Ben Jackson Benjamin " Ben " Jackson was a companion of the First and Second Doctor s , along with his future wife , Polly Wright , and Jamie McCrimmon . He was also acquainted with Dodo Chaplet , briefly meeting her after Polly did . Biography . Early life . Ben was a Cockney . He was born in December 1942 ( PROSE : " Invasion of the Cat - People " ; AUDIO : " The Forsaken " ) and grew up opposite a brewery . He mentioned he once had a headmaster who " got nicked for not paying his bus fare . " ( TV : " The Power of the Daleks " ) As a child , Ben often searched wreckage left by bomb s from World War II with his friends . They sometimes found the corpses of animals trapped by the explosions . ( AUDIO : " Lost and Found " ) In 1956 , at the age of fourteen , he sneaked onto his father ' s ship . When he was found out , the captain promised him a job when he was fifteen ( which was four months away ) . ( PROSE : " Invasion of the Cat - People " ) Ben served in the Atlantic Ocean . ( AUDIO : " The Mouthless Dead " ) His father died of a heart attack prior to July 1966 . ( AUDIO : " The Yes Men " ) Travels with the First Doctor . By 1966 , Ben was assigned to the Royal Navy vessel HMS " Teazer " as a radar plot third class . He made Polly Wright ' s acquaintance in the Inferno nightclub in Covent Garden on 12 July , having briefly crossed paths with her there a week earlier . Ben was depressed at the time because he was stuck on a six month shore posting while his ship patrolled the West Indies . He spent most of his nights at the Inferno . He helped the First Doctor defeat the sentient computer known as WOTAN and its War Machine s on 20 July 1966 . Shortly thereafter , Ben and Polly , mistaking it for an ordinary police box and using the key the Doctor gave Ben , entered the TARDIS by accident . ( TV : " The War Machines " ) In his investigation of reports of a series of " agent provocateurs " known as " the Doctor " who had been involved in numerous unusual incidents , the journalist James Stevens discovered evidence of Ben ' s involvement in the C - Day fiasco . ( PROSE : " Who Killed Kennedy " ) The Doctor first took them to 17th century Cornwall , where they met Henry Avery ' s band of pirate s . ( TV : " The Smugglers " ) The Doctor , Ben and Polly later arrived in New York City in the 1890s where four Ovid s — beings of pure thoughts who travelled from world to world in crystal spheres — had become trapped . Their presence caused people ' s dreams and nightmare to manifest in reality . The time travellers were able to free the Ovids with the assistance of Harry Houdini . ( AUDIO : " Smoke and Mirrors " ) The Doctor later took them to Antarctica in December 1986 , when the Earth faced invasion by the Cybermen of Mondas . Ben played an important role in the defeat of the Cybermen when he disarmed the bomb that General Cutler intended to detonate and realised the Cybermen ' s weakness — their fear of radioactivity . Shortly afterwards , suffering from exhaustion , the Doctor collapsed onto the floor of the TARDIS control room and regenerated in front of them . ( TV : " The Tenth Planet " ) Adventures with the Second Doctor . Ben showed more scepticism than Polly toward the newly - regenerated Doctor , suspecting him of being an imposter . But on the planet Vulcan , which the three time travellers visited next , a Dalek recognised the Second Doctor . Ben then accepted the Second Doctor as the man he had known . ( TV : " The Power of the Daleks " ) Ben continued to travel with the Doctor , facing foes such as the Cat - People ( PROSE : " Invasion of the Cat - People " ) and the Selachian s . ( PROSE : " The Murder Game " ) He and Polly were then joined by Jamie McCrimmon . ( TV : " The Highlanders " ) At one point in Ben ' s travels , he was mind - controlled by the Macra , but ultimately he fought against their control and saved his friends . ( TV : " The Macra Terror " ) When they landed in 1920 he had to explain to Jamie what a train was . He thought that someone was following them after Jamie , Polly and him left the signal box . He was the only one to see this man when he saw it again . After seeing the man more clearly he realised that they looked how they thought the people who died at the Battle of Jutland . ( AUDIO : " The Mouthless Dead " ) The Doctor decided to teach Ben and Polly how to pilot the TARDIS . After the TARDIS faltered in the vortex they landed in New Houston . He took advantage of a Yes Man before they kidnapped him . They brought him to an underground city and made him work like the humans on the surface did to them . Ben was forced to relive his experience against the Daleks on Vulcan in order to learn how to fight . ( AUDIO : " The Yes Men " ) Landing in London in 1648 , Ben was separated from his friends and was press - ganged onto a different ship called the " Teazer " captained by a rather unpleasant Dutchman called " Stanislaus " . While