13

THE KEEPERS II

The 'Prisoner' cliff-hanger, which showed in Australia in 1982, had a fire burning furiously at the Wentworth Detention Centre, and six people trapped inside an episode which saw the ratings climb significantly.  It augured well for 1983, even if it meant almost burning down the place.

The fire was a result of a Bea Smith plan of revenge gone wrong - she herself is in a life and death struggle with the Freak as the fire rages about them.  Margot Gaffney (Jane Clifton) created the fire when she threw a Molotov cocktail into a storeroom full of turpentine.  Chrissie Latham (Amanda Muggleton) had started a small diversionary fire in the jail library, and at first blames herself for the main fire which trapped the six: Governor Erica Davidson, Bea, the Freak, and prisoners Barbara Fields (Susan Guerin), Paddy Lawson (Anna Hruby) and Mouse (Jentah Sobott).  Viewers saw two covered bodies being carried out of Wentworth, the jail a charred mess in the background.

A neat sub-plot for the Jail inferno was Fields' attempt to save Ferguson's diary, which Fields has hidden near the centre of the fire.  A former shoe-factory secretary, she was jailed for embezzling the firm's money.  Now her roving hands hold the key to the volatile confessions and thoughts of the Freak.

The massive fire damage meant the prisoners had to be moved to Barnhurst Prison, the top-security institution where many Wentworth uncontrollables had been sent for varying remedial stretches.  The enforced transfer offered a different mood, though life for the jailers and inmates continued much the same.

Wayne Jarratt had left his role of Officer Steve Fawkner to join Mel Gibson and Warren Mitchell on stage at the Nimrod Theatre in Sydney for a special season of Death of a Salesman.  'I had an eight-week get-out clause in my contract so I have taken the option and left sooner than expected,' he said when asked about the suddenness of his departure.  'I did three years at NIDA and worked in several plays after graduating. I love the theatre.  It has its own magic. I couldn't pass up the chance to work with Mel, Warren and Peter Gwynne.'

Judith McGrath had been badly scalded and burnt on the legs when she accidentally knocked over a kettle of boiling water in the 'Prisoner' green room and had to be rushed to nearby Box Hill Hospital for emergency treatment.  'The poor cameramen had to shoot me from above the hem-line to be sure you couldn't see any bandages.  It could have been worse, according to the hospital staff,' Judith said.

The Brisbane actress had come to terms with the 'iceberg' tag that adorned Officer

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<Picture> Frantic Meg Morris (Elspeth Ballantyne) grimly hangs on to Governor Anne Reynolds (Gerda Nicholson) trapped in a burning building - the fiery cliffhanger for season 1983
 
 

Powell, and made her one of the most identifiable actresses in the land.  Judith confessed that the first time someone called out in public, 'You bitch!' she ducked into the sanctuary of the nearest pub.

Early June saw a new Governor at Wentworth: Gerda Nicholson as Anne Reynolds, replacing Erica Davidson (Patsy King).  Network O-TEN introduced the new boss in a two-hour special.  Patsy King had grown tired of the role and wanted to concentrate on new theatre projects.  'I've been here since day one - one of the few survivors.  It's been interesting, hard work and fun.  But the time to move has come.  I'll

<Caption for photo on opposite page>What love will do to a woman. Wentworth Jail Governor Anne Reynolds (Gerda Nicholson) takes to the pillion-seat of a motorbike with beau Don Moulton (Sean Scully)

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<Picture of Gerda Nicolson and Sean Scully on a motorbike>

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miss the girls and the camaraderie "Prisoner" has provided for so long. I just hope I don't cry too much the day I sign off.'

No such luck on the 'Prisoner' set.  The tears flowed.

Gerda Nicholson had impeccable administrative qualifications 'For some reason, Gerda, 46, said, 'I'm always the boss or running things in the film and TV parts I have done recently.  In the movie The Clinic (which also features Betty Bobbitt), I am the doctor in charge of a VD clinic, and I've just finished the movie Next of Kin in which I am a hospital matron.'

Anne Reynolds is given the Wentworth job because the department chiefs think she is going to be a puppet, unlike the previous governor.  'Anne goes along with the authorities because she doesn't see it as being wrong.  But she quickly upsets several people because she is so concerned with paperwork.  This is my first major ongoing role since a six-year stint as farmer's wife Fiona Carstairs in "Bellbird". I hope this run is as long.'

Joy Westmore was happy that Officer Joyce Barry had earned a heavier workload.  'I wasn't unhappy or complaining about the size of my role.  Thankfully, the producers and writers see some value in exploring Joyce at home, as well as in uniform at Wentworth.  Viewers are in for a few surprises with her.'

There were plenty of new faces when 'Prisoner's' 1984 unveilings brought the Wentworth adventures back in full flight, with Elspeth Ballantyne's staid warder, Meg Morris, the only survivor from the original cast of five years earlier.

