I’d sold a 90′ science fiction drama to Radio 4’s Saturday Night Theatre and the producer (Martin Jenkins) sent the script over to the Dr Who production office with the suggestion that they might want to take a look at me. I got a call from Christopher Bidmead and we set up a meeting at the production offices which led to me submitting a story idea that became Warriors’ Gate.

While that was in preparation I submitted another. Despite some rocky times around the shoot, that idea was commissioned and became Terminus. In both cases I handled the novelisations although the Warriors’ Gate book had to be heavily edited to reflect changes in the broadcast scripts. I offered another story (Nightmare Country) but it wasn’t picked up, and I moved off into the world to write novels and other TV.

Years later the idea arose of publishing the original book manuscript without the changes, and that triggered a new chapter in my association with the show. BBC Audio produced the restored version of the novel text and commissioned a novella continuing Romana’s part of the story. Both were subsequently combined in print for BBC Books under the title Warriors’ Gate and Beyond. My rejected third TV proposal was produced by Big Finish with the original cast, and I expanded on the Tharil backstory in Faustine, a 42-page graphic story with art by Martin Geraghty.

I’ve covered the ground in a few interviews over the years, most recently in a Warriors’ Gate audio commentary issued by Cutaway Comics with copies of Faustine.