Editing Robert Holmes (scriptwriter) (section)

==Early career==
In 1944, at the age of 18, Holmes joined the army, fighting with the [[Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders]] regiment in [[Burma]]. He rapidly earned a commission, and as such became the youngest [[commissioned officer]] in the entire British army during the [[Second World War]]. The fact that he lied about his age to get into the army was discovered at his commissioning, but apparently the only reaction was by a general who praised him, adding that he had done the same thing himself.

Soon after the end of the war, Holmes returned to England and left the army, deciding to join the police. He trained at [[Hendon Police College]], graduating the top of his year and joining the [[Metropolitan Police]] in London, serving at [[Bow Street Police Station]].

It was whilst serving as a police officer that Holmes first began to develop an interest in writing as a career. When giving evidence in court for prosecutions against offenders, he would often note the excitement and frantic work of the journalists reporting on the cases, and decided that he would like to do similar work. To this end, he taught himself [[shorthand]] in his spare time and eventually resigned from the Police force.

He quickly found work writing for both local and national [[newspaper]]s, initially in London and later in the [[English Midlands|Midlands]]. He also filed reports for the [[Press Association]], which could be syndicated to a variety of sources, such as local or foreign newspapers. In the late 1950s he worked for a time writing and editing short stories for magazines, before receiving his first break in television when he contributed an episode to the famous medical series ''[[Emergency – Ward 10]]'' (1957).