Daleks on Holiday
The Daleks of Ballykillduff Go on Holiday to Bognor Regis
A Six-Part Summer Serial (Novelisation)
Episode One — Departure from Ballykillduff
Councillor McGroggin discovered the exodus at precisely 07:58, when his kettle clicked and his curtain twitched. A line of Daleks in Hawaiian shirts, each towing a squeaky wheeled suitcase from Dunnes, stood at the bus stop like chrome penguins at a package holiday seminar.
“Where are ye off to, then?” McGroggin called, dressing gown inside out and slippers like sodden scones.
The lead Dalek swiveled its eyestalk. “WE. ARE. GOING. TO. BOGNOR. REGIS. FOR. RE-LAX-ATION.”
“Relaxation,” repeated McGroggin faintly, as another Dalek unfurled a beach towel printed with flamingos. “And what damage will ye be inflicting on Bognor, then?”
“NONE. WE. HAVE. A. FULL. ITIN-ER-ARY. SUN. SEA. DONKEYS.”
The 08:15 bus sighed to a halt. The driver stared, counted to five, and shrugged. “As long as you tap your Leap cards.”
Each Dalek extended a plunger with dainty precision. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. The bus sighed again, as though making its peace with fate.
At Rosslare the ferry lounge did not, strictly speaking, invite karaoke from metalloid tourists. But on holiday, rules loosen like bad shoelaces. The Daleks attempted “Sweet Caroline,” which came out as “SWEET. CA-RO-LINE. DA-DA-DA. EX-TER-MIN-ATE,” and the pensioners joined in because the beat was irresistible. A hen party from Wexford taught a Dalek to shimmy. Another Dalek learned seasickness and bent alarmingly over the rail, intoning, “RE-GUR-GI-TATE,” in a tone of theological despair.
By dusk they rumbled ashore at Bognor Regis station, where a brass band had been booked to welcome a prestigious delegation from Worthing. The bandmaster fainted. The trombonist, unwilling to waste a gig, played “Rule, Britannia!” while a Dalek bought a 99 with extra flake and declared: “EX-TER-MINT.”
They rolled to the promenade in a clatter of pebbles and optimism. Deckchairs collapsed at the word “RE-CLINE.” A Punch-and-Judy booth suffered a frank exchange of views with a curious Dalek who wanted to “IN-TER-RO-GATE. PUNCH.”
The evening light went copper. Beneath the pier, the tide chewed at barnacles and whispered under iron. A metallic hum drifted up, oddly rhythmic, like a machine turning in its sleep.
“HEAR. THAT?” asked the lead Dalek.
“YES. MAR-IT-IME. HUM.”
“SOURCE?” the lead Dalek demanded.
“BE-LOW. US.”
The hum deepened. A storm drain grille near the pier shuddered and coughed up a thread of seaweed. One Dalek rolled closer, peered down—
—and the grille snapped. The Dalek slid with a squeal of casters and vanished, its cry echoing up the drainpipe:
“UN-EX-PEC-TED. TER-ROR. A-LERT—!”
Cliffhanger.
Episode Two — The Donkey Disaster
Morning came in drizzly armfuls. A white van labelled Greg’s Deckchairs & Other Miracles juddered along the promenade. Seagulls screamed in the wind like haunted teapots. Five Daleks formed a search party.
“HE FELL. HERE.” The leader examined the storm drain. “DE-TECT. ANY-THING?”
“SEA-WATER. RUST. AND. A. TRACE. OF. TOFFEE.”
“TOFFEE?”
“YES. POSS-IB-LY. STICK. OF. ROCK.”
They fanned out. To steady their nerves, two of them hired donkeys.
“You sure, love?” asked the donkey-lady, raincoat crackling like a crisp packet. “They’re… heavy.”
“WE. ARE. LITHE,” insisted a Dalek.
Moments later, the donkey reconsidered its place in the food chain, shrieked, and galloped. A Dalek in a Hawaiian shirt careered after it, scattering pensioners, buckets, and a churro stand.
