Porridge S1 E0 Prisoner and Escort Pilot
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00:00All right, he's all yours then. And a Happy New Year, Jock.
00:23I escort you to your New Year's Eve. And a Happy New Year to you, Fletcher.
00:28Oh yes, very witty, very droll, yes.
00:38Norman Stanley Fletcher, you have pleaded guilty to the charges brought by this court
00:43and it is now my duty to pass sentence. You are an habitual criminal who accepts
00:48arrest as an occupational hazard and presumably accepts imprisonment in the same casual manner.
00:55We therefore feel constrained to commit you to the maximum term allowed for these offences.
01:00You will go to prison for five years. You wish to address the court?
01:04Cobblers.
01:07What?
01:08What Brian Clough says about London clubs, look at that.
01:11That is my paper.
01:13Can I have a look at your dirty booking?
01:16Get your own.
01:17How can I get my own? We're in motion, aren't we?
01:19You should have thought that before you left the station.
01:21Look, when we left the station I wasn't even allowed a Jimmy Ridder, was I?
01:25You can have a look at my Anglin Times if you like.
01:29I can't. God almighty, Molly caught them already.
01:32People seem to forget what prison is for. He's paying a debt to society,
01:37not having an all-expenses paid holiday with privileges and magazines.
01:43You're going to prison to be punished.
01:51I spy with my little eye something beginning with C.
01:54Now you watch it, Sonny, watch it.
02:01Constable.
02:04Look, don't you comment with me now.
02:06No, I wouldn't, Mr Mackay, I wouldn't, would I?
02:09Otherwise you'd wait till the train gets a bit of speed up outside MLM Stead
02:12and chuck me out the window, wouldn't you?
02:14Put it down on the official report as attempted escape.
02:16No, he wouldn't do that.
02:18No, I suppose not.
02:20He couldn't spell MLM Stead, he'd wait till we got to rugby.
02:25Now look, I'm a reasonable one,
02:27but one more allegation of brutality and I'm going to let you have it.
02:31Look, we've just had a long journey in front of us.
02:34Now we don't want to conduct it in an atmosphere of hostility and aggression, do we?
02:38Now, why don't we all have a nice cup of tea?
02:40Both take milk and sugar.
02:42Oh no, you sit still. I'll get them.
02:44Oh well, I'll pay then. Now is there anything you want?
02:47A tea with two sugars. I'd like one of them individual fruit.
02:54He's a giggle, isn't he?
02:56Well, perhaps it's with being Scots, you know, and missing hogmany.
03:00Well, they take it very seriously, these Scots.
03:02Oh yeah. Well, they take any excuse for drinking seriously, don't they?
03:06I mean, there's nothing social about their drinking, is there?
03:09I mean, it's not a question of just having a few friends around
03:11and mellowing over a glass of vino, is it?
03:13No, they just drink to get drunk, don't they?
03:17Cool, look at her.
03:20There's only one thing worse than a drunk Scotsman, you know,
03:22and that's a sober one.
03:24I'm Scots on my mother's side.
03:27Oh yeah? Oh, that's different, isn't it?
03:28I mean, that's second generation, isn't it? It's a different thing, isn't it?
03:31Yeah, well, I'm a bit of a mixture, really.
03:32I'm Scots and English and Irish and Polish.
03:34Oh, your mum got about a bit, didn't she?
03:38No, I didn't mean that.
03:38I'm pure London myself, you know?
03:40Yeah, matter of fact, I'm pure North London.
03:43You go to Muswell Hill, you'll find the graveyards full of Fletchers there.
03:46Oh, really?
03:46Yeah.
03:47Shall I tell you something?
03:48Yeah.
03:48There's been a Fletcher on our way ever since...
03:51Going right back to Henry IV, part one.
03:55Well, I've no heritage myself.
03:57I mean, I know I had a granddad who was an iron monger in Accrington...
04:00Oh, now, my great granddad was William Wellington Fletcher.
04:03Now, he was the last man in England to be hung for sheep stealing.
04:07Get away.
04:07Yeah.
