Norman Baker
- You may wish to consult
Baker (disambiguation)for other, similarly-named pages.
Former British Army major Norman Baker (PROSE: The Scales of Injustice) was head of security at the Wenley Moor nuclear research facility.
One source named him as Barker. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters)
Biography
Baker used to travel to the African colonies in his youth and remembered the time with fondness. He considered the post-imperial Britain to have been undermined by "the bankers and the trade-unionists" and standing alone in a hostile world. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters)
While deployed to Londonderry in Northern Ireland, Baker led a British Army squad against an IRA sniper. The sniper was taken prisoner but when a soldier was killed by a second sniper, Baker executed his prisoner in anger. He was asked to resign from the army afterwards. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters) Years later, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart would be aware Baker had "slipped up badly once some years ago" and his manner was due to trying to make up for it ever since.(TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians)
Whilst in the Wenley Moor cave system, Baker saw a Silurian and fired upon it. A dinosaur then attacked him and he was wounded. Baker was rescued and taken to the research facility's sick bay, but was unwilling to sit back and wanted to get into the action.
Baker refused to listen to the Third Doctor's advice and attacked the Silurians. They later captured him and infected him with a deadly virus to spread among humanity. He eventually succumbed to the disease, collapsing and dying outside Wenley Hospital just as the Doctor and the Brigadier arrived in Bessie.
The Doctor saw that Baker's face was covered in lesions while a doctor came rushing out to see what had happened. The Brigadier pulled out his revolver to prevent the hospital staff from touching Baker and spreading the plague, warning them this was an alien disease they could not cure, which left UNIT with the task of quarantining the body. (TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians)
Behind the scenes
- In Malcolm Hulke's novelisation of Doctor Who and the Silurians, Major Baker is renamed "Barker".
- Baker's first name is never given on-screen or in the novelisation, being revealed as Norman only in the novel The Scales of Injustice.