“RE-COIL! RE-COIL!” the Dalek cried, which did nothing to slow the donkey, who was now attempting to join the Bognor Parkrun.
On the shingle, the other Daleks noticed a man in a dripping trench coat dropping a familiar paper sun-hat into the tide. He looked over his shoulder, and his face appeared to be… not a face at all but a corroded grill, streaked with verdigris.
“HALT,” commanded the lead Dalek. “STATE. YOUR. BUSI-NESS.”
The trench-coated figure tilted, as though listening to waves that only he could hear, then sank straight down into the wet sand and was gone, leaving a neat rust-coloured outline and a fizzing smell like a dying battery.
“LOG. ANOMALY,” said the lead Dalek.
The donkey, meanwhile, performed a right-angle turn and thundered up the pier. The Dalek clung on, beach towel streaming like a banner of war.
“RE-VERSE! RE-VERSE!” it pleaded.
The donkey refused to acknowledge mechanical authority, bucked at the far end, and unseated the Dalek. For a fraction of a second, time hung like a raindrop.
Then the Dalek sailed through a second-storey window of the Pier Ballroom and vanished into the hush within.
From inside came a voice, like the scrape of a nail across a biscuit tin:
“IN-TRU-SION. SYS-TEM. COR-ROD-ED.”
Cliffhanger.
Episode Three — The Rust Men of Bognor
The Pier Ballroom remembered things. The wallpaper remembered waltzes. The floorboards remembered sequins. The water stains in the ceiling remembered storms so old they’d become gossip.
The Dalek lay amid splinters and a toppled “STRICTLY FOXTROT WED 7PM” sign. Salt damp breathed from the walls. A machine clicked behind the stage curtain.
“HEL-LO?” the Dalek tried.
Something stepped out.
It had once been a seaside automaton — the sort that waved from a fortune-teller cabinet and swallowed pennies. Now it was taller, barnacled, its glass belly full of greenish water. Seaweed hair trailed over a smiling yet corroded faceplate. On its chest, a faded label still read: MISTER GOODTIME.
“We were left,” said Mister Goodtime, voice like a spoon rattling in brine. “Cut loose for new amusements, and now we dwell below, where the tide keeps time and the coins still roll.”
More shapes emerged from the wings: the Rust Men, patchwork beings built from penny-pusher guts, claw machines, and the ghosted frames of wooden horses. Their eyes were fogged bulbs. Their arms ended in hooks meant to win teddies and now eager for other prizes.
“WE. SEEK. A. MIS-SING. COM-RAD,” said the Dalek, rising to its casters, dignity wobbling slightly.
“Comrad?” repeated Mister Goodtime, thinking. “Ah. The round one with the hat. He sang of Ex-ter-mint and fell through our mouth.” He patted his green glass belly with a hollow bonk. “He is below, where things rust to prayer.”
The other Daleks crashed through the ballroom doors, lining up like a chrome choir. “RE-LEASE. HIM.”
Mister Goodtime cocked his head. “In the arcade days, you inserted coins to continue. Do you have coins?”
A Dalek extended its plunger. “WE. HAVE. SMALL. CHANGE.”
“Then let us play,” said Mister Goodtime, stepping aside as the floor creaked. A hatch gaped, and the ballroom sighed in relief. Below, water glowed with the dream-light of one-armed bandits feeding seawater into their hearts. Somewhere, a voice bubbled:
“HELLO? I. AM. IN. A. PIPE.”
The Rust Men moved in a wet metallic ring. “Down,” they chorused. “Down to the tidal hall, where souvenirs are made of you.”
The lead Dalek rolled to the floor’s edge — and the boards groaned like a dying accordion. A crack leapt across the room.
“STAND. BACK,” the leader ordered.
The ballroom refused to stand anything at all. The floor collapsed. Daleks and Rust Men plunged into the flooded cellar as a rain of glitter, signage, and resentful chandeliers followed.
“WELCOME,” Mister Goodtime called pleasantly, falling after them. “Mind the rust.”
Cliffhanger.