04:08And there was Matthew Jarvis Fletcher.
04:10Of course, he was a nougat with Jack Shepherd.
04:12That's well known, that is.
04:13Oh, so he runs in the family like this crime?
04:15Yeah, yeah, probably, yeah.
04:17I know there's a load of Fletchers in Australia.
04:21Come from a rough neighbourhood?
04:23No, no, no, no.
04:24I told you, Muswell Hill.
04:25It's very respectable, Muswell Hill.
04:26Suburban, you know.
04:28Broken home?
04:29No, no, they just celebrated the diamond wedding.
04:33I was just wondering why?
04:35Well, when I left school, I went round the labour, you know,
04:39to appraise the professional opportunities open to me.
04:42Know what I mean?
04:43And, of course, due to my lack of scholastic achievement,
04:45I was unable to follow the professions that I wanted to,
04:48like stockbrokering or teaching tennis in a girls' school.
04:54As I didn't fancy much working in a cardboard box factory,
04:57I robbed a sub-post office off a North Circular.
05:00And you've never looked back since, so to speak?
05:02No, nor have I ever been short for Eppley Stamps.
05:07What are you being sent down for this time?
05:09Oh, don't ask.
05:10It'd be a farce if it weren't such a tragedy.
05:12I should have stuck to what I know best, you see,
05:14housebreaking, but I didn't.
05:15I lift this lorry, don't I?
05:16You know, impulse steal.
05:17Know what I mean? Impulse steal.
05:19I thought it was going to be a dollar, didn't I?
05:20I gather it wasn't.
05:21No, you know why, don't you?
05:23Flaming brakes failed on me.
05:25Oh, no.
05:25It's criminal the way they let the lorries on the roads
05:27in that condition, you know.
05:29And he was overloaded, and also there I was
05:32with five tonne at me back,
05:33roaring down Flaming Archway.
05:35It's a wonder you weren't killed.
05:36I damn nearly was.
05:37I went through three back gardens,
05:39crashed right through a brick wall,
05:41finished up in someone's tool shed.
05:44Did they get you for willful destruction of property?
05:47Huh?
05:49Knocking that wall down, I mean.
05:50Oh, yeah.
05:51Oh, yeah, yeah.
05:52And I asked for six other fences
05:53to be taken into consideration.
05:58Get it?
05:59Get it?
06:00Pardon?
06:02Never mind.
06:04Oh, yeah, I'll tell you what.
06:05Hang on.
06:07Would you like a bit of this?
06:08Oh.
06:09Oh, no, you've only got a couple of bits left, haven't you?
06:11Oh, yeah.
06:13Er...
06:15What made you take up this lot then?
06:17Well, prison service.
06:18Yeah, what made you fancy it like?
06:20Oh, well, I...
06:21I always wanted some vacation
06:23that would enable me to satisfy my desire
06:25to do work of public usefulness.
06:28And get a free house and a uniform.
06:32What's it like this, Nick?
06:33Oh, it's very good.
06:34Well, it's modern, you see.
06:36It's experimental.
06:37We've got a cricket pitch and a psychiatrist.
06:41Still bird's bird, don't it?
06:42Oh, not in this place, no.
06:44Now, if you were to take advantage of our courses,
06:47of our many occupational and or recreational activities,
06:51well, you know, if you put your mind to it,
06:53you could come out an intermediate welder
06:55or an accomplished oboe player.
06:57Oh, yeah.
06:58You know, it's a pity you're not in longer.
07:00You could take up civil engineering.
07:01Oh, yeah, pity.
07:02Oh, that is a pity.
07:03Yeah, yeah.
07:04See, I'm not doing a 10 stretch, innit?
07:06Otherwise I'm going to take me welding finals
07:08and become a doctor of philosophy and all.
07:12You know, I'm an amateur botanist myself.
07:14So sometimes I take some of the prisoners out on the fells
07:17and we explore the natural phenomena of the countryside.
07:20Oh, out on the fells, is it?
07:21Aye, it's lovely views.
07:23Yeah, yeah.
