(this is the pilot of the tv-series)
Right. He's all yours, then. And a happy New Year, jock.
- Aye. Escort duty on New Year's Eve. - Happy New Year, Fletcher.
Oh, yes. Very witty. Very droll Yes.
(JIUDGE) Norman Stanley Fletcher,
you have pleaded guilty to the charges brought by this court.
It is my duty to pass sentence, You are an habitual criminal',
who accepts arrest as an occupational hazard,
and presumably accepts imprisonment in the same casual manner.
We therefore fee! constrained to commit' you
to the maximum term allowed for these offences.
You will go to prison for five years. Do you wish to address the court?
- Cobblers. - What?
What Brian Clough says about London clubs.
- That is my paper. - Can I read your dirty book, then?
- Get your own. - We're in motion.
You should have thought of that before.
I wasn't even allowed a jimmy Riddle.
Shut your mouth!
- You can read my Angling Times. - He can't.
Mollycoddling him already. People seem to forget what prison is for.
He's paying a debt to society,
not having an all-expenses paid holiday with magazines.
You're going to prison to be punished.
I spy with my Little eye something beginning with C.
You watch it, sonny. Watch it.
Constable.
- Look, don't you come it with rne. - I wouldn't, Mr Mackay.
Otherwise, you'd wait till we get to Hemel Hempstead and chuck rne out.
Put it down as attempted escape
- He wouldn't do that. - I suppose not.
He couldn't spell Hemel Hempstead. He'd wait till we got to Rugby.
Now, Look. One more allegation of brutality and I'll let you have it.
We've got a long journey. We don't want to conduct it
in an atmosphere of hostility and aggression, do we?
Why don't we have a nice cup of tea?
- No, you sit still. I'll get them. - I'll pay, then. Anything you want?
Tea with two sugars. One of them fruit...
He's a giggle, isn't he?
Perhaps it's with being Scotch and missing Hogmanay.
- They take it very seriously. - Oh, yeah.
Well, they take any excuse for drinking seriously.
There's nothing social about their drinking.
It's not a question of just mellowing over a glass of vino.
They just drink to get drunk, don't they?
Cor! Look at her!
Only one thing worse than a drunk Scotsman - a sober one.
- I'm Scots on my mother's side. - That's different.
Second generation. That's different.
I'm a mixture. Scots, English, Irish and Polish.
Oh? Your mum got about a bit, didn't she?
- No, I didn't mean... - I'm pure London. Pure North London.
If you go to Muswell Hill, the graveyard's full of Fletchers.
Shall I tell you something? There's been a Fletcher around our way
going right back to Henry IV, Part I.
I've no heritage myself. I had a granddad in Accrington.
My great granddad was William Wellington Fletcher.
He was the last man in England to be hung for sheep stealing.
There was Matthew Jarvis Fletcher. He was at Newgate with jack Sheppard.
- So it runs in the family, crime? - Probably. Yeah.
I know there's a load of Fletchers in Australia.
- Are you from a rough neighbourhood? - No, Muswell Hill
It's very respectable. Suburban.
- Broken home? - No, just had their diamond wedding.
I was just wondering why.
Well, when I left school, I went round the Labour
to appraise the opportunities open to me, know what I mean?
Due to my lack of scholastic achievement,
I was unable to follow professions I wanted to, like stock brokering
or teaching tennis in a girls' school.
As I didn't fancy working in the cardboard box factory,
- I robbed a sub-post office. - And never looked back since.
No. Nor have I ever been short of stamps.
- What are you in for this time? - Don't ask. It's a farce.
I should have stuck to what I know, housebreaking,
but I lift this lorry. Impulse steal. I thought it would be a doddle.
- I gather it wasn't. - You know why? Brakes failed.
It's criminal how they let lorries on the road in that condition.
And he was overloaded. So I'm roaring along with five ton at my back.
- It's a wonder you weren't killed. - I went through three gardens,
crashed through a wall, finished up in someone's tool shed.
