There’s a proud tradition among Doctor Who fans of building models to recreate props seen in the series, and Mark Casto of Norfolk has gone further than most by creating a mini army of life-size Daleks.
Known locally in Ditchingham as, inevitably, Dalek Man, Mark has been building Daleks for some five years, making use of all manner of recycled materials such as wood, fibreglass, and knitting needles.
Mark said:
“They’ve changed a lot during the years and they’re still so popular – it just goes to show that, like Spider-Man and Batman, they’ve just got something special about them. I was obsessed with them and when I got older, I wanted to build them and eventually had the skills and time to do it.”
His first Dalek, christened Dalek DL after its dustbin lid head, was built five years ago and since then another five have rolled off his personal Power of the Daleks-style assembly line, with names including Dalek Rad, Dalek Bert and Dalek Blisteron.
Each Dalek takes six to seven months to build, and comes in at a sturdy 6ft tall and 4ft wide. Two have mobility scooters inside, allowing an operator to manoeuvre them around the streets, instilling terror into any humans they should come across. Mark goes on:
“I often get people walking their dogs past me and stay still like I’m a prop, and I wait until they come a bit closer and if the dog seems okay, one of my favourite lines to say in the Dalek voice is ‘what is this creature on the lead?’.
“If they say that’s their dog, I then say: ‘I was not talking to you’.”
Rather than engage in galactic conquest and destruction, Mark has put his Daleks to good use in the community, supporting homelessness and disability charities. It seems Mark’s Dalek building days are over for the time being, as he now plans to focus on taking them out and about to events around the universe.
