By Elliott West
Introduction
It’s 60 years since the crackly face of William Hartnell first appeared on our television screens in 1963 and those who watched were drawn in by the eerie theme tune that has been iconic in its own right. In all, there have been 13 doctors with Tom Baker being from my era of growing up. A cult BBC science fiction show that contains many hidden meanings and has a loyal army of loyal fans. With such longevity, this programme has a multitude of behind-the-scenes tales and one that caught my attention is that of Terrence Joseph Nation, a Welsh scriptwriter who helped bring the Daleks and Davros to our screens as well as other cult shows such as Survivors and Blake 7. He also wrote scripts for The Avengers, The Baron, The Champions, Department S, The Persuaders! and The Saint.
Funny Bones
“I went to London, where I auditioned as a stand-up comic, and I failed time and time again. Somebody told me ‘the jokes are very good, it’s you who’s not funny’, and that was hurtful, but then I figured I had to make a living. I was hustling around, and somebody gave me an introduction to Spike Milligan. Milligan wrote me a cheque for five pounds, which was a lot of money then, and he said ‘Why don’t you write a ‘Goon Show’, and if we like it, we’ll represent you. Anyway, I wrote a ‘Goon Show’ that night, delivered it the next morning, and he liked it.”
Terry Nation
The Daleks were and still are frightening. The high-pitched screech of their “Exterminate” command sends shivers down your spine. A dark force that you wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of. A metal cylinder on wheels that can kill you with its plunger-like proboscis, the eyes and ears of evil. Yet where did these dark metal forces derive from? Terry Nation had fallen into comedy scriptwriting by chance after Spike Milligan bought one of his scripts. This was the green light he needed and throughout the 1950s, Terry worked at Associated London Scripts with John Junkin and Johnny Speight. Here he penned numerous radio scripts for comedians such as Terry Scott, Eric Sykes, Harry Worth and Frankie Howerd.
His big career break came in 1962 when he was commissioned to write scripts for Tony Hancock. The popular comedian with the homburg hat and fur-lined coat who had massive success with a BBC radio and television series, decided to make a switch to ATV, broadcast on ITV. It didn’t work but Terry carried on writing for him as pursued a stage tour in 1963. The problem was that Tony went off-script and decided to fall back to his old material. A decision that would lead to a parting of ways between the two and it is not clear whether Nation walked out or Hancock sacked him.
The Time Lord
“[One] particular night, Tony Hancock and I had a big dispute. I wanted him to try some new material, and I’m not sure if I was fired or if I walked out, but the result was that I was on a train back to London, thinking ‘Hey, wait a minute! I’m out of work!’. I went and talked to David Whitaker, the script editor of ‘Doctor Who’, and I came up with a story idea. They liked it, they bought it, and that takes us up to where the Daleks started.”
Terry Nation
Before his spell with Tony Hancock, Terry had been offered a chance to write scripts for a potential science fiction show. Nation declined at the time but gave David Whitaker a call when he faced a period of unemployment. The scripts were for the second series of Doctor Who, The Mutants and The Dead Planet which first introduced us to the Daleks. The first appearance of one of these machines wasn’t even a Dalek, it was a plunger attached to the camera lens as the final product hadn’t even been finished.
“Raymond Cusick made a tremendous contribution. The salt cellar part is the legend: that gave Raymond Cusick the idea for the shape. He was restricted by budget, obviously – it wasn’t a big budget show we were doing. But yes, he made a tremendous contribution. Whatever the Daleks are or were, his contribution was vast. I think [the BBC] may have given him a hundred pound bonus, but he was a salaried employee, and I think he knew the nature of his work, and it was what he did every week. You start with something that’s a writer’s dream, that he’s put down in words, and amended, and added to in conversations. Something starts there.”
Terry Nation
However, this camera trick worked and led to a massive demand for Dalek products with every book, toy and game producer wanting a piece of the action. Nation based these metal, faceless monsters on growing up during the Blitz and the atrocities that the authoritarian Nazi regime committed but the Dalek design came from Ray Cusick. A role taken when the original series designer, the now-famous film director Ridley Scott who went on to produce the Alien film series and the new Napoleon film had a schedule clash and was replaced before filming on the series began. Cusick didn’t earn a penny from the creation as he was a BBC employee. The four original Daleks were built in a workshop in Uxbridge and cost £250!
A Slip of the Pen
Thanks to an error made while drafting Nation’s freelance Doctor Who contract, a clause that gave the BBC sole rights to the series was crossed out. This wasn’t found out till an army of toy companies who wanted to make Dalek products came knocking at the door of the BBC. The BBC realised there was no mention of copyright and had to hurriedly draft a revision where royalties were split 50/50 between the BBC and Terry Nation. As a result, Terry became a very wealthy man very quickly. It is estimated that he earned of what would be in today’s money of 4.5 million in the first 18 months of the Daleks’ appearance on television. Money that continued to flood into his bank account throughout the rest of his life and his estate still benefits from.
Dalekmania
The introduction of the Daleks to Doctor Who took the United Kingdom by storm. Children and adults rushed to the shops to buy their products. The Christmas of 1964 was all about the Daleks and they were on the front page of every newspaper. ITV tried to challenge them with The Beatles, hiring the Fab Four for a programme called Thank Your Lucky Stars as the headline for their Christmas schedule but the Dakeks beat them hands down in the Christmas television ratings war.
A National Treasure
It is fitting that when Doctor Who came back to our television screens in 2005 after it was taken off air in 1989 that it was made in Terry Nation’s place of birth, Cardiff to be precise. A franchise that is now written by Russell T. Davies. After writing for Doctor Who and Blake 7, Terry moved to America in 1980 and lived in Los Angeles the Hollywood Hills. He continued to write and wrote scripts for MacGyver and the British comedy, A Fine Romance. A heavy smoker throughout his life, he suffered from emphysema. A breathing disease that sadly took away this gifted writer from us far too early at the age of 66 in 1997. Shortly before his death, Terry was working on a revival of Blake 7.
