Sally Sparrow ( What I Did on My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow ) Sally Sparrow was a twelve - year - old student with whom the Ninth Doctor tried to communicate from twenty years in the past . Sally was born in 1993 . When Sally was young , she used to stare at the flowered wallpaper in her room in her aunt ' s cottage in Devon . She liked to pick at it as if they were real flowers . As " nostalgia " , every time Sally came to her aunt ' s , she touched the flower to remember . In 2005 , when Sally was twelve , she was assigned a piece of homework about what she did over the Christmas holiday . On 22 December 2005 , Sally visited her aunt again while her parents were away . In her room , she mindlessly tore at the piece of wallpaper she picked a piece off when she was three . She kept tearing , and found a message reading , " Help me , Sally Sparrow ! " She tore off another piece of wallpaper , and found a date alongside the message : 24 / 12 / 85 . Sally asked her aunt about that day , but her aunt didn ' t remember , other than that she always held Christmas parties at that time and there were photographs taken . That evening , Sally ' s aunt put a box containing photographs from 1985 on Sally ' s bedside table . In one of the pictures near the bottom , there was a picture of people dancing , along with the Ninth Doctor looking directly at the camera holding a sign reading : " Help me Sally Sparrow ! " Another image had the Doctor holding another sign , reading : " Look under the wallpaper again . " Under the wallpaper was another message , explaining that to prove this wasn ' t a trick , Sally had to think of a number and look at the furthest tree in the garden . Sally thought of the number , and found a tree with the number carved into it . Sally later peeled off another piece of wallpaper , and found another message from the Doctor , reading : " Top shelf in the living room , right at the back . " Sally found a video tape with her name on it , and put it on . The Doctor appeared in the video , asking Sally for questions , and pointing out he could hear her . The Doctor answered Sally ' s questions , explaining he was a time travel ler , and had parked his TARDIS in Sally ' s aunt ' s shed when it " burped " and jumped forward in time twenty years . The Doctor asked Sally to bring it back . He clarified that he couldn ' t " really " hear her , but just knew what was going to happen in the conversation , because he had a finished copy of Sally ' s homework , which spoke of this conversation . He explained that " some sort of spy " in the future had saved his life in Istanbul and handed him the essay , knowing that he would need it some day . The video then showed a version of Sally from two hours in the future , landing the TARDIS in the room . She explained that the reset button next to the TARDIS phone could home in on the Doctor ' s watch , and that she knew this because she told herself . The Doctor said to Sally that before she started any of this , she should do her homework . The Doctor also explained that the spy from the future was Sally . After spending two hours on her homework , Sally hit the reset button and took the TARDIS to the Doctor in 1985 . She gave her past self instructions on how to do this on the Doctor ' s video and returned to 2005 . Many years later , Sally became the spy and saved the Doctor ' s life from the second of two Sontaran s after the Doctor was in a sword fight in Istanbul . She gave the Doctor her homework and , knowing it would be a useful means of communicating with her twelve - year - old self , told him to keep it with him no matter what . ( PROSE : " What I Did on My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow " )