Terrance Dicks

Terrance Dicks was an English writer, best known for his work in television and for writing a large number of popular children's books during the 1970s and 80s.

His break in television came when his friend Malcolm Hulke asked for his help with the writing of an episode of the popular ABC (ITV) action-adventure series The Avengers, on which Dicks received a co-writer's credit on the broadcast. He also wrote for the popular ATV soap opera Crossroads.

In 1968 he was employed as the assistant script editor on the BBC's popular science-fiction series Doctor Who. Dicks went on to become the main script editor on the programme the following year, and earned his first writing credit on the show when he and Hulke co-wrote the epic ten-part story The War Games which closed the sixth season and the era of Second Doctor Patrick Troughton.

Dicks went on to form a highly productive working relationship with incoming Doctor Who producer Barry Letts, working as the script editor on each of Letts' five seasons in charge of the programme from 1970 to 1974. After his departure, Dicks continued to be associated with the programme, writing four more scripts: Robot (1975, the opening story of Tom Baker's era as the Fourth Doctor), The Brain of Morbius (1976), Horror of Fang Rock (1977), State of Decay (1981) and the 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors (1983).

Dicks also contributed heavily to Target Books' range of novelisations of Doctor Who television stories, writing more than sixty of the titles published by the company. In this role, he would attempt to enlist the original teleplay author to write the books whenever possible, but if they could not or would not, then Dicks would often end up writing the books himself (although he also enlisted other writers including one-time Doctor Who actor Ian Marter and former series producer Philip Hinchcliffe). During the 1990s, Dicks contributed to Virgin Publishing's line of full-length, officially-licensed original Doctor Who novels, the New Adventures, which carried on the story of the series following its cancellation as an ongoing television programme in 1989. He wrote the first of the Eighth Doctor Adventures, The Eight Doctors, which was for a time the best-selling original Doctor Who novel. His last piece of Who work is a short story in 2019's The Target Storybook.

It was through his work on Doctor Who books that he became a writer of children's fiction, penning many successful titles during the 1970s and 80s. In 1976, Dicks wrote a trilogy of books published by Target Books called "The Mounties" about a recruit in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. These were followed in 1979–1983 by another Target trilogy "Star Quest", which were later reprinted by Big Finish Productions.Starting in 1978, Dicks began a series called "The Baker Street Irregulars" which eventually ran to ten books, the last being published in 1987. In 1981, Dicks also began a series of six children's horror novels with "Cry Vampire".

1987 saw Dicks start a new series of books for very young children called "T. R. Bear", amounting to a further seven books. These were followed by the "Sally Ann" series about a determined ragdoll, "Magnificent Max" about a cat and "The Adventures of Goliath" about a golden retriever. The Goliath series was Dicks' largest amounting to eighteen books.

He passed away in 2019.