✻ Peter Vaughan, best known for starring in the 1970s TV sitcom Porridge, was born 100 years ago this year.
His character ‘Grouty’ – the criminal Mr Big in the fictional prison HMP Slade who was menacing in an Ealing comedy sort of way – became one of the show's best-known supporting characters, even though he only appeared in a handful of episodes.
Interviewing the great man – who later played Mr Stevens Sr. in – had its challenges. So contributor York Membery discovered when he spoke to him at his home in Sussex for a national newspaper several months before his death in December 2016, aged