07:24I might put down for that, you know.
07:26Yeah, that might interest me, that, yeah.
07:28Yeah, the natural phenomena of our countryside.
07:30How far's the nearest railway station?
07:33Well, that's the beauty of it, you see.
07:34We're miles from anywhere.
07:36Oh, I mean.
07:38You know, we've got an arts and crafts centre
07:40and you could learn woodwork.
07:41Listen, listen, I don't want no reconditioning,
07:43no resettlement courses.
07:45All I want to do is just mind me own business,
07:48do me porridge and count the days I get out, right?
07:50I've changed, you know.
07:51You what?
07:51Oh, yeah.
07:53Oh, even some of the most cynical and ardent criminals
07:55have changed at this place.
07:56Well, you see, they respond to our methods, you see,
07:59which are not based on correction and punishment,
08:01but on sympathy and understanding.
08:06Ah, thank you.
08:07I forget whether you take sugar or not,
08:09but it makes no difference
08:11because I spilt the most of yours on the way back.
08:14But what are you going to do about it, eh?
08:18Where's all his sympathy and understanding, then, eh?
08:20What's he doing working at this nick, eh?
08:23He'd bring back the birch at the drop of helmet, he would.
08:25What's he on about?
08:26Mr Mackay runs several of our group activities.
08:29Oh, yeah?
08:30Like a rock-breaking and compulsory pothole, then, eh?
08:34I'll soon have you unshaved, Fletcher.
08:36I'll soon have you a shadow of your former self.
08:38I bet he's the secretary of the Lord Chief Justice
08:41Goddard Appreciation Society, isn't he?
08:43You keep your nose clean now.
08:44Just show me some respect, keep your nose clean,
08:46you'll be all right.
08:47I'm hard, but fair.
08:49Yeah, like Leeds United.
08:52If you like.
08:53You play bold with me, I'll play bold with you,
08:55and you'll find I'm a reasonable man.
08:57Oh, yeah?
08:58Can I have a look at your dirty book now, then?
08:59You get to hell.
09:01You have to admire consistency, don't you?
09:03Fletcher.
09:08Try page 24.
09:10Oh, dear.
09:25How far have we got to go, then?
09:26About an hour and a half across the fells.
09:29Can I have a Jimmy Riddle, then?
09:30What?
09:32I did think of it before.
09:33There's been nothing else on my mind for ages.
09:35Why are you so reluctant to let me go to the lavatory?
09:40Oh.
09:43I see what you mean, yeah.
09:44Well, you'd better let him go.
09:46We can't stop in transit.
09:49All right, then.
09:51Run to back.
09:53Thanks, Mr. McGuire.
10:00Uh.
10:31Oh.
10:56What do you reckon it is?
10:57How do I know?
10:58I'm no mechanic.
10:59Plugs, is it?
11:00Ignition?
11:02Put the bracelets on him.
11:08And don't you be thinking fate is giving you a last chance of freedom.
11:14Don't believe in fate.
11:16Sounds like the carburetor.
11:20Have to get the bus, then, won't we?
11:21What bus?
11:25Oh, it's a lift, then.
11:26Who drives round here on New Year's Eve?
11:30Who drives round here any time?
11:33Getting a bit parky, isn't it?
11:34It'll be dark soon.
11:36God almighty.
11:40Don't you know how to fix it, then?
11:42Hasn't one of your many instructional courses taught you how to cope with mechanical failure?
11:47It's survival we'll want out here.
11:50It'll be dark soon.
11:53And the forecast's snow.
11:55Pull yourself together, Mr. Barrowclough.
11:57There's no need to take it out on him, is there?
11:59Look, there's one thing for it.
12:02I am going on.
12:03I'm going on to the prison.
12:05Now, listen to me.
12:06You do not move.
12:07You do not move from here.
12:09And you do not take the bracelets off of him.
12:12Right?
12:12Right, Mr. Mackay.
12:14And you, behave yourself.
12:17Right, Mr. Mackay.
12:24Oh, sorry.
12:35Sorry.
