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Do you still encounter dumbstruck reactions when you meet fans?

Anyone who is on television gets that reaction when they are playing an heroic part like the Doctor. It still happens now with much older people; some of them are telling me lies; I met an old lady the other day who was about 85, who told me they used to hide behind the sofa when they were little, so time was slipping a bit there! People now introduce me to their grandchildren which is lovely, and small children in Waitrose say to me, "Is it true you used to be Doctor Who?" See below for some rare Seventies footage of Baker visiting some young fans in Belfast.

Do you ever think what would have happened if you had turned down part?

That is inconceivable, because at the time I wasn't at all happy. I was going through a bad time of feeling rejected, even though I'd had a flirtation with movies and worked with Pier Paolo Pasolini and people like that. But now I was working on a building site, having no skill there apart from making the tea, so this opportunity was a jackpot – not that I had watched Doctor Who before, as it was usually football time, or I was in the pub.

How did you win the role?

The man who set me up for it was Bill Slater [BBC Head of Serials], who knew me. The producers of Doctor Who said they had never heard of me, but Bill knew that it just so happened that in the cinema next door The Golden Voyage of Sinbad [in which Baker starred as the villain, Koura] was playing. So Bill said, "Let's go to the picture". The next thing I was the new Doctor Who! I went to work the next day on the building site, and I didn't tell the guys, and it was only when my colleagues bought the first edition of the Evening Standard to place their bets that they heard the news. They didn't expect to see me again but I went to work the next day famous! They were so thrilled for me, so I legged it down to Barclays and got an advance, and gave them a little party. It was like being reborn. See below for the regeneration scene from 1974 in which Jon Pertwee turns into Baker.

Did you know what you wanted to bring to the role?

How could I? I hadn't watched it before – and haven't since! One of the problems was that the scripts were being written for Jon Pertwee, who had been in it for five years, so I had to wrench it my way. But being raised with an intense Roman Catholic background, I was used to miracles, and angels on shoulders, and people being brought back from the dead, so it was no effort.

And did it effect what you did after leaving the show?

When I did theatre things, for the Royal Shakespeare Company and so on, the theatres were packed with Doctor Who fans, so I had to do it like the Doctor as there was no point upsetting the fans. I did An Inspector Calls which was marvellously pompous, but every now and again I'd have to do a Doctor Who routine which would get gales of laughter from the audience, but other actors' fans hated me.

Did you keep souvenirs from your time on the show?

I had lots of bits and pieces but they have all been begged off me by charities! I have some interesting letters from fans who saw me as some kind of Messianic figure, I didn't disabuse them of that! It was a great experience playing the part – actors want to get to a big audience as journalists do, and be admired, and to get applause, but to be adored is really something I'd recommend. To visit hospitals and schools, to help out charities, or simply to bask in the adulation and applause, or fly round in helicopters and be protected by the SAS in Northern Ireland. It was just so much better than real life and that was why I stayed so long. At half-past-four when we stopped rehearsing every day, that was a sad moment, because I wanted to stay in this beautiful, unreal world.

Everywhere out in the streets I was waving like royalty, dishing out 50 pence pieces. I used to take pocketfuls of money out. I'd say to a kid, "Do you want a pound?" and he would thank me, and then he would say confidentially, "Could you make it two?" When I left the programme, all that silliness was gone.

Who would you have cast as the Doctor?

One actor who I admired greatly who turned it down was Graham Crowden, who was genuinely a very, very eccentric man in a wonderful way. He would have been an amazing Doctor Who, and he was also an amazing actor. He always went too far. He played the White Devil [in John Webster's Jacobean tragedy], who was dying, and he had a marvellous line: "I have caught an ever-lasting cold". When he went to do it, he said: 'I have caught an ever-lasting cold' and he sniffed – and it was that sniff that both ruined it and made it.

Have subsequent Doctors phoned you to ask for advice?

No, never. I know the same old fellows now as we meet occasionally at conventions or signing sessions, but they never asked me for advice, and I had nothing to offer. I never watched it, I was just being Doctor Who, in and out of the studio. I will make an exception to watch the 50th anniversary. It will be terrific, such a landmark and a big emotional thing.

Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor, is on BBC One on Saturday Nov 23 and will be released in selected cinemas nationwide