Born: 16th April 1936 (as Derrick George Sherwin)
Died: 17th October 2018 (aged 82 years)
Episodes Broadcast: 1968-1970

Derrick Sherwin was born in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire and originally trained in woodworking. This led to employment in repertory theatre, as a scenic artist amongst other backstage jobs. Sherwin then a scholarship to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, from which he graduated in 1953. After returning from his National Service with the Royal Air Force, Sherwin also began taking acting roles. He made the jump to television in 1956, initially on The Adventure Of The Scarlet Pimpernel. The same year, Sherwin married actress Jane Parsons; they would raise four children together. Over the next decade, he appeared in programmes such as The Men From Room 13 and Here Lies Miss Sabry, while occasional movie roles included Hammer Films' The Vengeance Of She in 1968.

As the Sixties wore on, however, Sherwin began to get bored with acting. He had toyed with writing during his RAF days, but now approached it more seriously, scripting a play for Theatre 625 in 1965 and an episode of Emergency -- Ward 10 in 1966. The final straw for Sherwin came when he was cast in a regular role on the football drama United!. He soon became so fed up with the scripts he was handed that he traded in his on-screen role for the writer's desk. He wound up scripting more than a dozen episodes, and also contributed to shows like Z Cars and Crossroads.

When Peter Bryant fell ill, Sherwin was promoted to full producer for The War Games

Sherwin was then brought onto Doctor Who in the autumn of 1967 as an assistant to story editor Peter Bryant. Bryant was being readied to take over as the show's producer, which resulted in Sherwin's promotion to story editor at the start of 1968. During the ensuing year, Doctor Who was beset by a succession of script problems, which forced Sherwin to append a new first episode to Peter Ling's The Mind Robber, and then write the screenplay for the eight-part Cyberman epic The Invasion from an idea by Kit Pedler. Sherwin's name subsequently disappeared from the Doctor Who credits for much of the remainder of its sixth season but, in reality, he was effectively now working as an associate producer to Bryant. When Bryant fell ill, Sherwin was promoted to full producer for The War Games. This was Patrick Troughton's last story as the Second Doctor; amongst the cast was Sherwin's wife, in the role of Lady Jennifer Buckingham.

Working together, Bryant and Sherwin cast Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor, and devised a new format for Doctor Who's 1970 season which relied heavily on the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT), which Sherwin had devised for The Invasion. Pertwee's debut adventure, Spearhead From Space, saw Sherwin not only enjoy an on-screen appearance as a UNIT commissionaire, but also persuade his bosses to salvage the serial from strike action by making it entirely on film -- the first Doctor Who story ever to do so. Meanwhile, Sherwin had also been assisting Bryant on Special Project Air. The duo then found themselves unexpectedly moved off Doctor Who and onto the troubled mystery series Paul Temple.

Sherwin next produced The Man Outside and Perils Of Pendragon, then left the BBC to create and produce Ski-Boy. He subsequently formed AZ Productions with Martin Hall, developing projects like the children's series Kim & Co. and Magic Circle. During the Eighties, Sherwin ran an advertising company called Electric Arts. In 1982, his marriage ended in divorce. When Doctor Who was cancelled in 1989, Sherwin made unsuccessful inquiries about producing it independently; he also considered developing a UNIT television series.

Sherwin then changed career paths completely, first working in property development and later moving to Thailand, where he ran a bar and bungee jump attraction. He married his second wife, Ingsumon, in 2013. Sherwin's autobiography, Who's Next, was released by Fantom Publishing in 2014. The same year, he published a novel entitled The Perfect Assassin or “Wroten's Law”. After briefly living in New Zealand, Sherwin returned to London, where he died on October 17th, 2018 after a lengthy illness.