Of
the two teachers originally kidnapped and whisked away into time and space by
the First Doctor in 1963, it seems strange that it’s Ian Chesterton –
chuckling, wide-eyed Ian Chesterton – who’s the scientist, and Barbara Wright –
the more decisive, the straighter-faced of the two – whose discipline is
history. She seems by far the more naturally inclined to be interested in the
black-and-white world of scientific endeavor, and the world of multiple
perspectives does not seem in any real way to suit Barbara’s personality.
It’s
important to realise of course that the Barbara we see on screen is for the
most part, Barbara in a very bizarre set of circumstances. Take Barbara right
back to the beginning though, and you begin to understand some of her real core
characteristics.
When
faced with the mystery that is Susan Foreman and her odd, contradictory
knowledge and behavior, Barbara decides to investigate, and when Ian suggests
that really, they’re just curious about the mystery of the girl, Barbara reacts
almost angrily, certainly furious with any suggestion in her own nature that he
might have a point – ‘If I thought that was all this was, I’d go straight
home!’ Barbara’s not motivated by a morbid or a prurient curiosity about the
girl – as she says, if Susan turned out to be just ‘meeting a boy’ it would be
so reassuringly normal. Rather, it’s concern that makes Barbara take the
unusual step of following her home and demanding to speak to her parent or
guardian. Concern at the gaps in her knowledge, at the bizarre specialization
of her understanding of some other fields, concern for the future prospects of
what Barbara instinctively understands is a bright young woman. For all the
future impact of the Doctor’s companions, our relationship with him ultimately
owes everything to the concern of a good teacher for her pupil.
That’s
Barbara’s keynote – concern for people. And it’s when you understand that that
her interest in history begins to make sense, because of course history is
nothing but the study of people,
their motivations, their actions and how they relate together.
While
never actively seeking to attract people to her, it’s a quality that makes
Barbara – who frequently seems a little unintentionally aristocratic –
nevertheless someone to whom the people she meets on her travels instinctively
warm. On their first trip to an alien planet, they discover a peace-loving race
and a bunch of metallic oppressors (Barbara becoming the first person ever to
be menaced on screen by a Dalek), and while she joins in the fight through a
kind of fierce devotion to the idea that good people should not be bullied (her
teaching instincts applied to the whole of the universe), she also inspires
tender feelings in Ganatus the Thal, which she seems to return. But so soon
after having lost everything she knows, Barbara is unwilling to leave that
familiar life behind forever, and travels on with Ian, the Doctor and Susan.
This
innate ability to inspire affection through her own compassion and concern
follows Barbara throughout her travels – Susan herself comes to regard her much
more as a friend and mother-substitute than a teacher, and it’s a role into
which she more easily and comfortably fits when the Tardis crew pick up Vicki,
having had by then some practice at allowing her natural compassion to flower
in a maternal role.
But
there’s more to Barbara’s compassion than romance and playing a parental role.
Whenever people talk about Barbara, they inevitably bring The Aztecs screaming
to the fore. It’s inevitable for a very good reason – it’s a tour de force for Barbara’s
character, her determination that goodness is more important than the history
she thinks she knows almost landing them in terrible trouble in The Aztecs. Barbara
is the more inherently challenging of the two teachers on board the ship –
frequently demanding how or why when the Doctor insisted a thing was so, where
Ian, for the sake of a more direct route to the end of arguments, adventures
and ultimately their originally enforced journey, would often simply accept the
will of the pilot of their ship and do whatever was deemed necessary. You can
over-analyse this and reach a deeper conclusion than was ever intended,
assuming that whereas science teacher Ian saw things in that black-and-white way
of the discipline – this is the world with which we’re faced, let’s get on with
it – Barbara, with her historical understanding of perspectives and people,
wanted to know why she should or
shouldn’t do a thing. She was never obstreperous for the sake of it, never
needlessly difficult, but Barbara, more than Ian, took her teaching instinct,
her fierce determination to do the best thing she could, into time and space
with her and applied it to the universe she found.
That’s
never more strongly shown though than in The Aztecs, where, confronted with the
Doctor’s determination to let people be sacrificed – both individually on
altars and as an entire culture when the European invaders arrive – Barbara’s
concern both for people and historic cultures burns through, and as the goddess
Yetaxa she sets herself up in frank opposition to the wisdom of the time
travelling old man. While as events unfold, history as the Doctor knows it
proves unbeatable, it was the first time a companion had confronted the
Doctor’s assessment of the universe in so blatant a fashion, and it would stand
as one of the only times such a thing was done in Classic Who, though it was a
question to be bitterly raised in New Who through the pleading voice of Donna
Noble – ‘Save someone. Not everyone. Just someone!’ and the furious voice of
Amy Pond – ‘If you don’t save everyone, then what is the point of you?’
That
question, decades before, was essentially Barbara’s mantra in The Aztecs –
changing history ‘for the better,’ and assuming she knew what ‘better’ meant because
she had the foreknowledge of what was coming. In an age before the novel idea
of ‘fixed points and flexible points in time’ had been developed, it was
Barbara Wright, schoolteacher, who stood up to the Doctor’s long view of
history and helped to change the old man for the better. He might be proved
right in The Aztecs, but just as Ian had shown him a different way, stopping
him from killing a caveman early in their travels, Barbara in The Aztecs shows
him the power of compassion.
After
the Doctor leaves Susan behind on Earth, it’s Barbara who instinctively steps
in to take some degree of care of him, distract him from his wandering
thoughts, knowing what he needs, and she’s also instrumental in helping him to
accept Vicki on board. Ultimately though, when the opportunity arises in The
Chase to leave the Doctor and her new vagabond lifestyle behind, it’s Barbara
who weighs up the lives that she could lead and finds a universe of wonders can
be forsaken for the simple joys of life on Earth. Ian, as was never really in
doubt, follows her.
Sadly
of course, Jacqueline Hill passed away before Big Finish was around to offer
her the chance to broaden and deepen the character of Barbara in person, as it
has done for William Russell’s Ian. She’s been well represented though, in
stories like The Revenants, The Flames of Cadiz, The Dark Planet and, if you
can get hold of it, The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance. Perhaps the last word
on Barbara though belongs to Russell T Davies, who in The Sarah-Jane Adventures
mentioned ‘Ian and Barbara Chesterton, professors at Cambridge,’ who it was
rumoured hadn’t aged since the 60s. Barbara was a teacher first, foremost and
always, and she found a way to use her compassion for young students and her
enthusiasm for her subject, on a broader canvas. And there, in Cambridge, we
can picture Barbara Chesterton, nee Wright, smiling at her class and at us,
having acknowledged the love and care of Ian - her friend, her partner in
adventures and eventually, her partner in life.
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