Never cruel or cowardly

A tribute to Terrance Dicks (first posted in the aftermath of his death in 2019)

When I first met Terrance Dicks at a convention in the early 80’s, I was still a child really and I was meeting the man who had written the first book I ever bought. My first real encounter with him though was through that book, which I chose from a shelf of other wonders, aged 7 and read all the way to a holiday camp in Norfolk. For the next 5 or so years, I would rarely be without one of his books, they are there documented in almost every childhood photograph of me. When I last met him, I was an adult, aged 45 and in my bag was that very same book, slightly faded, but still in surprisingly good shape. The book was ‘Doctor Who and the Web of Fear’. The date of that last meeting was the 23 November 2013 and the show which Terrance had done so much to ensure the longevity of, had just turned 50.

In the intervening 40 or so years, I had read many books. Big important, intellectual, hip books by writers that I could impress people (especially girls) by saying I’d read. All that time all of those books with a target symbol and ‘By Terrance Dicks’ on the spine were ‘resting’ in boxes in my parent’s loft – their equivalent of the warehouse in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’, humming away to themselves, just waiting to be re-discovered. Honestly, I’m 51 now, I don’t need to impress anyone any more. They are in my house now, all of them, not in the loft, but on shelves in a room surrounded by the rest of me – my guitars and amps and music and books. Appropriate really for the ‘the children’s own programme that adults adore’. The books of Terrance Dicks are the most important in my life – because they set me up for a lifetime of reading. What a world to give a young child – a whole lifetime of books. That is Terrance’s gift to my generation and why he is so important to us.

Winding back a bit, there was a turning point when I was a young fan, a pivotal moment and that was the re-issued and revised version of Terrance’s ‘The Making of Doctor Who’ from 1976. The original was penned by Terrance in conjunction with his mentor Mac Hulke – a guide to the show as of the 9th season – it covered the production of ‘The Sea Devils’ and told the story of the show to date via the Time Lords and UNIT files. I never saw that Pertwee version of the book, at least not until years later when it was issued in pdf form on one of the DVD releases. The ‘new’ Tom Baker version of the book was a complete re-write by Terrance and it covered the scripting and production of ‘Robot. It told you about the world of TV writing and production and importantly also gave a synopsis of every TV story to date, the first time I had seen that – all of those exciting stories that Terrance hadn’t got around to yet. It was, I think, the first time I realised that Terrance hadn’t written the whole of ‘Doctor Who’. Sure, there were some other blokes – Malcolm Hulke, Philip Hinchliffe, Ian Marter and a few others who had written the odd story, presumably when Terrance was busy, but no, up until that point it looked like Terrance had written the lot. I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that – later there would be Robert Holmes and Terry Nation and David Whittaker and lots of other key writers, but up until the age of about 10, there was only really Terrance.

Going back to 2013, it was a long day, there was a pause in proceedings between the main convention at the Excel centre in docklands and the evening screening of ‘Day of the Doctor’. Some people were heading off to see the story at home or in 3-D at a cinema, some were at the BFI (including quite a few who didn’t want to!) and some like me, my partner and my friend and his two lads were staying to watch it on a big screen at Excel. We finally had a chance to sit down and get a drink and on the next table to us was sat Terrance, his wife and I assume one of his grandchildren. I so wanted to go over and tell him how much his books had meant to me and show him the book I my bag, now nearly 40 years old. However, he looked so tired and weary and was spending some time with his family, so I decided to leave him alone. He had had a long day – providing a commentary on a showing of ‘The Three Doctors’ and I’m sure a stream of fans of a certain age telling him how they had basically learned to read through his books, my friend being one of them. He got that a lot, within the ‘Doctor Who’ world he definitely knew his place and the impact he had on generations of us (he described it as being famous within a very small world).

It was a very poignant moment when I last saw him. He was on good form, but obviously tired and not in the best of health. Excel was a great venue for the 50th and parts of it had been dressed up using sets from the show, including Totters Lane from ‘An Adventure in Space and Time’, however it is a really a big, cold, corporate exhibition space and by this point it was emptying of excited young (and ‘young-old’ faced) fans. We watched as Terrance trudged off (into the sunset really) along the featureless, white corridor and was gone. He was the reason why me and my friend and many others where there. Including many young fans who might not even know who he was, without Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts, the show likely wouldn’t have reached its’ tenth year, never mind fiftieth. As he wandered off, without the crowds that had accompanied Matt Smith and some of the other current stars, it felt like a changing of the guard. Terrance’s work was done.

Later that evening ‘The Day of the Doctor’ aired. A story for the anniversary written by someone raised on Target books. In the key moment in the story, when an old warrior is about to do something that he will regret all his lives, something that Terrance once wrote in ‘The Making of Doctor Who’ is used to represent what the Doctor is all about – his very essence – ‘Never cruel or cowardly. Never give up, never give in’. From the 1976 book:

‘He never gives in, and never gives up, however overwhelming the odds against him. The Doctor believes in good and fights evil. Though often caught up in violent situations, he is a man of peace. He is never cruel or cowardly’

I don’t know whether Steven Moffat took it straight from the great man or whether it came via their mutual friend, Paul Cornell who had used it again years later in one of his books. Whatever, right there in the beating heart of that story is a great big slice of Terrance. A man who understood the character of the Doctor probably more than anyone and it is used by a weary old man to re-discover himself, his carefree youth, to find the essence of what he is once again. The day and the Doctor are saved by the words of Terrance Dicks. I can’t think of a better tribute.