Born: 15th March 1928 (as Mervyn Oliver Haisman)
Died: 29th October 2010 (aged 82 years)
Episodes Broadcast: 1967-1968

Mervyn Haisman was born in Woolwich, London. As a youth during World War Two, he was evacuated to Deal, Kent and later Machen, Wales. He won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, and was then called up for his National Service with the army. This provided Haisman with experience entertaining his fellow troops and, after demobilisation, he formed a repertory company which toured American military bases in Great Britain. In 1951, Haisman married Vina Lane, with whom he would have a son, David, and two daughters, Amanda and Judy. He settled down with a job in insurance, but still acted occasionally. In 1963, Haisman appeared in an episode of No Hiding Place, where he made the acquaintance of fellow actor Henry Soskin.

Haisman began writing in the mid-Sixties, with his first credit being a 1967 episode of Dr Finlay's Casebook. He and Soskin (now going by “Henry Lincoln”) decided to collaborate, and they were commissioned to write 1967's The Abominable Snowmen for Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor. Here they created the robotic Yeti and their master, the Great Intelligence, whom they were quickly asked to bring back in 1968's The Web Of Fear. Their second serial introduced Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, as played by Nicholas Courtney; promoted to Brigadier and made head of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT), the character would become a lynchpin of Doctor Who in the early Seventies.

Haisman and Henry Lincoln's The Dominators was transmitted under the alias “Norman Ashby”

Having enjoyed considerable success with their first two Doctor Who adventures, Haisman and Lincoln were quickly asked to provide another story for later in 1968. This was The Dominators which, unfortunately, proved to be a much more tumultuous project. First the serial was truncated by an episode against the writers' wishes, leading them to demand that it be transmitted under the alias “Norman Ashby”, created from the names of their fathers-in-law. Then, a dispute arose regarding merchandise rights for the Quarks, which had been introduced in The Dominators. The pair would never write for Doctor Who again; a third Yeti story they were working on, “The Laird Of McCrimmon”, was abandoned.

Haisman and Lincoln went on to write the screenplay for the 1968 horror movie Curse Of The Crimson Altar, starring Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee, and episodes of television programmes such as The Expert. Their partnership ended in the early Seventies, but Haisman continued to enjoy success writing on his own throughout the decade, earning credits on shows like The Intruder and Crown Court. He was also the script editor of various series including Sutherland's Law and The Onedin Line. During the Eighties, Haisman wrote for programmes such as Jane and Howards' Way; he was also the script editor on My Brother Jonathan. Work in the Nineties included The Adventures Of Swiss Family Robinson, while his final credits were on Revelations in 2003, by which time he and his wife had retired to València, Spain. Haisman died of heart failure on October 29th, 2010.