12:50God, by the time they get to us, we shall be dead from exposure.
12:53Like Robert Taylor in that picture.
12:56What picture?
12:57Oh, it was the western about buffalo hunting in the deep frozen north.
13:01He had to spend all night outdoors.
13:04Up a tree, he was.
13:07Why was he up a tree?
13:08Huh?
13:08Oh, he was avoiding the marauding buffalo, driven half crazy by the extreme cold.
13:13Oh, yes, marauding buffalo.
13:15Driven half crazy by the extreme cold.
13:18Much as we'll be in about an hour, you know.
13:21Got any farms or houses round here?
13:24Well, there's a cottage not far.
13:26Well, let's go there, then.
13:27Oh, no, no, we can't do that, no.
13:29Mr. Mackay said we had to wait in the van.
13:31Oh, well, we'll die in the van, then.
13:33I don't care.
13:36Anyway, to be all locked up, I mean, they only use it in the summer.
13:39So what?
13:39Well, how will we get in?
13:41Oh, Mr. Barraclough.
13:42Huh?
13:43I'm only a flaming housebreaker, ain't I?
13:51Ah.
13:54Oh, I wish we had a drop of milk.
13:56Ah, still, it's the hot drink that counts, isn't it?
13:58And you'd think they'd have had a bit of sugar about, wouldn't you?
14:00Yeah.
14:01Here, hang on.
14:01Wait a minute.
14:03Try a drop of this in it.
14:04Here, hold that.
14:05Oh, no, I don't drink.
14:06What is it?
14:07Scotch.
14:08Oh, no, no.
14:08Anyway, I'm on duty.
14:09Ah, it's all right.
14:10It's medicinal, this is.
14:11This'll revive us.
14:12Take the chill out of our numb bones, this will.
14:14Where did you get it?
14:16Uh, it must have accidentally fallen out of Mr. Mackay's pocket when he got out the van.
14:21You stole it?
14:22No, I didn't.
14:23I told you it fell off the back of the van.
14:27Is whisky medicinal?
14:28Oh, yeah.
14:30Well, I always feel better when I've had a few.
14:33Oh, well, if it's medicinal, then it is New Year's Eve, isn't it?
14:36That's it?
14:36No, that's it, no.
14:37Oh, honest.
14:38What do you mean, New Year's Eve?
14:39Look here, look.
14:39It's caught past its New Year already, isn't it?
14:41It is.
14:42Well, all the best, then.
14:43Happy New Year.
14:44Cheers.
14:45Oh, sorry, go on.
14:46After you, go on.
14:51Ah, it's like the Defiant Ones, isn't it?
14:54I beg your pardon?
14:55That was a picture, that was.
14:56Defiant Ones, did you see that?
14:57That was about two convicts who were on the run, you know.
15:00They were chained together like this, yeah, yeah.
15:02Only one of them was black and one was white, yeah.
15:05If you had a bit of colour blood in you instead of all that Polish rubbish,
15:08you could be Sidney Poitier to my Tony Curtis, couldn't you?
15:12You know, we have a cinema club at the prison.
15:15See, only last Tuesday we showed Irrigation in the Gobi Desert.
15:19Now, that was on the same bill as Birds of the Farne Islands.
15:22Oh, standing room only, was it?
15:24Oh, no, funny, there wasn't much of a turnout that night.
15:26Oh, I'm amazed.
15:29You know, my wife likes the pictures, but we don't go much these days.
15:33Oh, well, no wonder.
15:33It's so flaming remote up here, isn't it?
15:35Stuck in the middle of Cumberland.
15:36Where are you going to find a cinema?
15:38Oh, well, that's the trouble, you see.
15:40You know, my wife feels very, very bad about being deprived of the excitement
15:45and the amenities that a city can offer, you know.
15:48She's always terribly unsettled whenever we come back
15:51from our monthly day trip to Workington.
15:53Oh, yeah, yeah.
15:55See, I can understand how the lights of Workington would turn a young girl's head, yeah.
16:00What do you mean?
16:00Well, come on, mate.
