The Therapy Zone

     “Call the substitute, call the substitute, the substitute, the substitute, call the substitute."

   That's what happened during the human chess match during the episode of Checkmate, when the Rook-No.53 made an independent move on the chessboard. "The cult of the individual" as the white Queen-No.8 put it.

    However it was not only the Supervisor-No.56 who called for the Rook to be substituted, for another Rook it has to be said. Because the late world chess champion and Grand Master Bobby Fischer, also had the notion of substituting the Rook! Not for another Rook it has to be said, but by a new and different chess piece all together, and one making a very different move to the Rook altogether. Bobby Fischer is pictured here, a Grand Master playing in New York in 1962.

   During filming at Portmeirion in September 1966, the production crew used colourful striped screen to hide something which should not be there. Such as parked cars belonging to guests staying at Portmeirion at the time.

    To get guests and their luggage around the village during the filming of the Prisoner, a porter working at Portmeirion was able to use one of the village Mini-Mokes to ferry guests and their luggage about the village - unseen.

    The most frequently used numbers in the Village are 8, 12, 14, 22.

    The Professor and Madame Professor are the only citizens in the village allowed to wear their own clothes, rather than the regular village attire. Such are the special privileges which the Professor and Madam professor enjoy.

    The Penny Farthing bicycle seen pushed around the Village, and that of No.2's office, where the Penny Farthing bicycle is actually free standing. Has been fitted with a pair of stabiliser wheels, one either side of the Farthing wheel.

  Back in 1991 it was announced that a new Telephone line game based on the Prisoner had been devised, although I never actually tried it out myself you understand, devised as I say by Broad system Limited. The length of call depended upon the callers response and success rate. There were no prizes, but promised fun in an interactive situation with Prisonerish goings-on. The system could handle 200 callers at anyone time.

Page Six

    You help people and then it all gets thrown back in your face! No.24-Alison was a clear example of what I mean! No.8-Nadia was another, pretending to get close to me, but was a plant working for them! I hadn't been here five minutes when my so called personal maid started pumping me for information! As for No.8 - that white Queen, well she was kind I suppose in making me a night-cap of hot chocolate. But she was clingy, and now we know why! And No.9, she was assigned to me, but used by me and everyone else. She wouldn't escape with me! Well she knew I was wasting my time trying to escape by helicopter after the day of my arrival here, and she didn't have the - common decency to warn me! My god, there are some vicious women here in the village, I can tell you that from personal experience. Trouble is I don't know which is the worst of them, but No.2 is favourite! All I can say is never trust a woman, not even the four legged variety!

   I don't know if any of our readers have made a close study of the pictures we see on the wall screen in No.2's office during the debriefing of the Prisoner, this on the morning of his arrival in the Village.

   The pictures of course, accompany those in the file which the Prisoner is turning over, from back to front! I doubt very much that the baby seen in the first of the pictures is actually the Prisoner/McGoohan, because the baby in question does not have the McGoohan high brow. The above picture might, and I do say might, be of McGoohan as a member of  Ratcliffe School cricket team. And that could very well be Patrick McGoohan centre of the middle rank.

     Well the pictures are supposed to represent stages in the Prisoner's life, from baby, through childhood, and into adulthood. And the following picture, could also be of McGoohan's time at Ratcliffe School.

   The School's C.C.F - Combined Cadet Force, which McGoohan would have been a member of, and where he learned to handle a rifle and ammunition, later to be demonstrated in the Prisoner episode The Girl Who Was Death.

   As for the other photographs used in the debriefing scene in Arrival, well they are probably ordinary photographs taken in a day in the life of Patrick McGoohan and used in the scene for a day in the life of the Prisoner instead. From waking up. Shaving, dressing. Typing, possibly working on a script for the Prisoner, lying on his bed reading a script, to having a drink at the bar!

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