Did they get you for wilful destruction of property?
- Eh? - Knocking that wall down.
Yeah. I asked for six other fences to be taken into consideration.
- Get it? Get it? - Pardon?
Never mind.
Hang on. Would you like a bit of this?
Oh... Oh, no. You've only got a bit left.
Oh, yeah.
- What made you take up this Lark? - Prison Service?
Yeah. What made you fancy it?
I always wanted some vocation which would enable rne to satisfy my desire
to do work of public usefulness... and get a free house and a uniform.
- What's it like, this nick? - It's very good. It's modern.
It's experimental. We've got a cricket pitch and a psychiatrist.
- Still, bird's bird, innit? - Not in this place.
If you were to take advantage of our courses,
of our many occupational and/or recreational activities,
you could come out an intermediate welder
- or an accomplished oboe player. - Oh, yeah?
It's a pity you're not in Longer. You could take civil engineering.
That is a pity, yeah. Pity I'm not doing a ten-stretch.
I could have taken my welding finals and become a doctor of philosophy.
You know, I'm an amateur botanist, myself.
Sometimes I take prisoners on the fells,
and we explore the natural phenomena of the countryside.
- The fells? - Aye. Lovely views.
Yeah... I might put down for that. That might interest me, that.
The natural phenomena of our countryside.
How far's the nearest railway station?
That's the beauty. We're miles from anywhere.
Oh! Are we?
- You could learn woodwork... - Listen. Listen.
I don't want no reconditioning, no resettlement courses.
All I want to do is count the days till I get out.
You'll change, you know? Oh, yes.
Even some of the most cynical criminals have changed at this place.
You see, they respond to our methods, which are not based on punishment,
but on sympathy and understanding.
- Ah, thank you. - I forget whether you take sugar,
but it makes no difference, because I spilled most of yours.
But what you gonna do about it, eh?
Where's all this sympathy and understanding?
What's he doing working at this nick? He'd bring back the birch, he would.
- What's he on about? - Mr Mackay runs several activities.
Oh? Like rock-breaking and compulsory pot-holing, I suppose.
I'll soon have you in shape. You'll be a shadow of your former self.
I'll bet he's secretary of the Lord Chief justice Appreciation Society.
You show rne some respect, keep your nose clean, you'll be all right.
- I'm hard but fair. - Like Leeds United.
If you like. You play ball with rne and you'll find I'm a reasonable man.
- Oh. Can I look at your dirty book? - You get to hell!
You have to admire consistency.
Try Page 24. Ooh, dear!
- How far, then? - About an hour across the fells.
- Can I have a jimmy Riddle? - Should have thought of that before.
I did. There's been nothing else on my mind.
Why won't you let me go to the Lavatory?
Oh... I see what you mean, yeah.
You better let him go. We can't stop in transit.
All right, then. Around the back.
Thanks, Mr Mackay.
(ENGINE CLUNKS)
- What do you reckon? - I'm no mechanic.
Plugs? Ignition?
Put the bracelets on him.
And don't you be thinking fate has given you a last chance at freedom.
- I don't believe in fate. - (ENGINE STRUGGLES)
- Sounds like the carburettor - Have to get the bus, won't we?
What bus?
Well, hitch a Lift, then.
Who drives round here on New Year's Eve?
- Who drives round here any time? - Getting a bit parky, innit?
It'll be dark soon.
God almighty!
Hasn't one of your courses taught you how to cope with mechanical failure?
It's survival we'll want out here.
It'll be dark soon. And they forecast snow.
Pull yourself together, Mr Barrowclough.
Don't take it out on him.
Look, there's one thing for it. I am going on.
I'm going on to the prison. You do not move from here,
and you do not take the bracelets off him. Right?
- Right, Mr Mackay. - And you, behave yourself.
Right, Mr Mackay.
Ooh, sorry! Sorry.
