Within These Walls: The Governor (ITV 11 Mar 1978, with Sara Clee)

In The Governor none too likeable former prison officer Aggie Morrow pays a visit to Stone Park in hopes of getting a transfer, she was forced to leave under a cloud but new deputy chief Mrs Phillips is not pleased to see her.

Susan gets a very hard time from Peter’s right on friends when she goes to a party with him. She is particularly hurt by a remark that she seems ‘almost human’.

Young inmate iris, who is on the hospital wing, has developed a fixation on Susan Marshall, she spends most of her time making collage pictures of her. Mrs Dobin is her prison visitor and persuades the Governor to allow her to take Iris out on a picnic to a nearby park. Whilst Iris is out Susan receives one of Iris’s collage through her letterbox, however, it has been badly defaced. When she discovers that Iris slipped away from Mrs Dobin for ten minutes (although we known she was simply talking to the park keeper) Susan is sure she was the one who sent her the picture. Because the features on the collage picture have been removed Susan sees it as another example of her ‘inhumaness’.

When Aggie gets turned down for her transfer request she pays a visit to the Governor and makes it plain exactly what she thinks of her, she also tells her she was the one who sent the picture to her.

Another strong episode from Susan Pleat, nothing of great portent happens but we get some nice development into the new governor’s character.

Sara Clee, who plays Iris, had appeared in the first season episode Lesson Number One, there she played an inmate called Norah.

production details
UK / ITV – London Weekend Television / 1×50 minute episode / Broadcast Saturday 11 March 1978 at 11.25pm

Writer: Susan Pleat / Production Design: Michael Oxley / Director: Marek Kanievska

cast
Sarah Lawson as Susan Marshall
Denys Hawthorne as Dr Peter Mayes
Jerome Willis as Charles Radley
Miranda Forbes as Officer Parsons
Shirley Dixon as Mrs Phillips
Carol Gillies as Agnes Morrow
Tim Barlow as Leonard
Robert Gary as Jim Bruce
Pamela Ruddock as Officer Wootton
Elspeth MacNaughton as Sister Webster
Sara Clee as Iris
Natalie Kent as Beanie Dixon
Muriel Barker as Miss Simpson
Elsie Randolph as Mrs Dobing
Rex Robinson as Works officer
Joe Ritchie as Park gardener
Roger Kemp as Don Taylor
Anthony McEvoy as Chris
Julia Carey as Rebecca