A biography of Dr. Horatio Beaker is here. Martin Woodhouse, scriptwriter for Supercar along with his brother Hugh, has been on the jungle tom-tom to say that all the facts quoted are indeed correct, except that Beaker additionally spent some time working with Dr. Barnes Wallis. This period he tended to keep quiet about, until the recent declassification of records from the World War II period.

Martin Woodhouse also let me know that there is a move afoot by them to communicate something of Beaker's exploits since the 1960s.

It seems that Beaker has another cousin too - Dame Fenella Farnsworth, sister of Felicity Farnsworth. She appears to be an informal member of something called "Beaker's Bureau" and looks like she may prove to be quite a character.

Felicity, like her cousin Horatio, has been for many years somewhat withdrawn from the world; Fenella, on the other hand, engages with it daily and in a thoroughly combative fashion.

[16-Aug-2005]

Martin Woodhouse reveals that Dr. Horatio Beaker, is about to return to public life. "Beaker's Bureau" will appear on the Web some time in Autumn 2005, so he hopes, and thereafter in other media including radio, film and televison.

Horatio's long-time friends Martin and Hugh Woodhouse, will be recording recent stories concerning the Bureau, its staff and associates (including Otis the Otter), and also concerning the Bee-Bug, the vehicle which Dr Beaker designed and built to replace the now long-defunct Supercar. Many of these stories, naturally enough, will verge on the exciting and the dangerous.

Martin Woodhouse also introduces Dr. Beaker's rather formidable cousin Dame Fenella Farnsworth (she is in fact a "double dame" and thus a member of a very small group indeed, having both the DBE and the Bath). She was until some years ago Mistress of Girton, and before that was Commandant-General of the WRNS until its dissolution and replacement by the [so-called] "Women In The Royal Navy". [Dame Fenella found this piece of iconographic feminism both feeble and repellent, and relinquished her post at once and with the strong support of HRH Princess Anne. She was offered her position at Girton almost before the ink was dry upon her retirement notice.]

[23-Aug-2005]

Martin Wooodhouse also has sent some corrections on the CV of Dr. Beaker. Letter to Austin Tate here. Some information on Fenella Farnsworth, half sister of Felicity Farnsworth, also provided by Martin Woodhouse here.

Some details have emerged of Dr. Beaker's current whereabouts and his background. He appears to be residing at Bhanavie, Wester Ross, in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. This appears in notes written by Dr. Beaker for a biography of Martin Woodhouse. See http://www.martin-woodhouse.co.uk/Martin/martin.html Martin Woodhouse writes of Beaker as follows:

Dr. Horatio Beaker has been my friend - and sometimes colleague - for many years, and I can think of few people better to write a biography of myself. (Though I hope he will avoid the rudest of whatever remarks he sees fit to make!)

Horatio, like his formidable cousin Fenella, is a Fellow of the Royal Society. He is also the past designer of much scientific equipment, many items of which are in fairly general use for physical, biochemical and other fields of research today. Oddly enough, his laboratory was at one time in White City, on the site of what is now the BBC Television Centre.

Dr. Beaker has seldom cared what his address might be, and simply moved from London to an isolated castle in the Scottish Highlands as a research base; but we have always remained in constant touch with one another.

Beaker's Bureau goes public at www.beakersbureau.co.uk (No Longer Active).

Martin Woodhouse tells me that Beaker's Bureau is now underway...

Hello Austin

You've been a good friend of ours (well you know what I mean) for a long time now, so Hugh and I agree that you shoud be the first person we inform that we are now actively (I mean b---y actively) into writing BEAKER'S BUREAU as -- right from the start -- a multimedia project -- illustrated children's book, radio play and half-hour TV episode thus far, but with our eyes on all other media such as comic strips, games etc . . .

Of course I have no idea whether or how we can get this project actually launched, you understand, but it seems likely to me and we are very determined blokes, albeit cheerfully nonconformist.

We've passed this info to you personally rather than to the 'site' so that you can decide for yourself whether or what you want to reveal abou! t it; and we will of course keep you informed of how things progress [ or alternatively fail to progress as the case may be, and incidentally we are both far too arrogant to go into some kind of decline if nothing happens whatever ! ]

So this also hereby says 'you can tell anybody anything you want about the BB Project without getting across our sensibilities' . . . ok?

I'll tell you more about the milieu, the characters etc as soon as we have got a bit farther down the line. But for the moment I can say that SUPERCAR will be replaced by the BEE-BUG, which is somewhat more Edwardian-Mulliner-Isotta-Fraschini in design appearance but is powered by Dr. Beaker's new Antimatter drive and fuelled by the recently discovered element Bimillennium.

Cheers to you and to all Supercar enthusiasts ---- The Bureau is, if such a thing were possible, going to be three times as good . . . .!

Martin Woodhouse gives a little more detail...

Just to let you know how far we've actually got with "Beaker's Bureau" :- our presentation currently includes a full description of the milieu, the series premise and the detailed character list; one complete half-hour play for sound, one half-hour TV episode ready for shooting; twenty pages of an illustrated novel for children (pictures are by Dave Pinnell, our close associate and friend), six more stories in storyline form and about ten further stories as "thumbnails" (plot and brief action only).

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