Tom Kneale (better known as Nigel Kneale) died on Sunday 29 October 2006 aged 84. To many he was the godfather of television science fiction, a literary genius, and one whose work for Hammer Film Productions was of immeasurable importance to the development of the company.

From <a href="http://www.hammerfilms.com/features/tributes/nigel_kneale.html">Hammer News</a> via Gordon Rutter

This just in: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1936916,00.html" target="new">Mark Gattis</a> on his relationship with Kneale.
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Established myth has Kneale born on the Isle of Man in April 1922, and although he grew up on the island, he was in fact born in Lancashire, England.  Kneale spent time as an actor and a writer of prose before commencing work as a scriptwriter for the BBC.

It was whilst at the BBC in the early 1950s that Nigel Kneale wrote the ground-breaking serial The Quatermass Experiment. It was event television, emptying the streets and pubs for the six weeks of its duration. Hammer director Anthony Hinds saw the first episode, and by the time of the second instalment's broadcast, had secured a deal with the BBC for Hammer to make a
film version.

Hammer's decision to make The Quatermass Xperiment was probably the most important the company would ever make. Director Val Guest  cut the script down from a three hour epic to a taught 80 minute chiller, pitting Brian Donlevy's Quatermass against the creeping unknown that comes to earth in the space rocket. The company's first X picture proved a runaway success and would cause Hammer to look towards further macabre projects kickstarting the gothic horror cycle with The Curse of Frankenstein.

Nigel Kneale would go on to become one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. He developed a knack for prescient visions of our dystopia. The live broadcast of Kneale's adaptation of Nineteen Eighty Four prompted questions in parliament in response to its shocking imagery. The themes would be picked up again in his 1960s tv play The Year of the Sex
Olympics, as the nation is kept in check by a constant deluge of reality tv, and overt sex and violence.

Kneale would continue to cast his shadow over science fiction television throughout the next fifty years. He once watched an episode of the BBC's Doctor Who only to see a virtual copy of one of his Quatermass serials. Following a stint in Hollywood in the 1980s, in the 1990s Kneale turned down a request to contribute to popular US show The X-Files.

His association with Hammer was secured with the acquisition of the Quatermass property. Following the successes of The Quatermass Xperiment, Hammer were quick to put Quatermass 2 into production following its BBC broadcast, again with Val Guest at the helm. And in 1967 Hammer would finish off the trilogy with their adaptation of Quatermass and the Pit.

Kneale also adapted his own BBC serial The Creature for Hammer as The Abominable Snowman in 1957 and wrote the final script for Joan Fontaine vehicle The Witches in 1966. Hammer Film Productions' Chairman Larry Chrisfield said "He made a huge contribution to Hammer's  history and we are greatly indebted to him".

And yet the ghost of Quatermass never quite eluded Kneale. A fourth series emerged from Euston films in 1979 and a radio series was made in the 1990s around the same time that a remake of the original Experiment was on the cards. In 2005 the BBC attempted a live broadcast of the story. Quatermass became a spokesperson for the fears of a nation, faced with the looming threat of the unknown, combating the foreigner and coming face to face with
the alien in all of us.  Robert Simpson