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Post by metro1962 on Sept 26, 2022 21:29:27 GMT
John McVicar, who has died aged 82 of a heart attack, was a former armed robber who famously escaped from Durham prison in 1968 and became the subject of a film starring Roger Daltrey of the Who. He would later become a writer and a controversial commentator on crime. Mr McVicar is suspected to have died of a heart attack while walking his husky dog Lucky. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/26/john-mcvicar-obituary |
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Post by Arch Stanton on Sept 27, 2022 8:49:57 GMT
Only really aware of him through the film. Not really bothered reading up on him.
No idea if he was a “good” person or not.
From what I recall he seemed to be rehabilitated and smart enough to realise that ending up in prison for large periods of time is an idiot’s way of spending their life.
RIP McVicar.
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Post by ltd on Sept 27, 2022 12:19:16 GMT
The book he did with Laurie Taylor, the Underworld is a good read, especially when McVicar becomes exasperatad with Taylor's tendency to analyse everything in sociological terms. Some of their adventures are straight out of Minder, including a visit to an after hours drinking club full of cheque kiters, fences and other ne'er do wells.
Billy Rags by Ted Lewis owes quite a lot to McVicar's life story. If you've seen the film you'll find scenes in the book that feel very familiar. I think Lewis and McVicar had some sort of gentleman's handshake deal on what would go in the novel, although McVicar was reportedly not happy at the results. The details are quite murky, even Nick Triplow's Lewis biography can't really get to the bottom of it. I think McVicar, for all his rehabilitation, would still have been a chap I'd've been very wary of crossing.
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Post by AlanH on Sept 27, 2022 17:53:14 GMT
One of those instances where a diplomatic  seems the most sensible reaction as per the rules here. |
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Post by steve99 on Sept 27, 2022 18:48:59 GMT
Kenneth Williams used to attend court trials with his pal Andrew Ray and he mentioned a 1960s trial in his diaries where a group of young men were accused of a robbery. One of the men conducted his own defence and Williams, who wasn't the type to be easily impressed, thought this defence was skilfully carried out. The young guy was John McVicar and when you consider his later career in journalism he could have avoided all that time inside and enjoyed a decent standard of living if he'd turned his back on crime.
I have the book Laurie Taylor wrote with John McVicar and some of it left you shaking your head, criminals making bundles of money then gambling it all away and living from hand to mouth. One guy had made a pile of cash and owned a flat in an affluent area of London as well as a mansion yet got involved in some scam as he was bored. He narrowly avoided being caught, which would almost certainly have led to more 'bird' given his previous record. John McVicar's son didn't heed the warnings from his father's life choices and followed the same path: handed a long prison sentence as a young man, escaping from jail then being recaptured.
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Post by ltd on Sept 28, 2022 9:50:07 GMT
At the risk of infringing the good thought guidelines...for all his undoubted intelligence he does seem to have had a self-destructive or perverse streak in him. The Linford Christie allegations strike me as ill-advised, and the claim that Barry George was some sort of Usual Suspects style criminal mastermand was utterly bizarre.
Wouldn't mind giving his autobiography a look, and definitely going to give The Underworld another read.
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Post by Arch Stanton on Sept 28, 2022 11:52:44 GMT
At the risk of infringing the good thought guidelines...for all his undoubted intelligence he does seem to have had a self-destructive or perverse streak in him. The Linford Christie allegations strike me as ill-advised, and the claim that Barry George was some sort of Usual Suspects style criminal mastermand was utterly bizarre. Wouldn't mind giving his autobiography a look, and definitely going to give The Underworld another read. I don’t know anything about the Linford Christie allegations. Must have passed me by. |
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Post by ltd on Sept 28, 2022 11:56:14 GMT
At the risk of infringing the good thought guidelines...for all his undoubted intelligence he does seem to have had a self-destructive or perverse streak in him. The Linford Christie allegations strike me as ill-advised, and the claim that Barry George was some sort of Usual Suspects style criminal mastermand was utterly bizarre. Wouldn't mind giving his autobiography a look, and definitely going to give The Underworld another read. I don’t know anything about the Linford Christie allegations. Must have passed me by. It was back in the late 90s. The irony of course was that Christie subsequently failed a drug test. McVicar said he was going back to court to get the libel ruling against him overturned, but I don't know if he ever did. |
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Post by barrythebook on Sept 28, 2022 19:10:28 GMT
I remember my late father reiterating something he'd read or watched about John McVicar which has always stuck in my mind.
When McVicar was in prison he used to give the warders a very hard time and in response, while he was in solitary, at mealtimes they'd open the hatch on his cell door and spit in his food before they handed it to him.
Just to p£ss them of even more, he'd eat the food whilst they watched through the hatch, some of the warders urging at what they were seeing.
He didn't seem to be prepared to let anyone get the better of him.
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Post by ltd on Sept 29, 2022 9:44:25 GMT
He didn't seem to be prepared to let anyone get the better of him. He does seem to have been the sort of bloke who'd go a long way just to prove a point. Re: the Linford Christie allegations, I found the judgement where McVicar appealed to the European Court. I didn't read the whole thing, just the summary. He lost there as well. Case probably of some academic interest to serious legal-beagle types.
