Person Biography:
Terrance Dudley Holmes was born in 1926 and joined the army at the age of 18 in 1944. He lied about his age to enlist and became the youngest commissioned officer in the British army during World War II. After the war, he left the army and joined the police force, graduating top of his year at Hendon Police College and serving at Bow Street Police Station in London.
Holmes developed an interest in writing while serving as a police officer and taught himself shorthand in his spare time. He eventually resigned from the police force and began working as a journalist, writing for local and national newspapers in London and the Midlands. He also filed reports for the Press Association and worked as a sports reporter, covering events in the Midlands.
In the late 1950s, Holmes began writing and editing short stories for magazines, before receiving his first break in television with an episode of the medical series Emergency-Ward 10 in 1957. He went on to write for a variety of TV shows, including The Saint, Ghost Squad, Public Eye, Undermind, Intrigue, and Doctor Who. He also worked as a script editor on Doctor Who from 1974 to 1977 and scripted many TV dramas throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
Holmes adapted the BBC's 1981 science-fiction thriller serial The Nightmare Man from David Wiltshire's novel and was working on further Doctor Who episodes when he died on May 24, 1986, after a short illness.