(HOWLING WIND)
Gawd! By the time they get here, we'll be dead from exposure...
- like Robert Taylor in that picture. - What picture?
It was a western about buffalo hunting in the frozen north.
He had to spend all night out of doors. Up a tree, he was.
- Why was he up a tree? - He was avoiding buffalo
driven half crazy by the extreme cold.
Oh, yes...buffalo...
...driven half crazy by the extreme cold.
As much as we'll be in about an hour.
- Ain't there any houses around here? - There's a cottage not far.
- Let's go, then. - Oh, we can't do that.
- Mr Mackay said to wait in the van. - Oh, we'll die in the van, then.
It'll be Locked. They only use it in summer.
- So? - How will we get in?
Oh, Mr Barrowclough! I'm only a flamin' housebreaker, ain't I?
- I wish we had some milk. - It's the hot drink that counts.
You'd think they'd have had some sugar about.
'Ere, hang on. Try a drop of this in it.
- Oh, I don't drink. What is it? - Scotch.
- I'm on duty. - It's medicinal.
This'll revive us, take the chill out of our bones.
- Where did you get it? - It fell out of Mr Mackay's pocket.
- You stole it! - No, it fell off the van.
- Is whisky medicinal? - Oh, yeah.
Well, I always feel better when I've had a few.
Well, if it's medicinal, and it is New Year's Eve...
- That's enough. - What do you mean, New Year's Eve?
It's quarter past. It's New Year already.
Well, all the best, then. Happy New Year.
Go on. After you.
- Ah! It's like "The Defiant Ones". - I beg your pardon?
That was a picture. Did you see that?
That was about two convicts on the run.
They were chained together like this.
Only one was black and one was white.
If you had coloured blood instead of Polish,
you could be Sidney Poitier to my Tony Curtis.
We have a cinema club at the prison.
Only last Tuesday, we showed "lrrigation in the Gobi Desert"
on the same bill as "Birds of the Farne Islands".
- Standing room only, was it? - Funny.
- There wasn't much of a turnout. - Oh, I'm amazed.
My wife Likes the pictures, but we don't go much these days.
Well, it's so flamin' remote. Stuck in the middle of Cumberland.
- Where would you find a cinema? - Well, that's the trouble.
My wife feels very bad about being deprived
of the excitement and amenities that a city can offer.
She's always terribly unsettled when we come back from Workington.
Oh, yeah. I can understand how the Lights of Workington
would turn a young girl's head.
- How do you mean? - Amenities in Workington?
They haven't got Christianity yet. You can't even go to a church social
It's different for you Londoners. My wife wanted to be cosmopolitan.
I should have put in for a transfer to Brixton.
If you go to Brixton, you've got to be Sidney Poitier.
It's too late now.
Oh... So, your old Lady, she feels a bit deprived, is it?
Well, she sees a future of frustrated ambition stretching before her.
She doesn't like what I do or where we live.
Also, over the years, she's grown bitter and unsettled,
full of restless urges,
which have manifested themselves in different ways...
you know, like a bad temper and spots and sleeping with the postman.
There have been liaisons with other men.
We got to rowing all the time. Things went from bad to worse.
In the end, we saw this marriage guidance counsellor.
- That helped? - Well, it helped her.
She ran off with him.
Well, you're well out of it. Well out of an old slag like that, eh?
She's come back.
Well, people change, don't they?
I blame meself, really. Well... I'm a failure, you know?
I'm only hanging onto this job by the skin of my teeth.
I got so depressed,
I thought I'd better see the prison psychiatric department,
let them have a look at my inferiority complex.
Well, it's not a complex, really. I am inferior.
Come on, mate. I don't know you very well,
but I know you're a man with compassion and kindness.
That's not the sort of thing you can buy.
Would you swap that for a colour telly or a penthouse in Workington?
- I don't suppose I would. - Finish this off.
It's no good going through Life wishing you were something else.
You are fulfilled. You're doing a job you always wanted to do.
