Grant Markham

Grant Markham was an early 22nd century human computer programmer residing on New Earth who travelled with the Sixth Doctor.

Adventures with the Doctor
Grant first met the Sixth Doctor in the year 2191 when his home city of New Tokyo on New Earth was transported into a Marston Sphere. Grant used his computer programming skills to defeat a giant robot dinosaur terrorising the city. The Doctor saved New Tokyo. At the end of the affair, Grant went with him to become his companion. (MA: Time of Your Life)

Grant's next adventure with the Doctor was on his birthplace, the planet Agora, again in the year 2191. They discovered that the Cybermen had been using the planet to gather strong males to use in the cyber-conversion process. Grant met his father, Ben Taggart, who was later killed in an unsuccessful attempt to convert him into a Cyberman as Grant watched. This moved Grant to volunteer to become a Bronze Knight, one of a resistance group of Agorans who themselves used cybernetic implants to become stronger to defeat the Cybermen. He was convinced not to give up his humanity by the Knights' creator, the scientist Maxine Carter. The Cybermen attacked the Bronze Knights and slaughtered them all, but Grant lowered their base's temperature and deactivated the Cybermen. (MA: Killing Ground)


 * The exact circumstances of Markham's leaving the Doctor remains unrevealed. 

Possible Fate
A person resembling Grant later found himself removed from the Web of Time, making him, in effect no longer real and stuck in a limbo-like existence in a zeppelin traversing the Time Vortex. (ST: Repercussions...)

Personality
Grant suffered from robophobia, a morbid fear of androids and robots. Through his travels with the Doctor he learned the roots of his condition; he had repressed memories of watching his mother being killed by Cybermen. (MA: Killing Ground)

Some time after Grant's departure, the Doctor travelled with Melanie Bush. When Mel scolded him for failing to return a Volkswagen Beetle he'd hired and insisted he return it, he protested that Grant would have let him keep the car. (PDA: Instruments of Darkness)

Behind the scenes
The only illustrated depiction of Grant Markham appears on the cover of Killing Ground. Cover artist Alister Pearson used himself as the model.

Unofficial appearances
Short stories featuring Grant appeared in the unlicenced charity publication Perfect Timing.

The story "Wish Upon a Star Beast" featured the Doctor and Grant encountering a group of killer Meeps in the Santaland amusement centre in Norway during the 22nd century.

The story "Schrödinger's Botanist" takes place over a longer span of time, during which Grant and the Doctor had many adventures and were joined on their travels by a Legion. The story concluded with Grant linking his mind to a computer infected by a virus and being seriously injured. Unwilling to risk Grant's life any further, the Doctor left him at the Bi-Al Foundation. The Doctor later regretted abandoning Grant and returned to apologise, but Grant did not forgive him and they parted on bitter terms.