Keith Topping

Keith Andrew Topping (born (1963-10-26)26 October 1963 in Walker, Tyneside) is an author, journalist and broadcaster most closely associated with his work relating to the BBC Television series Doctor Who and for writing numerous official and unofficial guide books to a wide variety of television and film series, specifically Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

He is also the author of two books of rock music critique. To date, Topping has written more than 40 books.

Early life and background

Keith Topping's parents were Thomas Topping (1918–1991) and Lily Lamb (b. 1920) and he has two much older brothers, Terrence John (b. 1944) and Thomas Colin (b. 1948). Topping's family have Irish, Scottish, East Anglian (Snape, Suffolk, Great Yarmouth) and Cumbrian (Crosby-on-Eden) roots as well as North Eastern. He is a distant relative of the Morpeth landscape artist Thomas Bowman Garvie (1859–1944). Topping's great-great-uncle was the Tyneside journalist and columnist Albert Elliott.

He worked for the Civil Service as an Administrative Officer in the, then, Department of Employment between 1983 and 2001 when he left to pursue a full-time freelance writing career.