Listening to the audio verison of "Fury from the Deep" episode 1 on my way to work, I was intrigued by the accent of one of the characters; he sounded distictly African, and I wondered if this might be the first example of a black character in a Doctor Who story set in contemporary Britain (let alone the future)?

However it turned out that the character, van Lutyens, was supposed to be Dutch; he even finishes his first scene with a Verdomme! (recorded in the script as "mutters his reply in Dutch"). The actor, John Abineri, was apparently fluent in German, but that doesn't explain the accent in this case.

I suppose it's simply that to a British audience in 1968 (and indeed to a British actor) a South African accent sounded more realistically "Dutch" than a Dutch accent would have done. This was, after all, years before the UK joined the EEC. (I never saw "Van der Valk", which started in 1972; did its Dutch characters have accents? Or was it all played as if everyone spoke perfect English? Which of course is not totally unrealistic for Amsterdam.)

Irish: €15 for a three-year passport (under threes only)
Irish: €25 for a five-year passport (ages 3 to 17)

British: child under 16 (valid for five years) £36.50 / €57.00

Well, that's an easy decision then.

(For adults it's a bit more competitive, €75 Irish to €88 British, but not a live issue for us right now.)