DFA Staff Pick: The Daleks Invade Christmas!

This is Christmas - 1960s style! There are few more iconic designs of the 60s than that of the Daleks from Doctor Who. The press at the time loved to add the word "mania" to something to fill their column inches and 1963/64 had seen them write endlessly of Beatlemania. Now, in 1965, it was the turn of the time travelling Doctor's deadly pepperpot enemies as Dalekmania swept the nation's toyshops.

The joy of the Dalek design was that it was imitable without the need for accuracy. The cone shape, the hemispheres around the skirt, the sink plunger and egg whisk style arms and an eye stalk. They were a gift to cartoonists and comedy sketch shows, where an approximation of a Dalek could be thrown together and everyone would know what it was.

In this footage, the ICT computer factory in Castlereagh in east Belfast made their own version, and it's actually not too shabby. Flanked by some "space girls" and trundled out before a roomful of kids at the firm's Christmas party, the Dalek was the star attraction alongside Santa himself and is a fantastic snapshot of peak 60s pop culture.