'Prisoner' was back to clean up the cliff-hangers and start another year - so they offered three murders, a vicious assault and a heart attack all in 30 minutes.  Governor Anne Reynolds (Gerda Nicholson) had little time to exhale the smoke and clean up her singed locks before she was weepy over breast-cancer fears, and Lizzie Birdsworth (Sheila Florance, still on air, but no longer taping) is again stricken with her ever-
 
 

PRISONER FILE Name: Ethel May Parslow Actress: Lois Ramsay

Ettie isn't the 'full quid' and has been treated much like a piece of furniture -- since being on remand in 1940, she has been moved around from prison to prison.  The records of her case had been requisitioned during the war by the military and her records went missing.  When her case comes to light, she is awarded $250,000 (£119,000) compensation from the Prison Department.  Later she moves in with Meg and seems for a while to be too happy inviting undesirable derelicts home to wine and dine in style to think about moving on.

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<Picture> Husband poisoner Edna Pearson (Vivean Gray) is admitted to Wentworth by Officer Joyce Barry (Joy Westmore) - the future gossipy Mrs Mangel of 'Neighbours' played a character which almost brought unprecedented legal action from a real-life accused poisoner
 

present chest pains when she discovers some of the bodies littering the premises.  Young prisoner Bobbie Mitchell (Maxine Klibingaitis) had tried to commit suicide by hanging.

When the Governor is hospitalised for tests, Joan Ferguson (Maggie Kirkpatrick) takes over as Acting Governor, and cements her power base even more in the boss's absence.

And the arrival of tough new prison officer Rick Manning (played by New Zealand actor Andy Anderson) adds further to the inmates' worries.  He has been sent to Wentworth to replace psychotic officer Barry Cummings (Peter Bannister) who killed

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two inmates before being axed to death by Cass Parker (Babs McMillan).  'By the time his stint is up there are any -number of prisoners willing to kill poor old Rick,' said Anderson.

Marie Trevor, 61, one of the most experienced TV producers in Australia, and a former director of 'The Box' and 'Matlock Police' (she was with Crawford's for fourteen years) joined Sue Masters producing 'Prisoner'. (Sue was about to join Jim Davern as co-producer of 'A Country Practice'.)

One of Marie's first announcements was that 'three male prisoners from another jail are to be admitted to Wentworth - they're being accommodated there because their lives are in danger, having stopped a mass breakout at their all-male jail.'

At first Governor Reynolds doesn't want the men in her prison, but is told by the authorities that if she doesn't accept their orders she will be demoted and replaced by

<Picture> Transferred to 'safer security' for their own protection, Wentworth's first three male inmates (from left): Matt Delaney (Peter Bensley), Geoff Macrae (Les Dayman) and Frank Bourke (Trevor Kent).  Their moods and passions will change forever the lives of the women prisoners

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Joan Ferguson, who made sure she impressed the hierarchy when running Wentworth while Ms Reynolds was in hospital for her cancer tests.

Elspeth Ballantyne, involved in a highly controversial and very physical rape scene, admitted, 'It was one of the most difficult tasks I've ever faced in a fairly long acting career.' In the build-up to the frightening scene one of the prisoners becomes Jealous of Meg's relationship with a social worker and organises the attack.  The masked rapist does his evil deed and leaves Meg close to a nervous breakdown.  She refuses to call the police.

'Meg's had so many things happen to her,' said Elspeth.  'Married twice, packraped by female inmates, knifed, shot at and raped by a masked hoodlum ... and I see by the latest batch of scripts I'm to be locked in a booby-trapped building which is about to explode,' she told Daily Mirror scribe David Brown.

Gerda Nicholson admits she knew nothing about women's prisons when she joined the cast of 'Prisoner', and it wasn't until late in 1984 she was shown through Fairlea.  'The inmates didn't say much about the show as they were more interested in my reaction to them.  Fairlea is more attractive than the fictional Wentworth, having more light and all its bars painted white.  They have musters (roll-calls) quite frequently, so there is less opportunity for them to disappear than in "Prisoner".  In a series like ours you have got to have things happening.'

Gerda and her myriad fans would need special sustenance during Episode 500 as she went through her most life-threatening events since becoming Governor of Wentworth.  The chilling plot was hotting up - police arrested a part-time maintenance man at the jail after Anne received poison pen letters.  But the deadly mail continued, and a parcel arrived - it contained a dead rat.  Meg Morris (Elspeth Ballantyne) insists Anne stay at her place, where she'd be safe.  Police provide a round-the-clock guard at the house.

