Minder

From May 2022

I’ve written about the TV series Minder before. But I’ve written about everything before, or at least I’ve written about all the things I’m ever going to write about: Dexys Midnight Runners, Hollyoaks, Izal toilet paper ie all the important stuff in life.

The death on Sunday of actor Dennis Waterman who played the part of Terry McCann, the eponymous minder to George Cole's hapless Arthur Daley, reminded me not so much of the programme itself - the plots of which were paper thin but no less enjoyable for that - but the depiction of a London which is now scarcely recognisable. Certainly unrecognisable to me since I never lived there in the 1980s when the show was set, or at any time before or since.

It's been scientifically proven that on Twitter you're never more than seven tweets away from one about Kevin Bacon. I'd be surprised if you're much further away from a tweet about selfish motorists parking their cars on pavements blocking the way for wheelchair users, people pushing buggies, etc. Trundle down the "discussion" and you'll doubtless find a motorist cry in anguish at the sheer unfairness of it all "But where am I MEANT to park?😡"

And the answer is: on any street of your choosing in London in the 1980s.

Watch any epsiode of Minder and Arthur Daley never has any problem parking his Jaguar XJ6. This is in Shepherd's Bush, bang in the middle of London, the streets are bereft of traffic and I strongly suspect Euston Films didn't have to clear them before the cameras started to roll. It was a different world.

It's strange the things that evoke nostalgia. The photo of McCann and Daley outside the Winchester Club - the motor safely parked unseen off camera - comes from the closing credits of the programme. Don't know what's going on, a conversation about money seems likely, but it takes me back to a London I never knew and I love the image.

Make mine a large VAT, Dave.

Dennis Waterman
Actor
1948 - 2022