18 December

18 December was a date of some importance to English writers. In 1845, Charles Dickens went to visit a toymaker named Montague in London and encountered moving dolls in and around his shop at around the same time that Montague's toy shop burned down. (PROSE: The Death of Art) In 1926, Agatha Christie was found, ten days after going missing at a hotel in Harrogate, with no memory of what had happened. (TV: The Unicorn and the Wasp)

In 1953, the Sky Gypsy, a small private plane bound from Cardiff to Dublin, disappeared with its pilot Diane Holmes and two passengers, John Ellis and Emma-Louise Cowell, on board. It travelled forward in time more than 50 years after passing through the Cardiff Space-Time Rift. (TV: Out of Time, Captain Jack Harkness)

In 1981, Sarah Jane Smith met Brendan Richards, her aunt Lavinia Smith's ward, for the first time. Shortly afterwards, she opened the crate addressed to her in Lavinia's house in Moreton Harwood and activated K9 Mark III, who had been left in her flat in Croydon by the Fourth Doctor in 1978. (TV: A Girl's Best Friend)

In 2367, Walton "Uncle Winkie" Winkle, the creator of Winkle's Wonderland, died of congenital heart disease. He had his body cryogenically frozen in the hope that he could be revived and cured in the future. (AUDIO: Zagreus)