who theme in particular. It showed how Delia and Dick (Mills) recorded their bits of sounds on tape; sounds made from plucked strings, oscillators and white noise generators. Those sounds recorded, re-recorded, manipulated and stuck back together in three big long tape reels eventually to form that distinctive theme tune. This process was fascinating to the young me (and still is to the old me!). Bearing in mind that when Delia made the Doctor Who theme in 1963 there were no synthesizers or electronic keyboards, it was an entirely manual, laborious, time consuming process. To me, this process was magical.
That opening sound that came out of my TV speaker when Doctor Who aired was utterly unique and totally entrancing. I’d never heard anything like it before in my life and I was determined to find out more.
It took a while (given that there was no internet), but through judicial use of the local library, I managed to eventually discover electronic music in general and Musique Concrete in particular. By association, Delia and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop led me to Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry and a certain chap called Jean-Michel Jarre.
Delia’s Legacy
Nowadays (in 2023) much has been documented about Delia through films, plays, documentaries and literature. Delia left the BBC in 1973, she produced some music at the Electrophon and Kaleidophon studios (with Brian Hodgson) but near enough gave it all up in 1975 to become a British Gas employee (well, for a bit, anyway). We didn’t hear anything (musically) from her until the musician Peter Kember asked her to provide some sounds for his 2001 album “Grain: A Compilation of 99 Short Tracks”.
Sadly, Delia was never to see the release of Peter’s album, as she passed away aged only 64 on 3rd July 2001.
Following her death, a good deal of tapes and papers were found in her attic. The tapes consist primarily of material from Delia’s freelance projects (e.g. works for theatre productions, films and festivals), and some of her BBC work. Fortunately, these have been preserved, archived and digitised.
She is now seen (quite rightly) as one of the pioneers of electronic music, having not only produced that theme tune, but by influencing musicians, such as Peter Kember, Aphex Twin, The Chemical Brothers and Orbital. She has blue plaques on buildings dedicated to her, roads named after her and films made about her. She has been portrayed by many an actor in various programmes celebrating the theme tune, and finally received her first credit for the Doctor Who theme at the end of the 50th Anniversary episode broadcast on Saturday 23rd November 2013.
A Posthumous Realisation
It’s a pity that the greater majority of these plaudits and attention to her work have been posthumous. It probably wouldn’t have made any difference if she’d have been aware of the love that there is now for her and her work, but it is a good thing that the world has eventually realised Delia’s brilliance and genius. And it’s even better that the love continues for her and her amazing work.
Of course celebrations around Doctor Who are always a lovely reminder of both Delia and the work of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Regardless of who is the current composer of choice for the latest series of Doctor Who, that theme tune has remained basically (almost) the same.
60 years after Delia and Dick spent an awful lot of time bent over esoteric (and mostly outdated) equipment, recording bits of sounds, manipulating them to fit the tempo and the tone, sticking them all together into to produce that unique ground breaking piece of music; we are still listening to basically the same tune.
A Posthumous Thankyou
So thank you Delia, for inspiring me to pursue a genre of music that turned out to be my very, very favourite. Thank you for being so brilliant, so eccentric, so wonderfully talented.
And of course, thank you for realising that theme tune 60 years ago.
Happy 60th Anniversary, the Doctor Who theme.