16:02I mean it isn't Workington.
16:03I ain't even got Christianity up here yet.
16:06Can't even go to a church social, can you?
16:09No, it's different for you Londoners.
16:11You know, my wife's always wanted to be cosmopolitan.
16:14I suppose I should have put in for a transfer to the Scrubs or Brixton.
16:19Oh, well, if you go to Brixton, of course, now you've got to be Sydney party, ain't you?
16:27It's too late now.
16:30Yeah.
16:32So your old lady, she feels a bit deprived, does it?
16:36Oh, well, she sees a future of frustrated ambition stretching before her.
16:41Doesn't like what I do, you know, or where we live.
16:45Oh, so over the years, she's grown bitter and unsettled,
16:50full of restless urges, which have manifested themselves in different ways, like,
16:56you know, like bad temper and spots and sleeping with the postman.
17:02Well, I've been liaisons with other men, you know.
17:04Oh, we, you know, we got to rowing all the time and,
17:08oh, things went from bad to worse.
17:10In the end, we went to see this marriage guidance counsellor.
17:12Oh, yeah. That helped, did it?
17:15Well, it helped her, she ran off with him.
17:26Well, you're well out of it then, ain't you?
17:28You're well out of an old slag like that, ain't you?
17:32She's come back.
17:38Well, people change, don't they?
17:40I blame myself, really, you know.
17:43Yeah, well, I'm a failure, you know.
17:46No, I'm only hanging on to this job, bit of skin on my teeth, you know.
17:51Oh, well, I got so depressed, I, well, I thought I'd better
17:55go and see the prison psychiatric department, you know,
17:58let them have a look at me inferiority complex.
18:01Well, not a complex, really, I'm inferior.
18:06Oh, come on, mate, look, I don't know you very well,
18:08but I know you're the sort of man with compassion and kindness and that sort of thing.
18:13I mean, that's not the sort of thing you can buy, is it, eh?
18:16I mean, would you swap that for a colour telly or a penthouse in Workington?
18:20Of course you wouldn't.
18:22I don't suppose I would.
18:23Here, I'll finish this off.
18:24Oh, no, no, no.
18:25Look, you see, it's no good going through life wishing you were something else, is it?
18:29I mean, you are fulfilled, you're doing the job you've always wanted to do, ain't you?
18:34I mean, you've got to say to yourself, this is what I am.
18:38I am what I am.
18:40And when it's all over, you can look God straight in the eye and say, I've done it my way.
18:50I've done it my way.
18:53Confidence in yourself.
18:55Confidence, aye.
18:56Trust your own judgement and initiative.
18:58Ah, initiative.
18:59Why don't you take these handcuffs off?
19:02You know, I've never talked to anybody really before, not like I've talked to you tonight.
19:09Yeah.
19:10Why don't you take these handcuffs off?
19:13Handcuffs?
19:14Yeah, it's the circulation.
19:15See, it's cutting off the blood supply to me head.
19:20Oh, no, we have rules, you see.
19:22I know, but what about judgement?
19:23What about initiative, eh?
19:26I mean, are you going to do it your way or are you going to do it their way?
19:30Confidence in yourself, innit?
19:38I'm going to take them off.
19:42I am, you know.
19:44I'm going to take them off because if I don't, I'll be betraying the prisoners' principles
19:51and me own principles in not approaching prisoners with sympathy and understanding.
19:57Yeah.
19:58You know, you, you are a criminal.
20:02You know, you're hereditary and you're habitual.
20:05But, you see, if we don't show you trust, how can you learn trust?
20:11Well, that is irrefutable.
20:14What more can I say?
20:18You know, that whisky's gone to my head, you know.
20:22Yeah.
20:24I feel quite drowsy.
20:26That's another reason for taking the handcuffs off, innit?
20:28We couldn't kip down here like babes in the wood, could we, eh?
20:33You know, I can hardly keep me eyes open.
20:35Here, why don't you put your feet up?
20:36Come on.
20:36Stick your feet up here.
20:37That's it.
20:38Get a proper decent bit of shadow.