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Post by steve99 on Sept 29, 2022 18:06:06 GMT
John McVicar clearly had considerable reserves of self-reliance and determination and he could have gone far if he'd have used these qualities in the straight world. Instead he continued to fight against a system which he was never going to get the better of. McVicar's strong resolve was portrayed in the Roger Daltrey film but he wasn't a political prisoner who was jailed for standing true to his principles and speaking out against an evil regime. You wonder how much of the cinema-going public would have sympathised when many of the audience for McVicar the film came from the same background but went to work every day for a modest but honest wage.
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Post by chopper on Oct 3, 2022 21:30:24 GMT
He even had an an appearance in the Arena documentary ‘The Private Life of The Ford Cortina’.
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Post by westminster on Oct 4, 2022 7:32:46 GMT
John McVicar clearly had considerable reserves of self-reliance and determination and he could have gone far if he'd have used these qualities in the straight world. Instead he continued to fight against a system which he was never going to get the better of. McVicar's strong resolve was portrayed in the Roger Daltrey film but he wasn't a political prisoner who was jailed for standing true to his principles and speaking out against an evil regime. You wonder how much of the cinema-going public would have sympathised when many of the audience for McVicar the film came from the same background but went to work every day for a modest but honest wage. Fair points. I thought Roger Daltrey was very good in McVicar though. Great singer as well, always liked his voice and his 1970s stuff in particular. The soundtrack makes the film seem better than it actually is. |
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Post by ltd on Oct 4, 2022 9:40:40 GMT
Re-reading In the Underworld now. MacVicar's just got out of nick and met Laurie Taylor and one of his colleagues in a pub full of screaming queens. Alas Taylor being an academic doesn't milk this scene for its full comic potential. They soon move on to a spieler and before long McVicar is escorting Taylor to all sorts of Winchester-eaque drinking dens where they encounter assorted colourful characters.
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Post by steve99 on Oct 4, 2022 16:52:59 GMT
I haven't read In the Underworld for a while but I recall an undercurrent of the PC prof with some of the scenarios. Laurie Taylor will have been used to the environment of who can be the most right-on with his fellow middle aged student radicals and John McVicar is taking him to these places where reality bites. Hope Laurie had a soothing frappuccino when he returned home to recover from sharing floorspace with all those uncouth fellows.
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Post by westldner on Oct 8, 2022 21:03:53 GMT
RIP McVicar. Like many here, I just know him from the movie and he has a very very rough backstory. More surprised to learnt that he was the same in the 1990s, going to prison. It is nice that his opinion was called upon time and time again, from what I know off, in the last decade.
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Post by ltd on Oct 8, 2022 21:47:28 GMT
RIP McVicar. Like many here, I just know him from the movie and he has a very very rough backstory. More surprised to learnt that he was the same in the 1990s, going to prison. I'm pretty sure he stayed out of prison after being paroled in 1978. He lost a civil action to Linford Christie in the 1990s but the penalty would have been financial in that case. His son went to jail in 1998 and again subsequently - maybe that's who you're thinking of Westie? |
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Post by westminster on Oct 9, 2022 14:16:12 GMT
RIP McVicar. Like many here, I just know him from the movie and he has a very very rough backstory. More surprised to learnt that he was the same in the 1990s, going to prison. I'm pretty sure he stayed out of prison after being paroled in 1978. He lost a civil action to Linford Christie in the 1990s but the penalty would have been financial in that case. His son went to jail in 1998 and again subsequently - maybe that's who you're thinking of Westie? I think that's right. His son went to prison but I don't think John McVicar did. There was the Linford Christie thing and then, after that, he was involved in a fracas with a bloke when out walking his dog (broke the guy's nose with a headbutt apparently). McVicar didn't get done for it though, or at least he didn't get sent down. I think he pleaded self defence, but I don't know the full story. |
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Post by steve99 on Oct 9, 2022 17:26:17 GMT
Anger never seems to leave these guys who have served long sentences, as McVicar would've been well into middle age when he broke the guy's nose. A villain from a generation before McVicar was Frankie Fraser, who was still getting into arguments when he was in his 80s and in an old folk's home.
The whole Linford Christie story descended into farce, with a judge asking what Linford's lunchbox was. It reminds me of the old gag about a judge asking a guy who was found guilty if he has anything to say before sentencing and the latter replies f--- all. The judge asks the clerk of the court what the man said and the clerk repeats "f--- all". The judge says to the clerk that he's sure he saw the guilty man's lips move. I'd be surprised if that one wasn't mentioned in John McVicar's company at some point.
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Post by westldner on Oct 11, 2022 13:05:53 GMT
RIP McVicar. Like many here, I just know him from the movie and he has a very very rough backstory. More surprised to learnt that he was the same in the 1990s, going to prison. I'm pretty sure he stayed out of prison after being paroled in 1978. He lost a civil action to Linford Christie in the 1990s but the penalty would have been financial in that case. His son went to jail in 1998 and again subsequently - maybe that's who you're thinking of Westie? Yeah, I was mistaken. John McVicar life after prison was well spent, appearing in the papers, outing people. He was a great figure. |
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seems the most sensible reaction as per the rules here.
