GANG-a-lang, gang-a-lang, gang-a-lang, gang-a-lang... the sound that once had scaredy-cats such as me running for cover the length and breadth of the nation.

Can it really be 16 years since the last time that spine-chilling theme tune spread terror through a million living rooms as it heralded a new series of Doctor Who? It's a lot less since my recurring nightmares stopped.

The intensive counselling was just starting to reduce my need for self-medication, and my jangling nerves had calmed down thanks to remedial doses of Last Of The Summer Wine, Heartbeat and The Antiques Roadshow.

But, horrors! The Doctor will be back by the end of the month, with Christopher Eccleston as his latest incarnation, and singer/actress Billie Piper as his predictably doe-eyed young assistant.

Now, there have been suggestions within the Evening Press newsroom that Billie's ex, Chris Evans, should get a cameo role as cannon fodder for extermination by whatever villains are in store this series.

Sadly, I think the idea has come too late for the programme-makers to take on board.

Even if they had, the gesture would not be enough to win me over to a programme that has left me psychologically scarred. I really was one of the huddled masses crouching behind the sofa waiting for the closing credits to roll.

The Daemons, the Cybermen and the Yetis could all strike panic into my heart, but as for so many of us wimps, my special terror was always of that classic arch-villain, the Dalek.

Apparently, our fear may be based in 20th century folk memory, because consciously or sub-consciously, the programme-makers are believed to have based the Daleks on the Nazis.

That makes sense when you consider the SS-uniform-style black paint jobs on the senior Daleks, and the Sieg-Heil-style gestures they made with those sink plunger attachments they had.

Still, I'm not so sure.

As far as I was concerned, Doctor Who definitely carried a noise-based terror; even the oil-starved squeaking noise that came from K9 every time he moved used to get to me.

And along with that signature tune, the Daleks only had to squawk"annihilate!" and my hands were involuntarily clutching my ears.

Just to make me feel worse, it now emerges the new Daleks will be able to get upstairs, the only place my childhood self felt really safe from their aggression.

Evolution, or whatever passes for it in Dalekland, means they now have a form of jet propulsion that enables them to fly. My anguish knows no bounds.

Surely the BBC should intervene to stop this horror?

After all, it wouldn't be the first time it has put its foot down on one of the shows I used to watch as a youngster.

Take Sooty, for example. I have recently learned that for years the Beeb stopped him from working with his girlfriend, Soo, because they were worried about sex rearing its ugly head on a family show.

I've been told it was only when the tabloids got hold of the story that Auntie was eventually forced to back down and give Soo her break into stardom; but even then, the network slapped a 'no touching' rule between bear and panda on the Sooty Show.

Such prudishness does not surprise me. In my view, telly bosses have always been more sensitive to pre-watershed sex than to violence before 9pm.

But I don't think, even at a tender age, that I would have been as traumatised by Sooty and Soo snogging as I was by Doctor Who.

Izzy-wizzy, let's get busy, that is what I say, Doctor..

Updated: 09:08 Wednesday, March 09, 2005