Philip Martel

Philip Martel (played by Bernard Horsfall) is a doctor who's asked to join Guernsey's Controlling Committee for the duration, with responsibility for health, in Enemy at the Door. This brings him into closer contact with the Germans than he would have wished for.

Biography
Dr Martel is happily married to Olive and they have two children, Clive, who is away from the Island with the British Army and Clare who lives at home and works at the hospital pharmacy. He and Olive once holidayed along the Rhine, before the war. He comes to enjoy doing battle with the Germans and Dieter Richter in particular, although he would never admit it.

He has a good relationship with his daughter, but a more complicated one with his son, Clive, who went against his wishes by setting up in business with Teddy Lupus rather than going to university.

Behind the scenes
Although Dr Martel is not directly intended as any real Islander, some aspects of his story overlap with real events experienced by various Islanders, particularly Ambrose Sherwill who, like Dr Martel, had his life saved by a German officer sending him to prison.

Richter and Martel's first moment of noticing each other in the tie-in novelisation: "Just for an instant Dr Martel caught the attention of Major Richter, as total strangers in a theatre might glance sympathetically at one another during an excruciatingly bad performance.  The glance lasted less than a second but it established a tenuous link between them that Dr Martel was one day to be very grateful for."