FE ATUR E BY PAUL KIRKLEY
The 20th anniversary of Doctor Who was marked by The Five Doctors (1983) and (centre) celebrations at Longleat.
When Peter Haining died of a heart attack in 2007, aged 67, his Guardian obituary spoke admiringly of how ‘deep knowledge, lightly borne, had powered a pen for hire’. It’s a fitting description of a man who, in the course of a 50-year career, wrote and edited more than 200 books on everything from HG Wells, Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula to scarecrows, cricket, the Channel Tunnel and Nazi gold. And, in a fertile flurry of activity in the 1980s – during which he turned out five large-format hardbacks in the space of six years – he also became arguably the world’s most successful chronicler of Doctor Who.
Born in Enfield in 1940, Haining developed an early fascination with gruesome stories of terror and witchcraft, fuelled by imported pulp magazines like Weird Tales. While still at school, he began writing articles for “anything that would publish me”, including local newspapers, parish pump newsletters and even a magazine about racing pigeons.
At 17 he landed a job as a reporter on the West Essex Gazette, then moved to Fleet Street as features editor of National Newsagent magazine before joining the publishing house New English Library, where he got to indulge his childhood passions by editing bestselling anthologies of Gothic horror, science-fiction, supernatural and detective stories.
Leaving to pursue a freelance career, he put his magpie mind and extensive clippings library to good use, writing prolifically on any subject he could turn his hand to, as well as penning several novels. He was successful enough to be able to acquire a fine country house in Suffolk, which he filled with books. There he was able to work while caring for his autistic son Sean, one of three children with his wife Philippa Waring, also a writer.
In 1982 Haining was invited for lunch by Bob Tanner, managing director of publisher WH Allen, who asked if he’d be interested in writing a book celebrating 20 years of Doctor Who. Interviewed three years later by Mark Campbell for his fanzine Skonnos, Haining admitted he “wasn’t overstruck with the idea”. Though he remembered William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton as the Doctor, and his kids still watched the show, he was by no means an expert, or even much of a fan. But a writer who could deliver something that would appeal to casual viewers, as well as the hardcore faithful, was exactly what Tanner was looking for.