Danny Pink

Danny worked at the same school as Clara where he taught maths and took the Coal Hill Cadets, a project he described as ‘just a bit of fun’. His great sense of humour and easy going style meant he was well-liked by students and fellow teachers alike. In fact shortly after Danny joined Coal Hill, Mr Armitage introduced him to Clara, jokingly warning her that he was ‘a bit of a lady-killer’. But his words certainly didn’t put her off and within minutes she was asking the new teacher out to a leaving party. At this point we discovered Danny’s awkward side but Clara persisted and they were soon arranging to meet up…

But going out with a secret time traveller was never going to be easy! Several dates in, Danny knew that there was something that Clara wasn’t telling him… ‘Every time I see you… [You’re] in a rush. In a state. In a space helmet, one time… It’s like you’re trying to be mysterious.’ He soon discovered what was creating the problem: the Doctor!

The two people in Clara’s life clashed. The Doctor was baffled by Clara wanting to spend time with a former soldier, insisting she’d made a ‘boyfriend error’ when she revealed she was going out with him. He assumed Danny was a P.E. teacher and mocked him, suggesting there was little room in his head for anything but cross-country and the offside rule. But Danny gave as good as he got. ‘I’m a soldier,’ he told Clara. ‘Guilty as charged. See him? He’s an officer… I’m the one who carries you out of the fire. He’s the one who lights it.’

After he momentarily distracted the Skorovox Blitzer, or as Clara put it, ‘saved the world’, an uneasy truce seemed to exist between him and the Time Lord. And when a wild proliferation of trees and plants right across the globe brought them together, the Doctor even started calling Danny ‘Mr Pink’ as opposed to ‘PE’.

But still, Danny felt no inclination or need to travel with Clara in the TARDIS. ‘I don't want to see more things,’ he explained to her. ‘I want to see the things in front of me more clearly. There are wonders here, Clara Oswald. Bradley saying please - that’s a wonder! One person is more amazing - harder to understand - but more amazing than universes.

Tragedy struck when during a phone conversation with Clara, Danny was hit by a car. Mr Armitage confirmed the loss to Coal Hill School, ‘I have gathered you all here today to say that Mr Pink – that Danny Pink – has sadly passed away… It was no secret that he had a close relationship with Oswald…’ But Miss Oswald would see him again…

When Danny was ‘revived’ during Missy’s attempt to weaponise the dead of planet Earth, he was strong enough to resist his ‘upgrade’ into a Cyberman and was able to ignore Missy’s commands. He delivered a rousing speech to the fallen who had risen again and led them in an attack on the clouds that threatened mankind. But in doing so, he was taken away from Clara again, this time forever.

And so now Clara must cope without Danny by her side, and the gap he leaves in her life clearly still hurts. As Mr Armitage put it, ‘Mr Pink was an inspiration to all of those who knew him. A soldier, teacher…. A friend.’