Captain Colin Curtis
As inhabiting the mind of Andy Simpkins
Colin Curtis was born in Banstead, Surrey, England in 1959.
He had a classical education and went from Harrow to Cambridge University. After graduating, he joined the army and soon was promoted to lieutenant.
His easy-going manner, combined with a dry wit and a skill for command ensured that his progress was nothing less than excellent. When the opportunity arose, eager for a new challenge, Colin got a secondment to UNIT. It was there that he made the acquaintance of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. The Brigadier took the young lieutenant under his wing. He took an almost avuncular interest in the young lieutenant's progress and stated that Curtis' progress was exemplary. Soon after that he received advanced training only available to a select few in the matter of contact with the Gallifreyans and other alien races.
Lethbridge-Stewart sensed in Curtis a thirst for knowledge and a desire to learn more than was officially stated in UNIT's code of conduct and protocols. After six months of basic orientation he was posted to a small office in Jersey, looking after the Channel Islands.
The UNIT office in Jersey was situated in St Helier and was operating under the guise of Unit Insurance Services. The only other UNIT member with him was Edna, an elderly woman of an uncertain background and history. Recruited by UNIT for her extensive knowledge of underhand dealings and operating just this side of the law in order to provide UNIT with details of any illegal activities on the Channel Islands. To provide a cover for her sometimes-doubtful activities for UNIT, she was masquerading as his own personal tea lady and secretary. She proved herself to be a valuable underling and aide to Colin Curtis but she had the unfortunate habit of chain-smoking and dropping cigarette ash in Curtis' tea during her regular coughing fits, however he bore these idiosyncrasies of hers with equanimity and she more that made up for it by guiding Curtis through his first posting.
Colin Curtis had been on Jersey for only a short while when he had his first encounter with the Timelord known as The Buccaneer. This encounter took place on, of all places, a crazy golf course. The Buccaneer was in the process of playing while simultaneously explaining to his travelling companion, a bio-mechanoid life form called Cre'at from the planet Sotus, the aero-dynamics and forces exerted on a rubber golf ball while being subjected to the irregularities of the concrete surface it was rolling over and also the effect of Chaos Theory on the trajectory of the ball towards the intended destination, namely the hole. The Sot'm, in a fit of desperation, had temporarily deactivated itself and to all outsiders, looked like one of the obstacles on the course. Hence, several tourists playing crazy golf at the same time as the Buccaneer tried hitting golf balls into the open mouth of the deactivated life form.
Events on the island took a horrifying turn a short while afterwards as several grisly murders and inexplicable happenings occurred. The cause of this was a disembodied life force emanating from an Iron Age burial mound on another part of the island being awoken and venturing forth to commit frightening acts of insensate hatred. The Buccaneer, aided by Cre'at and a reluctant Colin Curtis, tracked down and ceased the entity's activities shortly before threatening to engulf the island and its inhabitants in a miasma of negative emotions and primal fear, barely escaping with their lives.
After the chaos left behind when the Time Lord known as the Buccaneer visited Jersey, Colin was promoted to the rank of captain and posted to Jerusalem. Curtis had been in Jerusalem for several months when he had his second encounter with the Buccaneer. He had received a report from a member of his battalion stating that there was a disturbance involving a large crowd of people near the Wailing Wall. Upon investigating he discovered that the Buccaneer's TARDIS had materialised there. The Buccaneer's TARDIS chameleon circuits, which enable it to take on an appearance suitable to its surroundings, were in a constant state of disrepair and as a result the TARDIS had taken on the appearance of an Ann Summers shop. Something more suited to the seedier areas of Soho, London than the Orthodox Jewish quarter of Jerusalem.
Curtis had grave misgivings at the Buccaneers appearance. Where the Buccaneer appeared, trouble soon followed. He was proven right when a Sontaran attack force tried to make an abortive attempt at invasion through a spatio-temporal rift opening in Jerusalem. The attack was successfully repelled but it left Curtis in a dilemma. He made a report to Geneva about the Timelord, Macfadyan, expressing his worries that if Macfadyan thought it necessary, the Time Lord would sacrifice the planet Earth for his warped idea of "the greater good".
The black birds of truth came home to roost a few days later when he received Top Clearance orders from UNIT headquarters. He was, in essence, to work his way into the Buccaneer's confidence and accompany him on his travels through time and space. If the Buccaneer did anything to endanger Earth, either through deliberate act or unconscious misdeed, Curtis was under strict instructions to terminate the Buccaneer. It was then that Colin Curtis realised what his training had been leading up to...
When Colin Curtis is not aiding and observing, the Buccaneer, he has a variety of pastimes and sport interests, namely scuba diving, playing squash, keeping up with his old friends from Cambridge when he is on Earth, television and media studies. These pastimes can only serve as a distraction compared to the enormity of the task that has been laid squarely on his shoulders...