History
Nigel Kneale conceived the character of Quatermass in 1953, when he was assigned in his capacity as a BBC television staff drama writer to create a new six-part serial to run on Saturday nights in July and August. Kneale initially named his leading character Professor Charlton, but during the writing process decided he wanted something more striking and memorable. A native of the Isle of Man, he was inspired by the fact that surnames beginning with "Qu" were common on the island. The eventual name was picked from a London telephone directory; there was a family of that name who traded as fruiterers in the city's East End. The surname has its origins as a measurement of land assigned in the division of England by the Normans following their conquest of the country under William the Conqueror in 1066. The Professor's first name, Bernard, was in honour of the astronomer Bernard Lovell, founder of the Jodrell Bank observatory.
Read more about this topic: Bernard Quatermass
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“The history of work has been, in part, the history of the worker’s body. Production depended on what the body could accomplish with strength and skill. Techniques that improve output have been driven by a general desire to decrease the pain of labor as well as by employers’ intentions to escape dependency upon that knowledge which only the sentient laboring body could provide.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)
“This above all makes history useful and desirable: it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)