It’s all to be found in the Tally Ho Archive!
There is a stout door at the top, another stout door at the bottom and 125 steps in between! Such is the deep, dark, dank and dusty world of our own Archivist-No.3. A world in which few are invited to step, such is the treasured papers and information contained therein. But it was the editor himself who was invited on one occasion, to transcend the 125 steps into the vaulted room below. And so it was strong bolts were drawn back, and then a deep creaking sound filled the air as a solid oak door was pushed open, and a bony finger beckoned from within the gloom beyond.
Candle light wasn't in it as the Archivist-No.3 closed the solid oak door behind the visitor, a key turned and two stout bolts shot back into place.
"Can't be too security conscious" No.3 told his visitor.
"Haven't you got electricity down here?" the visitor asked staring into the gloom.
"Too bright, I find gaslight the best. Don't worry, you'll soon adjust to it." No.3 said leading the way into the vault.
"Please sit down. Perhaps you would like some tea, a biscuit perhaps?" suggested the Archivist.
Sure enough the visitors eyes soon began to get accustomed to the gloom and observed just how well suited this slightly built man was to his environment. "You seem to have everything in order down here, everything to hand."
"Oh, I have everything I need down here... even proper biscuits!" the Archivist said placing a tea plate on the table.
"Proper biscuits?" enquired the visitor.
"Proper biscuits" the Archivist replied pouring hot water into the brown tea pot "the ones with the cream in the middle!"
And so it went on over tea and "proper biscuits" until the conversation came around to the actual contents of the Archive, which I hasten to add, No.3 is very protective of. However after a little persuasion on the part of the visitor, our editor, No.3 did describe some of the Archives contents.
"Oh there's magazines down here from local group publications to society journals as ‘Number Six,’ ‘In The Village’ and ‘Free For All, Camera Obscure, Orbit 48, the Penny Farthing,” all of which are now long since gone. Yet some can be fopun don say on ebay from time to time. As are the early Alert sheets, old foolscap size they are, individual sheets of different colours, but all with black text. ‘The Village Observer,’ which carried news from the Italianate village of Portmeirion
"What have you there?" asked the visitor.
"The Prisoner Handbook. Not much of a ‘Prisoner’ handbook if you ask me, twenty percent Prisoner and eighty percent about Six of One I should think" putting the book back on the shelf.
"Six ofOone?" the visitor prompted.
"That Prisoner appreciation society, pity Steven Paul Davis couldn't find more to write about the Prisoner!"
"Do you have a coy of every book published to do with the Prisoner?"
"Oh yes, and in some cases two copies. From novels to ‘Prisoner’ companions and graphic novels, even that ‘Prisoner’ part-work."
"I see you have video's as well" the visitor observed.
"Oh plenty of video material down here. Take those Prisoner Investigated, In-depth, inspired, in conclusion and in production videos. All full of interviews with surviving cast and crew members who worked on the Prisoner. Six Into One: The Prisoner file, supposed to have put the Prisoner into context that was. And then there's, oh we won't bother with that one."
"Why what's that video?"
"The infamous LA tape..... came with a free coat hanger that copy did!"
"Coat hanger?" asked the visitor.
"You don't want to know!" the Archivist advised "Then there are some scripts, only photocopies I'm afraid. Convention reports, models of the vehicles used in the series. Boxes of badges, posters, photographs, got dozens and dozens of photographs, postcards. Mugs, got a penny farthing down here some place."
"And records." the visitor added.
"Records, cd's, cassette tapes all of the sound track music, recorded interviews and the like. You name anything about ‘the Prisoner,’ and this archive has got it, somewhere!"
"Tell me, are there any other archives as this, Prisoner related archives?"
Well there are collections of course. But an archive? Well I know someone who was invited to an archive, and when he got there, there was nothing in it!"
"What kind of archive was that?" smirked the visitor.
"An empty one. Well when I say empty, all there was a poster and a "WHO" album!"
"And nothing else?"
"Any such ‘Prisoner’ related material was conspicuous by its absence!
Well it was a long climb back up those 125 steps, and after climbing only a few I could hear the big oak door being closed behind me, a key turned and two stout bolts drawn back into place, leaving me to feel and climb my way back to my office in the gloom.
Be seeing you
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