Brian Hayles

Who was Brian Hayles?

Brian Hayles was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England. His body of work as a writer for television and film, most notably for the BBC science fiction series Doctor Who, lasted from 1963 to 1989.

Hayles wrote six stories for Doctor Who and is best known for his creation of the Celestial Toymaker in the 1966 story of the same name, the Ice Warriors, introduced in the 1967 story of the same name, and the feudal planet Peladon, the setting for The Curse of Peladon and its sequel The Monster of Peladon. His other stories were The Smugglers and The Seeds of Death.

In addition to script writing for the radio series The Archers, Hayles penned a novel based on the soap called Spring at Brookfield set in the period between the two world wars. His other books included novelisations of his Doctor Who serials The Curse of Peladon and The Ice Warriors, an adaptation of his scripts for the BBC drama The Moon Stallion, and two horror plays for children, The Curse of the Labyrinth and Hour of the Werewolf. An original novel entitled Goldhawk was published posthumously.