The Therapy Zone

 I Am The New Number 2

So what happened to the old one?

    Well we know that on Number 2 of ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ possibly ended up in the Psychiatric wing of the hospital. Another possibly escaped by helicopter, this whilst having a detonator device in his hands in ‘Its Your Funeral,’ if he didn’t escape, but was brought back, either by the helicopter pilot, or of his own volition, then he would have been quietly retired to the Old Peoples Home!

   Number 2 of ‘Free For All,’ left the Village via helicopter which he piloted himself, after handing power over to the new Number 2. Of course two Number 2’s have been known to have been brought back to the village, in both ‘The General,’ and ‘Once Upon A Time.’ In fact Number 2 is heard to say during a telephone conversation in ‘Once Upon A Time’ "You can say what you like. You brought me back here. I told you last time, you were using the wrong approach." So this confirms that at least two Number 2’s were trusted enough to leave the village, to go back to London. Number 2 of ‘Once Upon A Time,’ and that of ‘Free For All,’ and no doubt all the others too. I cannot really see any Number 2 being held in a place of security, only to be wheeled out when he or she was needed, can you?

Village Psychology

Number 2 “Lets have him in for tests!”

Doctor: cat

No.6: Dog

Rain

Shine

Desk

Work

Hope

Anchor

Doctor: Anchor?

No.6: Hope and Anchor, a pub I used to drink at!

Tree

Leaf

Home

Away

Return

Game

Love

Game

Doctor: game?

No.6: Tennis

Table

Chair

Ship

Shape

Red

Sails

Free

For all.

    Such is the word association test which Number 6 was put through under tests at the hospital during the episode of ‘Checkmate.’ One association is "Hope and Anchor" the pub where No.6 used to drink. Because during ‘The Girl Who Was Death’ the Prisoner pulls into the car park of the Thatched Barn, and then in the bar, Doris the barmaid, asks "The usual sir?" "Please Doris" he replies. And this suggests that it is the Thatched Barn that is his local. But then I suppose one is allowed more than one local pub to drink at.

   No, there is more to the Hope and Anchor than that, because not too far from where I live in Leicestershire, England, there is the village of Wanlip. And just outside Wanlip is the public house of the 'Hope and Anchor.' And what's more I've been there, and discovered that the students of the nearby School/College of Ratcliffe, at the time when Patrick McGoohan was a pupil there, the said students used to drink at the afore mentioned 'Hope and Anchor.' So it is quite possible that the pupil McGoohan also went there. It is true to say that childhood experiences remain with us throughout our lives.

    And on the matter of School days, that straw boater which No.6 wears in the embryo room during part of ‘Once Upon A Time,’ might, and I do say might, just be a straw boater of Ratcliffe school. Certainly it is a different straw boater to the one he wore for such a short time after leaving the hospital in Arrival.

    Straw boaters, piped blazers. Reads like the Henley boating regatta, or that of the Stock market. Where the wearing of such piped blazers is the norm, as at the Henley Boating regatta!

    Two other word associations would be 'Red - Sails - in the sunset, and ‘Free - For All,’ being ‘Free For All,’ the episode of his election to the position of No.2 in the village!

Be seeing you