Godfrey Porter

Godfrey Porter was the writer of the 1964 Doctor Who story The Outlaws and its 1986 novelisation The Thief of Sherwood. He also pitched a story in the 1970s called Doctor Who and the Sprites but he never finished it as the script editor at the time wasn't keen.

Porter had gone to the University of Oxford and studied history and medieval literature. He entered television scriptwriting because his landlord was a writer on William Tell and would sometimes fill in bits of scripts for him instead of rent. After this, Porter was recommended to the producer and did an adventure series called Longboat about Vikings.

Speaking in an interview in issue 172 of Doctor Who Magazine, Porter said that his children wouldn't believe he was a writer until he did work on Doctor Who. He said that William Hartnell was always charming to him on set and he didn't realise he was suffering from an illness.

After Doctor Who, Porter wrote for a series called The Long Arm, some editing work on Compact and a couple of episodes of The Challengers with Dennis Spooner. (PROSE: The Thief of Sherwood)