Episode Four — The Ballroom Blitz
The tide-room hummed like a throat clearing. Awash between concrete pillars clustered with barnacles, rows of one-armed bandits stood lit from within, their fruit symbols scrolling languidly in underwater neon. Coins drifted in the green gloom like golden fish.
A Dalek bobbed to the surface coughing salt and outrage. “MY. CAS-TERS. ARE. SULK-ING.”
“Wade carefully,” Mister Goodtime advised, striding across the water with magnetic shoes. “This is where we wait for tourists who’ve lost more than change.”
“RE-LEASE. OUR. COMRADE,” said the lead Dalek, forming a conga line to stabilise itself in the current.
“Con-ga!” squealed a minor Rust Man, delighted. “We used to do this every Friday!”
They conga’d for seven feet and fell over as one, which greatly reassured nobody.
Mister Goodtime tapped the glass belly of a particularly venerable bandit labeled QUEEN OF PEERS. “He sank into the sluice that gums these lovelies. He is in the catch.”
“THE. WHAT?”
A grate yawned in the floor like a metal smile. From it burbled, faint but indignant, “I. DIS-AP-PROVE. OF. THIS. PLUMB-ING.”
“Bring him up,” said the lead Dalek.
“Of course,” said Mister Goodtime, with a gentleness that proved worrying. “But there is a price. We intend to reclaim the pier. The sun-hats. The sweets. The dreams. We will turn you into souvenirs and sell you for £2.99 at the gift shop. Everyone loves a Dalek keyring.”
“YOU. WILL. NOT. RED-UCE. US. TO. KEY-RINGS.”
“Every empire becomes a trinket,” murmured Mister Goodtime. He raised his arms. Rust Men closed in, suction pumps whining. The tide surged and kissed the Daleks’ lower plates with cold iron lips.
A Dalek screamed. Orange bloom blossomed along its casing, fizzing where salt licked metal. “MY. SHELL. IS. FLAK-ING. NOOO—!”
The Rust Men chanted softly, “Rust, rust, rust,” as if it were a tender lullaby.
Cliffhanger.
Episode Five — Fish, Chips, and Extermination
Retreat is dishonourable. It is also occasionally wise. The Daleks surged back up the emergency stairs like a mechanised shoal, burst into daylight, and crashed through the doors of Alfie’s Proper Fish & Chips.
“Out!” cried Alfie. “Salt! You’ll bring the whole canal with you. Mind the fryer!”
“WE. REQUIRE. ACID-NEU-TRAL-IS-ERS,” the lead Dalek announced. “ALSO. CHIPS.”
Alfie blinked. “Salt and vinegar?”
The Dalek froze. “SAY. THAT. AGAIN.”
“Salt. And. Vinegar.”
“VIN-E-GAR,” breathed the Dalek, awed. “WEAPON. GRADE.”
What followed would later be known as the Bognor Batter Offensive. Alfie donated three big bottles of non-brewed condiment, several mops, and a tone of encouragement previously reserved for under-21 football finals. The Daleks created anti-rust cannons from squeezy bottles, a chip warmer, and two abandoned selfie sticks.
They advanced down the pier in a literal vinegar mist. The Rust Men came to meet them, seaweed pennants fluttering. Mister Goodtime lifted his hands. “We were once wanted,” he said softly, “and then the world forgot to bring small change.”
“THE. WORLD. CHANGES,” replied the lead Dalek. “WE. CHANGE. IT. BACK.”
“Spray!” the leader cried.
A white storm of vinegar swept forward. It struck the Rust Men and sizzled. Barnacles popped like bubble wrap. Mister Goodtime staggered, glass belly fogging.
“Countermeasure,” he crooned, and somewhere under the pier a great engine coughed awake. The boards hummed with a bass so deep it rearranged regrets. Bolts tingled, iron sighed, deckchairs aligned.
A black shape rolled from beneath the pier: a hulking drum bristling with anchors and chains, humming with patient hunger. The Rust Men bowed to it with devotional dread.
