Steven Moffat on his inspiration for the Weeping Angels (Doctor Who Magazine February 2013)

�There was an abandoned church with a dangerous graveyard. Yes, dangerous. Officially dangerous. The gates were chained up and there was a big sign saying KEEP OUT DANGEROUS STRUCTURE. Well, could you have resisted? I went and peered through the bars. And there, among all the ancient leaning gravestones was the statue of lamenting angel. The way it looked at me, I felt sure this was the dangerous structure in question. A dangerous statue hidden in a graveyard! �

A few Christmases later, long after Blink, we were back at the hotel. My son Joshua and I went for a walk past the church and it all came flooding back.

�Hey,� I said. �Want to see the original Weeping Angel? I took him to peer through the bars of the damaged graveyard. �Dad�..there�s no angel there.” There wasn�t. There really wasn�t.

We left, fairly quickly�

(all right, i’m right properly scared…)