You've got to say to yourself, "This is what I am. I am what I am."
And when it's allover, you can look God straight in the eye and say,
"I done it my way."
- Confidence in yourself. - Confidence...
Trust your own judgment and initiative.
- Ah, initiative... - Why not take these handcuffs off?
You know, I've never talked to anybody like I've talked to you tonight.
Yeah. Why don't you take these handcuffs off?
- Handcuffs? - Yeah, it's the circulation.
It's cutting off the blood supply to me head.
- Oh, no. We have rules, you see. - What about judgment, initiative?
I mean, are you gonna do it your way or their way?
Confidence in yourself, innit?
I'm going to take them off.
I am, you know. I'm going to take them off, because if I don't,
I'll be betraying the prison's principles and my own principles,
in not approaching prisoners with sympathy and understanding.
See, now, you... You are a criminal.
Oh, yeah. Hereditary and habitual.
But if we don't show you trust, how can you learn trust?
Well, that is...that is irrefutable.
What more can I say?
You know... That whisky's gone to my head, you know?
- Oh! I feel quite drowsy. - Another reason for taking them off.
We couldn't kip like babes in the wood.
Oh... I can hardly keep rne eyes open.
Why don't you put your feet up? Get a proper decent bit of shut-eye.
I'll get this chair over here, see? All right?
Oh, you know... I hope you decide to join my botany group.
Oh, well... I shall give it serious consideration, squire.
Oh, you know, Fletcher, I feel a better man for tonight.
You know, I feel confident. I don't feel a failure.
No, I feel that... for once, I've used my judgment...
- ...and I'm right. - Right?
Aye... Right about you...Fletcher.
Mr Barrowclough?
(PANTS)
(DOG BARKS)
(SHEEP BLEAT)
(COCKEREL CROWS)
(MAN COUGHS)
Are you out here, Fletcher?
- Mr Barrowclough! - You gave me a fright!
- What are you doing here? - That's what I'd like to know.
Oh, dear!
What were you doing with that saucepan?
Eh? Er... Oh, I was trying to get some milk for your coffee.
I thought there might be a stray cow about.
You look as though you've been up all night.
I couldn't sleep, could I?
Well, it was a nice thought, but you could have got lost.
People are always getting lost. They wander round in circles.
Right.
So? Whose good behaviour last night
made him one of the Governor's blue-eyed boys?
I must be the first man to earn remission before I got here.
Don't give me that. I know you were trying to work one Last night.
On what do you base that supposition?
On the evidence of our mechanic's report on the van.
- Oh. - It appears that the petrol tank
had more in it after our journey than before.
Only what was in the tank was certainly not five-star.
Now, I'm gonna be watching you, Fletcher.
I'm gonna be watching you like a hawk,
because nobody goes over the wall in my prison.
No, Mr Mackay. No. No one'd dare take the petrol out of you.
- What did you say to the Governor? - Give you a rollicking, did he?
Far from it. He congratulated rne on my handling of the situation,
- my ability to keep calm in a crisis. - That's all right.
- You must have said something. - just that any thoughts of escaping
were quickly squashed by the coolness and authority of Mr Barrowclough,
a man to whom I owed my life, when he forced rne from the vehicle
to take shelter against the elements, half carrying my exhausted body
across several miles of rough terrain.
- Only what anyone would have said. - Did you really mean that?
No. I just thought it was a good idea for us to start the new year
on a good footing with the authorities.
- I've never been praised. - How does it feel?
Wonderful! You've done a lot for me this last 24 hours.
You've given me strength and confidence and friendship.
Can I do anything for you in return?
I daresay something will occur to rne. There is one thing now.
If you could get some reading matter. Nothing heavy, the odd glossy nude.
- Certainly. - And do something about this cell.
Shift me to one facing south-west. I'LL never get any sun here.
- Could be difficult... - This botany club, nature walks, is it?
Outside? Put me down for that!