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Family's 'shame' gave birth to Sherlock Holmes; New TV drama claims drunken father was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's model for his drug- abusing detective

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From: The Sunday Herald
Date: 20041128
Author:Brian Pendreigh

A NEW television drama about Sherlock Holmes starring some of Scotland's top acting talent will suggest the fictional detective was based on author Arthur Conan Doyle's alcoholic father.

The similarities between Holmes and Charles Doyle were never acknowledged by the author, who enjoyed fame and fortune while his father was secretly shut away in a mental institution.

The drama's producer, Richard Downes, believes Charles Doyle's death in 1893 may have caused Conan Doyle to suffer a nervous breakdown and kill off his father's literary alter ego - only to resurrect him eight years later after ...

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