Russell T Davies: If I had Tardis I would travel to first meeting with husband
The writer lost his partner in 2018.
Russell T Davies has said if he had a Tardis he would travel back to the moment he first met his late partner.
The Doctor Who writer cared for his husband Andrew Smith in the final years before his death.
Davies said those eight years of care were the best of their relationship, and treasures the kindness of his late love.
The writer said that if he had the power to time travel he would journey back to the moment in a Manchester club when they first met.
He spoke on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs about his time with Smith, who was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2011.
Davies said: “People always say ‘where would you go if you had Tardis?’ I would go back to that club and be a bystander. We caught eyes. What a magic moment.”
He added: “I became his carer. I was lucky enough to be able to do that.
“Those eight years that I cared for him are our happiest years.
“They were so intimate and so honest. Everything else just falls away. There’s no nonsense. He was properly cherished.
“He will be in every good man I ever write now.”
Smith died at home by the side of Davies, who praised the kindness of his long-term partner.
The writer said there are many stories of love and emotion from the LGBT community still to tell, as that section of society has been silenced for so long.
Davies says he has no issue in being called a “gay writer”, because there is such rich material to use from the community.
He said: “Any sense of queernesss, any sense of otherness, is still very, very new.
“We’ve always been there, behind the scenes, making the sensible decisions, for thousands of years.
“As an ‘out’ society, we’re less than 50 years old really, and that’s nothing.
“There are things that we said, things that we felt, emotions in our hearts that have not been put on screen yet, or on the page, or into fiction.
“It’s all there to be celebrated, it’s wonderful, it’s rich, open territory.”
The full interview with Davies can be heard on BBC Radio 4 at 11.15am.
