Roger Langley - Likes to be in control.

Roger Langley is the self-appointed "head" of Six of One. A person who, no matter how multi-talentless he appears to be to many of us, likes to be in control of everything to do with the Society. In the mid 1980s he and his wife Karen were in a position whereby they took over the day-to-day running of the Society (including the Society's finances). Since then, his hold on the Society has increased as time has gone by. Click HERE to see how he re-wrote the Society history. Below are more examples of his over-inflated ego.

For many years, Roger Langley insisted upon producing his own newsletter (separate to the magazine), and sending it to all members in each quarterly mailing specifically to include "late breaking news" (interesting to note that now Roger is the editor of the magazine he manages to get all of this news into the magazine). Dave Healey confirms this:

"Roger always maintained that this was the reason he had to print another news leaflet. Ridiculous, when you examine it. In The Village went to the printers around 3 weeks before the work-ins and at a push we could have updated the news sections, perhaps a week and a half before if some important news arrived late as it would be at around this time that physical printing would begin. However, it would appear that news only ever hit Ipswich during the time that the magazine was at the printers, the rest of the time the Prisoner world was silent!"

Dave Healey, alt.tv.prisoner, 13/03/2003

So many members complained about this that in April 2001, an "FAQ" sheet was sent to members, where this issue was raised. Note that the explanation given is as weak as can be:

Langley has also produced several cartoon drawings for the Society over the years. Some were published, but some were not, on grounds of taste:

"Astonishing is the kindest way to describe the cartoons. The one about the old folks home is quite the most unkind representation of their Honorary President I have ever had the misfortune to come across. I would never have published it in a society magazine as I've no doubt he would have been most offended."

Dave Healey, alt.tv.prisoner, 20/08/2003

Roger Langley also chose to largely ignore Carlton's official Prisoner companion, by Rob Fairclough, choosing instead to lend his "support" to an unofficial book by Stephen Paul Davies for his own reasons. This has also been confirmed by "ITV" editor Dave Healey:

"We had lots of plans for In The Village surrounding the launch of this book (official companion) which were scuppered by Langley and Co. In their infinite wisdom they decided to ignore the official book in favour of an unofficial tome which Roger had managed to hi-jack for his own ends i.e. self-endorsement."

Dave Healey, alt.tv.prisoner, 24/12/2002

It has been noted that Langley could often be difficult, and would not care for members' concerns:

".........at a work-in in Sheffield a year or two back. I pointed out, in a conversation with Roger outside of the church hall venue, that we had had complaints about duplication of material in different publications in the same mail-outs and suggested that we needed to stop this. "When anyone tells me to do anything, I always do the opposite." That effectively ended the conversation and any sort of relationship I had with Roger. You cannot fight such arrogance. All I was doing was passing
on valid criticism of the society from its members."

Dave Healey, alt.tv.prisoner, 27/01/2002

Coordinators were not the only people to come face-to-face with Langley's difficult behaviour. Ex-member Darren Stokes recalls:

"Prisoner Paddington Event. Members were told no Camcorders were allowed in the venue. A professional video was being filmed which was then to be sold to members. The video never saw the light of day. Months later I asked Langley at an Ipswich Work-in why it hadn't come out. He said; ''we decided not to bother as we got a poor response and it wouldn't make a profit". I remarked that I thought Six of One was meant to be NON profit making. He added ''The Editing costs meant it wouldn't come out". I offered to edit the video myself on a primitive Scart to Scart set-up so we could all see it at least.
He said "No"."

It is interesting to note that in early 2004, Six of One have released a DVD of the two Paddington events, even though they have not asked for permission from the person who filmed it and owns the footage, or the permission of any of the guests featured on the DVD. Click HERE to read more about this.

This is how Langley describes himself on a Society website:

"I have been the society's legal adviser since I joined and have seen us through various scrapes, VAT and tax scrutiny, copyright issues, legal wrangles and even the odd attempted take-over. When, some years ago, it was decided to detail in print the jobs done by co-ordinators, it was hard to find a title for my assorted duties. Therefore, remembering No. 12's vague occupation in The General, the single word label of ‘Administration’ was pinned upon me."

One anagram of "Roger Langley" is "General Glory". No comment.

But why is Langley like this? It might have something to do with his total lack of understanding of The Prisoner series, as evidenced by the following excerpt from his "Information" Society supplement which he wrote:

In 2006, in an interview with a Cambridge journalist, Ned Beaumann, Langley was asked about ex-members and this website. He replied:

"There are just no controls on these people."

Click HERE to return to the main page, where details of many other dirty deeds can be found.

This page updated 27/12/06