Polly (Anneke Wills) taken during The War Machines.

Anneke Wills, taken in 1966.

Polly was a secretary to Professor Brett in the Post Office Tower in 1965, when WOTAN was first created. After the defeat of WOTAN, she and a sailor, Ben, were accidently trapped inside the TARDIS, and became the Doctor's companions until he finally managed to return them to their correct time period. Polly was a somewhat fiesty lady, as she showed when comforting the Cybermen, and she also made a lot of coffee! She was also the first "glamour girl" of Dr Who.

I haven't seen much of Polly, but she seems alright. Fiesty and fairly attractive. Shame so few of her adventures remain intact. Anneke Wills is well good though!

Polly appeared in: The War Machines, The Smugglers, The Tenth Planet, The Power of the Daleks, The Highlanders, The Underwater Menace, The Moonbase, The Macra Terror, The Faceless Ones.

Anneke Wills has also starred in several others TV programmes: Strange Report, The Saint and The Avengers, before she retired from acting to direct plays and grow vegetables. Anneke herself is a lovely person, extremely chatty and slightly eccentric! She recently appeared at Kulture Shock in Norwich where I met her. She is currently writing an autobiography, which is due out in October 2000. In it will be loads of scandel because "I don't give a b***er anymore" (Anneke). Anneke has also revealed that William Hartnel was extremely difficult to work with, and the reason she left Dr Who was that she didn't want to end up there all her life. "When I am in a good thing, I often quit it!" (Anneke). The same is true of Strange Report. Anneke is currently an artist, and is well worth talking to at the conventions as she is very interesting to listen to, and a very nice person. A shame that so few of her adventures remain really. She was also at the Bluebox 4 convention in Bristol 2001, and told her about her spirituality - one that has given her inner peace. It's hard to explain, so you'd better ask her about it.

Information on Polly and Anneke Wills are based entirely on my own knowledge.

Back to the index to the companions