Mr Barrowclough Quotes in Doing Time (1979)

Fletcher: You're lookin' a bit down in the mouth, Mr Barrowclough, anything the matter?

Mr Barrowclough: Oh, nothing much. The usual. Domestic crisis.

Fletcher: Oh dear. Mrs Barrowclough left you, has she?

Mr Barrowclough: Unhappily... no Fletcher.

Fletcher: Success? Let me tell you about success. I had a pal, come to London 28 years ago without two ha'pennies to rub together. Now he managed to save up enough to buy a little hand cart and he went round collecting all old newspapers. Do you what he's worth today?

Mr Barrowclough: No, what?

Fletcher: Nothing. And he still owes for the hand cart.

Mr Beal: I was married. Divorced now.

Mr Barrowclough: Well, look at it this way, 'tis better to have loved and lost than

[sighs]

Mr Barrowclough: to spend your whole ruddy life with her.

Mr Beal: Mind if I cadge a lift?

Mr Barrowclough: Oh, well, we're not...

Mr Beal: I've just been posted here.

Mr Barrowclough: Oh, a brother officer.

Mr Beal: Saves me the cab fare.

Mr Barrowclough: Aye, well, I'd still claim for it, though.

[Fletcher is on the prison farm, leaning on his shovel next to the pig sty and yawning. Mr Barrowclough arrives accompanied by Rudge, a new inmate at Slade]

Fletcher: Oh, morning Mr Barrowclough.

Mr Barrowclough: Busy, Fletcher?

Fletcher: Oh busier than ever, sir. Mind I never complain.

Mr Barrowclough: I can't actually see what it is you're supposed to be doing.

Fletcher: It's the pigs, sir. They won't eat without my reassuring presence. Very highly strung your average pig, you know.

[Sees Rudge]

Fletcher: Who's he?

Mr Barrowclough: Oh, Rudge. Newly assigned to the farm.

Fletcher: How'd he work that then?

Mr Barrowclough: Pardon?

Fletcher: What? First day inside, the farm? What is he, the governor's nephew?

Mr Barrowclough: This job is a privilege, you know.

Fletcher: For the pigs, yeah.

Bainbridge: I bet if we'd brought Michael Parkinson or the Goodies you wouldn't have held *them* for questioning.

Mr Barrowclough: Probably not. But then you didn't, did you?