The Trivia!

    There are lines from ‘Arrival’ which are repeated during ‘Free For All,’ “I am not a number, I am a person” and the classic line “I am not a number, I am a free man”. The fact that this line is repeated so often in the series does perhaps reinforce the message. As a matter of fact, it was once stated that if Patrick McGoohan hadn’t been allowed to say that particular line, he probably wouldn’t have done the series at all! And if you believe that, you’ll believe anything!!

    In ‘Many Happy Returns’ having been washed up on the shore at Beachy Head and having scaled the white chalky cliffs, Number 6 follows a gipsy out walking his whippet to a gipsy camp site. There he asks the young gipsy woman “Where is this place?”

    It has been said that these first words Number 6 speaks, not “Where am I?” but “Where is this place?” are quite revealing in his personality. He knows where he is, just like he knows who he is. Well of course Number 6 knows where he is, he must have recognised the lighthouse at Beachy Head and the white chalky cliffs all along the coast. He knows he is back in England and so “Where is this place?” refers to the gipsy camp. When the Prisoner utters those immortal words “Where am I?” it is because he is disorientated having just woken up in what he thought to be his own home. But then looking out of the window he finds he isn’t home at all, hence “Where am I?”

Be seeing you