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In 1944, at eighteen, Holmes enlisted in the army, serving with the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders regiment in Burma. He quickly earned a commission, becoming the youngest commissioned officer in the British army during World War II. Although he had lied about his age to enlist, this was discovered at his commissioning, and the only reaction was a general praising him, admitting he had done the same. After the war ended, Holmes returned to England, left the army, and chose to join the police. He trained at Hendon Police College, graduating top of his class, and joined the Metropolitan Police in London, serving at Bow Street Police Station.
While serving as a police officer, Holmes developed an interest in writing as a career. Observing the excitement and hectic work of journalists covering court cases where he gave evidence, he decided to pursue similar work. He taught himself shorthand during his free time and eventually resigned from the police. He soon found work writing for local and national newspapers, initially in London and later in the Midlands. He also submitted reports to the Press Association, which syndicated them to various outlets, including local and foreign newspapers. In the late 1950s, he wrote and edited short stories for magazines before his first television break, contributing an episode to the medical series Emergency-Ward 10 (1957).
His sports reporting took him to the Midlands, where he became the final editor of John Bull Magazine, while contributing material to Granada TV for Knight Errant Limited (1959). Early TV work included The Saint (1962), Ghost Squad (1961), Public Eye (1965), Undermind (1965) (his first science fiction), and Intrigue (1966). His first Doctor Who (1963) commission was to write "The Space Trap," later retitled "The Krotons." He went on to become one of the series' most popular writers, responsible for over a dozen televised stories, and served as Doctor Who’s script editor from 1974 to 1977. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he wrote extensively for TV drama, including The Wednesday Play (1964), Doomwatch (1970), Dr. Finlay's Casebook (1962), Dead of Night (1972), The Regiment (1972), Warship (1973), Spy Trap (1972), and Dixon of Dock Green (1955). He also adapted the BBC’s 1981 science-fiction thriller serial The Nightmare Man (1981) from David Wiltshire’s novel. Holmes was working on additional Doctor Who episodes when he died after a brief illness on 24 May 1986.
