Bob Baker(1939-2021)

The son of a signwriter, Bristol-born Robert John ('Bob') Baker studied painting and animation at art college. As a youngster, he had already shown his proclivity for film-making by creating animations as well as live action short films. Unsurprisingly, one of his first paying jobs was as a cartoonist for the BBC. On the side, he also played saxophone in a jazz-rock fusion band, worked as a stone mason on the renovation of old houses and edited or did design work for various magazines. In Dave Martin he met a like-minded spirit in 1967. Deciding to form a writing partnership, the two men went on to become known as 'The Bristol Boys'. At one time, they did their scripting in a converted barn. The most famous Baker-Martin collaboration was on Doctor Who (1963), a tenure which began in 1971 with The Claws of Axos episode and ended in 1979. This was the classic Jon Pertwee-Tom Baker era. Baker and Martin were co-creators of the famous mechanical dog K-9. After 1979, Baker worked as script editor on the crime series Shoestring (1979) and Call Me Mister (1986). He also devised and worked as chief scriptwriter for the children's show Into the Labyrinth (1981). His next major contribution was as the co-creator (with Nick Park) of another brilliant canine, the genial animated beagle Gromit of Aardman's Wallace & Gromit. With Park, Baker co-wrote three of the best-loved episodes: Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers (1993), Wallace & Gromit: A Close Shave (1995) and Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death (2008). For the latter, he and Park became co-recipients of a BAFTA Film Award in 2009. Baker had earlier won a shared BAFTA for his work on Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).

His productive versatility extended into the theatre and other media. He said in an interview "I'll do anything. I've done documentaries, teaching, I've even done comedy. But my forte is crime. The Wrong Trousers started as a domestic drama but moves into crime and I loved that. Science fiction is a favourite but I love doing everything". Bob Baker sadly passed away in November 2021 at the age of 82.