Mystery of the fourth tie - SOLVED......?

I had a very exciting email form one of my clients this week relating to the Rocha John Rocha tie, one of which had been sold at the Feb 2010 Bonhams Doctor Who auction.

The sale of the tie, along with three others, had been the part inspiration for my Tie Index, and when I was compiling it I fully expected all the ties to surface at some point. I was suprised the to have one left over - the Rocha John Rocha tie.

Having established it's non-show on screen, I did keep an eye open in case a supporting actor had worn it and it had been wrongly attributed for the auction. Still no luck there.

It was looking like the Mystery of the Fourth Tie would never be solved . . .

Anyway, so now the new lead.

My client was in Great Ormond St Hospital last week visiting his nephew (he was in and out overnight and is doing so well, you’d never even know he’d had an op!).

Anyway, on the wall at the end of the corridor on Tiger ward, in amongst the pics of the various celebrities who’ve visited the children, he saw a photo of when David Tennant visited in full costume.

After doing the nerdy thing of standing exactly where he stood, he took a couple of pictures of it on his phone.

It was only when he uploaded it he got a bit excited because seeing it on a full size screen it looked like he had tracked down the mystery fourth tie!

Using a Doctorish (but non-screen used) tie for public appearances would make a certain sense due to the potential value of screen used items.

Unfortunately there aren't many pictures of David Tennant making public appearances in costume, so there's not a great deal of other evidence to substantiate this theory.

But just to confirm either way I went the the hospital today to see the photo for myself, and took my Fourth Tie with me to compare.

I found Tiger ward, and after explaining my request to the puzzled reception staff I was taken through to the corridor concerned and the pin-board of photos.
Sure enough, down the bottom right is the photo of David Tennant on his ward visit.

Staring intensely at it I could see it WAS the Rocha John Rocha tie! I took a couple more photos, but it is quite a small picture, and it's quite hard to get a decent representation of it in a photo. Still, I CAN confirm it IS the tie and we can finally confirm it was at some point worn by David Tennant as The Doctor - just not in a broadcast episode!