Viewers, but not our harassed heroines, were now aware Brian Lowe (Matthew King) was the poison pen culprit, supposedly avenging the bashing of his girlfriend Phyllis Kirk (Reylene Pearce).  She was left a 'vegetable' after a maiming in Wentworth
 
 

PRISONER FILE Name: Yemil Bakarta Actress: Maria Mercedes

Maria Mercedes, the cabaret singer, played Middle Eastern Yemil, car stealer, unlicensed driver and cause of a serious road accident.  Brought to Australia for an arranged marriage, it is discovered that she can't bear children and her brutal husband begins a constant round of beatings until she finds the courage to stand up to him.

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soon after Anne became Governor.  Outsmarting the police guards, Lowe takes Meg and Anne hostage, gagging and binding them in a condemned warehouse which he has booby-trapped with a more than liberal dose of high explosives, all complete with a lethal trip-wire.

An unsuspecting policeman triggers the wire and the building blows up in a tremendous display of smoke, dust and fire.  Lowe tumbles to his death on a dilapidated staircase, but inside, trapped by the inferno, Meg tries valiantly to save Anne from the flames.

A male version of the Freak arrived the following year with two other recruits fresh out of officer training school.  The new ogre is  Rodney Adams, mean as they come and prepared to lie and cheat to get whatever he wants.  He'll even humour the Freak to gain ground.  Handed this plum role was 29-year-old Philip Hyde, Sydney-born, but a recent graduate from the Victorian College of Arts.  He had come straight into his first professional role.  Hyde said he couldn't stand the character he was playing.  'Adams is a real bastard, and he'll make enemies on and off the screen very quickly.  I'm already dreading going to the shops in a couple of months,' he said.

Marty Jackson, son of Meg Morris, was one of the other two trainee graduates.  A blond, headstrong, ex-Navy man, he gave Meg a shock when he joined the department.  Marty's dad Bill was killed by Chrissie Latham in a jail riot at Wentworth nearly seven years earlier and Meg is worried inmates will try to take advantage of the mother-son relationship.
 
 

PRISONER FILE Name: Lexie Patterson Actress: Pepe Trevor

Lexie is the precocious illegitimate daughter of a prostitute and a bit of a card sharp.  Looking like a Boy George clone, she is played by Pepe Trevor, daughter of 'Prisoner', producer Marie Trevor - - but she had to audition with 12 others for the role.

 

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PRISONER FILE Name: Kerryn Davies Actress: Jill Forster

One of Australian television's most elegant women, Jill Forster is wife of actor John Stanton (Taipan, Rent-a-Cop, Naked Country) and plays white collar fraud, Kerryn Davies. Husband John stayed at home to look after their eight-year-old daughter Polly while Jill was in 'Prisoner'.

 
 

PRISONER FILE Name: Eve Wilder Actress: Lynda Stoner

Stunning socialite Eve arrives in Wentworth repeatedly swearing her innocence for the murder of her lover.  When her lawyer finally realises the treachery of his lying client, he shoots himself in the head in front of her.  And her brutal attack on Officer Joyce Barry (Joy Westmore) leaves her hovering in hospital between life and death in a cliffhanging end to one run of the series. Finally, convicted by a kangaroo court of being a lag (informant) and a liar, the crazed inmates led by Lou Kelly put a noose around her neck and hang her, despite frantic efforts to stop them by Joan Ferguson, jail cook Mervyn Pringle (Ernie Bourne) and Officer Steve Martin (Billy Guyatt). But they are overpowered and locked in a cell.

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<Picture> Meg Morris' son Marty Jackson (Michael Winchester), right, is among three trainee officers sent to Wentworth for special duties.  Rodney Adams (Philip Hyde) and Delia Stout (Desiree Smith) are the other two trainees

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The third of the new recruits is hard-working Delia Stout (played by Desiree Smith), who organises work experience programmes which impress the officials and inmates alike.  She was in the same intake as Marty Jackson (Michael Winchester) and has fallen in love with him.  But he doesn't return the romantic feelings.

The inmates are not prepared for the sudden arrival of Acting Governor Bob Moran when Anne Reynolds goes on leave for 'health reasons'.  His iron-fist approach comes from two combat tours of Vietnam, and he immediately declares Wentworth is being run like a local glee club.  First to endure his wrath is Rita ('the Beater') Connors, who gets a livid dressing-down when Moran reads the riot act.  'Settle down or you'll wish you were never born,' he tells the giant inmate.

Rita relays the confrontation to fellow inmates describing Moran as 'a dead set mongrel.  We're in for a hell of a time while this guy is in charge'.
 
 
 

The softer side of everyone at Wentworth comes to the fore in a poignant storyline that has the inmates organising a fund-raising appeal for six-year-old deaf girl Debbie Peters (played so well by Anna Crawford, daughter of Crawford's Productions managing director Ion Crawford and his charming wife Mercedes).  To make her role more authentic.  Anna went to the Princess Elizabeth Junior School for the Deaf to learn sign language.  'Now she's teaching it to kids at her own school,' said Mercedes.

 

[And, once again, as at the end of the previous chapter, the above paragraph has already appeared once in the book on page 45]