Watch more of our videos on Shots!
and live on Freeview channel 276

The cult BBC drama series was first broadcast on November 23, 1963, although the opening episode was disrupted by extended news coverage of President John F Kennedy’s assassination in America the previous day.

Paul Bianco, from Hartlepool, remembers watching the first two installments back to back the following week as a 10-year-old schoolboy and was hooked soon after.

He later used his skills as a joiner to make a host of model gadgets, robots and monsters from the series.

Doctor Who enthusiast Paul Bianco outside the Town Hall Theatre, in Raby Road, Hartlepool, ahead of the BBC drama's 60th birthday.

Paul even recreated a door to the Tardis, the good Doctor’s not-so-reliable time machine, in his kitchen.

Now 70, he is hoping to resume his model making next year as he continues to recover from a series of strokes.

In the meantime, he is looking forward to watching a inter-galactic feast of new shows, classic repeats and documentaries over the coming weeks.

They include the surprise return of David Tennant – who was previously the 10th Doctor – in three episodes ahead of Ncuti Gatwa’s arrival as the 15th Doctor.

Paul Bianco previously created a door to Doctor Who's Tardis in his own home.

Paul said: “I see no reason why Doctor Who cannot last another 60 years as long as the scripts are good.

15 TV shows and movies filmed in the Hartlepool area - plus other local screen m...

"I think that is the reason why they have brought David Tennant back because in my view he was great and some of the scripts for the two recent doctors, Peter Capaldi and Jodie Whittaker, were rubbish.”

The show, in which the Doctor has the power to repeatedly regenerate into a new body, has already survived two lengthy breaks before returning to our screens in 2005.

A younger Paul Bianco with one of his own model Daleks.

While he admires Tennant and his successor, Matt Smith, Paul confesses that he prefers many of the “old” Doctors to those who have accompanied the reboot.

He said: “William Hartnell, who was the first Doctor, was great although the fourth, Tom Baker, was the best.

"I met him a couple of times at Doctor Who conventions and he came across as a nice man.

"I was dressed up as him and he just looked up at me and said ‘I used to look like you when I was younger’.”

Hartlepool's top Doctor Who fan prepares to celebrate the BBC show's 60th birthday

Got a story for the Mail? Submit your words, pictures and videos here