It may come as a surprise to readers of There’s No Time Like The Present that the character of Clifford A Heathfield is inspired by a real life Cliff. Unlike all the other characters that appear in the comic strip (all of  which are almost total fictions),  Cliff is based upon a real person... an old customer of mine... the real Cliff.

Real Cliff, Ford, with his Tom Baker Dr Who styled scarf.

I first met the real Cliff, or Ford as he is now known to his friends, fifteen years ago when I managed a Sci-Fi shop in Central Milton Keynes. He would have been in his mid teens then.

 
Ford's very authentic impersonation of Colin Baker's Dr Who, complete with coat.

Ford has always been a slavish fan of Dr Who. I, on the other hand, being a comic enthusiast and a one of those snooty comic enthusiasts at that, was bewildered by how anyone could possibly like something which, to me, seemed stupid.

 
Check out that coat; it looks like the real thing!

Cliff, however, wore his love of Dr Who, recently cancelled by the evil Michael Grade, on his sleeve, almost literally. The question-mark-design-jumper often worn by fictional Cliff in the comic strip is based upon a real tank top worn by Ford at the time. Being a tank top, Ford’s jumper was more closely accurate in design to the one worn by Sylvester McCoy when he played Dr Who.

 
I was delighted to learn during the photo shoot that, after all this time, Ford still has the original tank top!

On another occasion, I learned that Ford’s father had built him a replica Dalek although, unlike Derek in the comic strip, this Dalek isn’t quite life size. (There is more to this incident which I will tell you about another time as I don’t want to compromise future events in the comic strip story).

 
Originally named Kal, short for Kaled - the race which mutated into the Daleks - but recently renamed Derek.

After leaving the shop in 1992, I probably only bumped into Ford no more than once a year. During the nineties, I had the idea for a story called Geekwa, about a group of friends displaying differing degrees of geekiness. I had created several characters to populate Geekwa including an early version of dairy product loving Kelly. Another was fictional Cliff, inspired by the question-mark-tank-top wearing real deal from my days working in the shop.

In its rawest form, Geekwa could have been a comic strip, a self contained graphic novel, a sit-com and even a chat show. Whatever format it took in my mind, the characters I had created drifted in and out, but Cliff always remained in the foreground. It’s a shame that, although on my mind a lot, Geekwa never made it passed the imagined stage.

 
Obligingly, Ford recreates a missing panel from the opening scene of There's No Time Like The Present.

When it came to creating There’s No Time Like The Present, I realised that this would be the ideal vehicle for both Cliff and Kelly. Cliff had evolved a lot in the ten years since I first thought up Geekwa.  Although now far removed from the real Cliff that inspired him, the visual motifs remain.

 
A rare appearance by fictional Cliff before TNTLTP from Swill the Alien in the transition period between Geekwa and his current incarnation.

During those years, Ford was keeping abreast of my comic work, such as Memory Man and Love Bomb. He regularly visited my Book of Lists website. So, it’s no surprise that he had got hold of a copy of TNTLTP part 1 and noticed the physical similarities between himself and fictional Cliff.

 
Derek says something bitchy about me to Ford.

Ford got in touch and, fortunately, seemed pleased that he had inspired a comic character. So pleased in fact that, so far, he has asked for his fictional self to get off with Gillian Anderson in a future part of TNTLTP and a Cliff Vs Memory Man limited series.

 
We both agreed, the coat looks better from the other side.

Ford and I are trying to think of ways that he can contribute to the real Cliff section of this site - in the past he wrote a column for this site -  but in the meantime, he agreed to this photo shoot.

 
With no real life Kelly to pose with, real Cliff waits for the bus alone reading a copy of Previews from 1993.

My attitude to the Dr Who TV series has gradually changed over the years, enough for me to be able to enjoy its 2005 re-launch. This is thanks partly to the quality of the new programme, but is mainly down to the unshakable loyalty that both fictional and real Cliff have always had to the BBC show.

Ford poses with Derek.