20:39Come on.
20:40I'll get this chair over here, see?
20:43All right?
20:44Oh, you know, I hope you decide to join my botany group.
20:52I should give it serious consideration, Squire.
20:55Ah, you know, Fletcher, I feel a better man for tonight.
21:02You know, I feel confident.
21:05I don't feel a failure.
21:08No, I feel that for once I've used me judgment.
21:14And I'm right.
21:15What?
21:16Aye.
21:19Right about you, Fletcher.
21:24Mr. Barclough?
21:43Mr. Barclough?
21:54Mr. Barclough?
23:24Mr. Barclough?
23:55Yes.
24:19Stay out of it, Fletcher.
24:24What's the matter with you?
24:32God, you did give me a fright. What are you doing here?
24:35That's what I like to know.
24:38Oh, dear.
24:40What were you doing with that saucepan?
24:42Eh? Oh, I was getting some milk.
24:46Trying to get some milk, see, for your coffee.
24:48I thought it might be a stray cow about.
24:51You look terrible, you know. I saw you've been up all night.
24:54Well, I couldn't sleep, could I?
24:59Well, you know, it was a very nice thought of yours, but you shouldn't have done it, you know.
25:03Oh, you could have got lost.
25:05Oh, people are always getting lost on these fells. They wander around in circles, they do.
25:15So, whose good behaviour last night made him one of the Governor's blue-eyed boys, eh?
25:21Yeah, I must be the first man ever to have earned remission before I even got here.
25:26Don't give me any of your facetious lip, Fletcher.
25:29I know you were trying to work one last night.
25:32On what do you base that supposition, Mr. McCoy?
25:34On the evidence of our motor mechanics report on the van.
25:42It appears that the petrol tank had more in it after our journey than before.
25:49Only what was in the tank was certainly not five-star.
25:56Now, I'm going to be watching you, Fletcher.
26:00I'm going to be watching you like a hawk, because nobody, nobody goes over the wall in my prison.
26:07Oh, no, Mr. McCoy, no. No-one would dare take the petrol out of you.
26:18What did you say to the Governor?
26:19What?
26:20I said, what did you say to the Governor?
26:21Well, I gave him a rollicking, did he?
26:22No, far from it.
26:24No, he congratulated me on my handling of the situation.
26:27Praised my ability to keep calm in a crisis.
26:29Oh, well, that's all right, isn't it?
26:30Oh, but you must have said something.
26:32Well, all I said was that any naughty thoughts I'd harboured of escaping
26:35were quickly squashed by the coolness and authority of my escort, Mr. Barraclough,
26:40a man whom I later owed my life,
26:42knowing the fact that he forced me from the vehicle against my wishes
26:45to take shelter against the elements,
26:47supporting and half-carrying my exhausted body across several miles of rough terrain.
26:52Only what anyone would have said, really.
26:54Did you really mean that, Fletcher?
26:56No.
26:59I just thought it was a good idea if you and I started off the new year
27:02on a good footing with the authorities, that's all.
27:04I've never been praised before.
27:06Go on, how does it feel?
27:07Oh, wonderful.
27:09You know, Fletcher, you've done a lot for me this last 24 hours.
27:13You've, well, you've given me strength and confidence and, well, friendship.
27:18Is there nothing I can do for you in return?
27:20Oh, dare say something will occur to me over the ensuing months, yes.
27:24Matter of fact, there is one little thing now.
27:26Er, if you could see your way clear to getting me some reading matter,
27:29nothing too heavy, you know, the odd glossy nude.
27:32Certainly.
27:33And when you've turned yourself round, perhaps we could do something about this cell,
27:36like shifting me to another one that faces south-west.
27:38Because, I mean, I'm never going to get any sun in here, am I?
27:40It won't be difficult, you see.
27:41Oh, and this botany club of yours, is it nature walks?
27:43Is it outside the prison?
27:44Outside.
27:45Put me down for that, would you, as soon as possible?
27:47Thanks, it's awfully nice.
27:48Listen, I'll tell you what...
27:49APPLAUSE