Terry Nation was born in 1930 in Wales. After briefly joining his father's furniture-making business and attempting stand-up comedy, Nation turned his hand to writing and worked on radio scripts for The Goon Show and a range of TV dramas such as The Saint, The Avengers, Z Cars, The Baron, The Champions, Department S and The Persuaders. He also went on to write about 100 episodes of Doctor Who and worked on popular American TV series. He died in Los Angeles in 1997.

Trevor Hoyle was born in 1940 in Rochdale, Lancashire. In the late 1970s he gained recognition for his "Q" series, featuring Christian Queghan, a scientific investigator possessing the ability to journey through time as well as to hypothetical worlds and well as the highly popular Blake's 7 novels.