ashore in Amsterdam Ben met " Captain Sal Winter " and joined her crew . Despite a raid on Sal ' s ship , the " Demeter , " by Stanislaus ' crew and almost being trapped and killed in the boggy marshes on the English coast Ben made it back to London and his friends . There he helped to foil the plot involving Stanislaus and the smuggling of King Charles I out of the country . ( PROSE : " The Roundheads " ) When the Selachians arrived at the Galacti - bank he managed to escape which helped the Doctor in his plans . He devised a plan to stop the Selachians by blocking their gills . ( AUDIO : " The Selachian Gambit " ) He managed to find some casino chips when the Doctor took them to one and decided to play one of the futuristic games . He opened a line of credit in the casino and when he couldn ' t repay it he had to play a game of chance where the looser would die . ( AUDIO : " House of Cards " ) Polly , Ben , Jamie and the Doctor landed in Kenga , Singapore during World War II . When Clive Freeman took them to the nearby hotel where he met his father , James Jackson . He later found Andrews dead . He helped to capture the Forsaken . Whilst searching the jungle he noticed the body of Freeman who had been dead for days . ( AUDIO : " The Forsaken " ) Throughout his journeys , Ben never lost sight of his desire to return home , and to his ship , HMS " Teazer " . Before leaving , Ben and Polly insisted that they would stay if the Doctor needed them . The pair departed from the Doctor at the same time , having discovered they had arrived back on Earth on the very same day they left . ( TV : " The Faceless Ones " ) Unbeknownst to Ben , Edward Waterfield had been blackmailed by the Daleks into finding the Doctor . Ben , as one of his companions , was originally factored into the plan and a photograph of him was given to Waterfield . However , when Waterfield learned that both Ben and Polly had left the Doctor ' s company , he decided not to involve them further . ( PROSE : " The Evil of the Daleks " ) Life after the Doctor . At some point , Ben was taken to the Black Archive by UNIT to have his record as a companion of the Doctor taken . His memories of the visit were subsequently erased and he was sent on his way . ( TV : " The Day of the Doctor " ) Ben proposed to Polly in 1966 at the top of the Post Office Tower , which was witnessed unbeknownst to them by the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler . ( COMIC : " The Love Invasion " ) He was taken home to meet Polly ' s parents , but they were shocked by him . ( AUDIO : " The Five Companions " ) However , the relationship did not last . They both eventually married others , but on New Year ' s Eve 1986 were once more reunited . ( PROSE : " Mondas Passing " ) In 1999 , the Second Doctor helped Ben meet Polly once more . They were both widowed by then . Ben and Polly admitted their love for each other . ( PROSE : " That Time I Nearly Destroyed the World Whilst Looking for a Dress " ) They eventually embarked on a successful marriage . ( AUDIO : " The Five Companions " ) In 2010 , Sarah Jane Smith stated that the two of them were running an orphanage in India . ( TV : " Death of the Doctor " ) Personality . Ben was practical and a realist . It took him a while to believe that the TARDIS really travelled through time and space . He was also more sceptical than Polly when the Doctor regenerated , believing that the new incarnation was an impostor . It took a Dalek recognising the Doctor to finally convince Ben of the truth . ( TV : " The Power of the Daleks " ) Though they came from different backgrounds , Polly , whom he nicknamed " Duchess " because of her upper - class accent , and Ben became good friends during their travels . They trusted each other , and their relationship was punctuated by good - natured teasing and banter . They complemented each other well , making a good team . When Polly created a chemical potion to kill the Cybermen on the Moonbase , Ben worked out its practical application of it — using fire extinguisher s to deliver Cocktail Polly . ( TV : " The Moonbase " ) Ben was clever and never shirked danger or action . He was sensible enough to realise that taking on a Cyberman with a screwdriver would be a big mistake , and managed to dazzle one with the light from a film projector before killing it . Ben also worked out that the Cybermen were avoiding radiation , and helped devise a plan to destroy them using the Snowcap Base ' s reactor fuel rods . ( TV : " The Tenth Planet " ) Ben might have been headstrong and impetuous , but he proved to be mentally weaker than his companions when they faced the hypnotic processing of the Macra . However , he did struggle against it , failing to report Jamie for having taken Officia ' s keys . ( TV : " The Macra Terror " ) During their travels together , he and Polly thought of Jamie as being like their " baby brother . " ( AUDIO : " The Forbidden Time " )