“The Great Seaside Magnet,” whispered Mister Goodtime, reverent. “Collector of spoons, keeper of keys, eater of holiday watches. It pulls what’s metal and keeps it. Including you.”
It bellowed — a long, low mmmmmmmm — and every Dalek shuddered. One skidded toward the edge, casters whirring hopelessly.
“AN-CHOR! AN-CHOR!” cried the leader, jamming its plunger into a deck post.
The Magnet sang louder. Buckets rattled. Railings leaned. The Daleks’ holiday hats snapped off and flew into the surf like startled gulls.
The leader, still anchoring the line, felt its plunger sliding on soaked wood. “WE. ARE. DOOMED. TO. PAD-DLE!” it shrieked as the Magnet’s song rose and the sea’s cold mouth opened.
Cliffhanger.
Episode Six — Return to Ballykillduff
There was, as it happened, one substance the Great Seaside Magnet loathed: old-fashioned, artificially coloured peppermint rock. Something about the sugar, the stickiness, the polarities of childhood.
As the Daleks skidded toward the drink, one flailing unit whacked the Magnet’s exposed gear slot with a souvenir labelled BOGNOR REGIS in cheerful pink capitals. The rock wedged. The drum groaned. The peppermint letters blurred with heat and protests.
The Magnet seized, juddered, and fell out of love with physics. Chains drooped. Anchors sighed. The spell snapped. The Daleks tumbled backward across the boards like upended barstools.
Below, the sea burped up a sun-hat, a commemorative teaspoon, and, after an indignant gurgle, the missing Dalek.
“I. DIS-LIKE. PLUMB-ING,” it announced, rolling onto the pier, wet as a haddock but alive.
The Rust Men froze, their lights fluttering to embarrassed candlepower. Mister Goodtime clutched his glass stomach, within which the trapped tide sloshed, full of coins that looked suspiciously like wishes.
“Go home,” he said, voice suddenly small. “We will rust in our own time.”
The lead Dalek paused. Salt streaks marbled its casing. The Hawaiian shirt clung like a limp flag. “YOU. ARE. FOR-GOT-TEN,” it said, and for a breath the words were not a threat but an acknowledgement.
Mister Goodtime nodded once, his smile painted and sincere. “Bring small change if you ever return.”
Back on the ferry, the Daleks sat in dignified silence. A child asked for a photo. They obliged, arranging themselves to show their least-corroded sides. The karaoke machine offered “Mamma Mia.” They declined. Even conquerors need a quiet crossing.
Ballykillduff received them with the slightly appalled warmth one reserves for relatives who’ve lived. Councillor McGroggin stood by the noticeboard, arms folded, while six Daleks clanked ashore trailing seagulls, damp sun-hats, and a dignified quantity of sand.
“Well?” McGroggin said at last.
“WE. EN-JOYED. OUR-SELVES. IM-MENSE-LY,” said the lead Dalek. “ALSO. ACQUIRED. EMPATHY. FOR. OBSO-LESC-ENCE.”
“Grand,” McGroggin replied, because what else do you say to that?
A breeze flipped a poster on the board: PACKAGE HOLIDAYS — IBIZA HALF PRICE — FOAM PARTY GUARANTEED. Six eyestalks rose in perfect unison.
“WE. MUST. PRE-PARE,” they chorused, with the solemnity of monks vowing a pilgrimage.
McGroggin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Saints preserve us.”
In the hush that followed, a single peppermint-scented stick of rock fell out of a suitcase and rolled into the gutter, where it lodged like a tiny, stubborn obelisk. The Daleks watched it. So did the village.
Somewhere very far away, under a pier that remembered music, Mister Goodtime listened to the coins in his belly whisper like rain. He tilted his rusted head, almost a bow, toward a horizon he could not see.
And in Ballykillduff, six sunburnt, sand-clogged, Hawaiian-shirted Daleks — inexplicably happier, faintly wiser, and very much themselves — clicked their casters, set their alarms, and began to practise saying:
“BI-EN-VENI-DA, I-BI-ZA,”
just to get the vowels right.
The Crazymad Writer Writes Again 