Peter Goodchild wrote both Oppenheimer: The Father of the Atom Bomb (1983), to accompany his seven-episode biopic for the BBC, and Edward Teller: The Real Dr Strangelove (2004), about one of the figures central to the development of the hydrogen bomb.
Having worked on some controversial dramas at the BBC, with lawyers constantly on the set, Goodchild took immense care with his research before committing anything to paper. For the Edward Teller book, he went to the US to interview members of the Los Alamos team and other associates of Teller to make sure of his facts.
This entailed visiting a large number of retirement homes where, as is often the case with elderly people, the interviewees were not sure what day of the week it was - but could recall their time working with Teller with amazing clarity.
