The Prisoner At 50

   Getting on for 50 years after the event, and we think we know the Prisoner. Yes there are things we do know, and things we think we know, and yet there are still things that we can never know the answer to. Such as where did the maid in ‘Arrival’ hide? The maid the Prisoner saw standing on the small balcony of his cottage waving a yellow duster in the air. The Prisoner ran round to the door of his cottage, but there wasn’t any sign of her, not until he looked out of the window to se her scurrying away along the path and down some steps. The Prisoner should have met the girl coming out of his cottage, but he didn’t. And what made the maid leave the cottage of ‘6 Private’ so quickly? She couldn’t have been afraid to be caught there, after all she was only doing her job, even if the room didn’t need dusting!
    And Fotheringay, who seemed genuinely looking forward to seeing an old colleague again. It may be supposed that he had no choice than to do as the Colonel instructed. But what Fotheringay did was a betrayal, but let’s tell it like it is. The only reason Fotheringay was in The Village was to help egg the cake! If Number 6 had arrived in what he thought to be the Colonel’s office, without sight nor sound of Fotheringay, he might, he just might have smelt a rat. So Fotheringay was there merely to dress the scene. Once that had been achieved his services were dispensed with. So what were these embarrassing questions which might have been asked? Wasn’t Fotheringay meant to be away from the department? Perhaps he was working for another department within British Intelligence, and his superiors were not supposed to know about it. And the Colonel, he looked a worried man once Number 6 had discovered the deception. He was effectively doing the job Number 2 normally carried out, so perhaps Number 2 told Fotheringay that the Colonel would give him further orders when he returns to London……….. but perhaps he didn’t actually return to London. After all it’s usually Number 2 who carries the can for failure. But in this case Number 2 hadn’t got it wrong.  So perhaps in this instance the Colonel paid the price for failure, whatever that price might have been. But this is all conjecture, because we simply do not know.
    On another matter, where did that bloke get to, the Prisoner saw up in the Bell Tower in ‘Arrival?’ As a matter of fact a number of fans used to insist that it was a child! What’s more I once came across someone at a memorabilia event, who told me he had met someone who claimed they had been that child!
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