Six of One ignore merchandise if it isn't their own.

You would think that a Society dedicated to "appreciating" a 35-year-old TV series would be delighted if new merchandise became available. Not Six of One.

In the last year, several books and other merchandise items have become available, most of which are officially sanctioned by Carlton International. Six of One's coordinators response has been simply to ignore these items (or give them only a 1 line mention in the magazine, whilst still filling up entire pages with pointless articles about themselves). This is in direct contradiction of the following statement found on one of the Society's websites, run by US coordinator Bruce Clark:

"And for all the details on all of the latest Prisoner news and products, (not just the bits and pieces mentioned here) join us"

But why would they ignore new merchandise? Because the people responsible for the items have left the Society and produced their items independently of it. Six of One are denying their own membership information about these items purely because the individuals who have produced this merchandise have been vocal critics about the running Six of One.

In 2004, deagostini, in conjunction with Granada Ventures, launched a new colour magazine and DVD partwork. Six of One originally ignored this exciting news, and then went on to attempt to discredit it! Click HERE to find out more on this. This isn't the first item they have ignored, however;

In 2003, native New Yorker Catherine Frumerman published the superb "On the Trail of The Prisoner". Sold worldwide and officially sanctioned by Carlton, the book is currently The Prisoner Shop's best seller (sales have recently gone over the 2000 mark). BBC Wales also reported on the book signing there. A book of this kind had never been attempted before, yet it has been ignored by Six of One despite (at the time of its writing) the author being a fully paid-up member of the Society.

The undoubtable reason Six of One has decided to ignore this wonderful publication is that it is published by PrizBiz, a website and publishing company run by ex-coordinator Roger Goodman, who has been fairly vocal in his views about Roger Langley's running of the Society.

In February 2005, a statement issued by the Society (which also confirmed the secret taping, confirmed that people are ousted from the Society if they speak against it, and declared long-standing members as "not important") confirmed that their ignoring of the book was deliberate:

"........[On The Trail] is part of our ongoing books review and the compiler of it chose to leave Six of One after publication and put a non-society address in her book. It was her choice not to support the society...." Six of One Statement 28/2/2005

It is worth repeating that Six of One are mentioned in the first paragraph of the book, the author was a Six of One member for a full year after publishing, and the "non-society" address mentioned is the book's publisher!

Roger Goodman (along with ex-"Number Six" editor, Howard Foy) is one of only 2 UK Prisoner fans to have officially interviewed Patrick McGoohan. Roger's CD of this interview is also widely ignored by Six of One. This is particularly shocking when you bear in mind that several Langley-produced items are stocked by PrizBiz.

Cathy Frumerman kindly wrote to us to tell us more (you can read Cathy's comments in full HERE):

"To show how 601 will ignore a story to spite its face, I was (as your site mentions) a 601 member at the time of the book's launch. I even sent them (again) the link to my site on which there is a story from a Welsh paper that cites me as a member. You would think they'd use the association to their own advantage. Obviously, the book was a hit and is still selling strong. Bottom line, though 601 is ignoring me (and Roger Goodman's CD) it didn't hurt sales one bit. Perhaps it even helped not being associated with 601?"

There are also other examples of Prisoner merchandise being practically ignored by Six of One:

"The Prisoner Variations" by ex-member David Stimpson (a collection of Prisoner-based short-stories, available in The Prisoner Shop and at Amazon). Largely ignored by Six of One because David is another member who left due to the Society's recent antics.

Prisoner Calendar 2004 - officially sanctioned by Carlton, and produced by Slow Dazzle. Practically ignored by Six of One because its co-creators Jaz Wiseman (who was also smeared in Langley's yellow document) and Rob Fairclough (who wrote Carlton's official Prisoner companion) have included a link to PrizBiz (and not Six of One) on the back of the item, and both attended Prisoner Day 2003 (Carlton sanctioned event with no Six of One involvement).

More items (including "The Danger Man Companion" and "The Prisoner Scripts" by Rob Fairclough, and a series of Prisoner novels, the first by Jon Blum and Rupert Booth (more info HERE)) were released in 2005. These items have been known about for many months, yet Six of One still chose only to barely mention this on their apparently "updated daily" websites or to their members (apart from a smalll mention of the novel on one of their websites when they realised a vist to Portmeirion by the author during their convention would mean they could cash in on the book's publicity, and a small mention of "The Prisoner: The Original Scripts", and only then when they insisted on being sent a free copy).

In addition to ignoring these items themselves, the Society appears to be deliberately ensuring that genuine Prisoner fans don't become aware of these items by *any* means. In April 2004, coordinator Rob Beale confirmed this tactic in an email to an ex-member of the Society:

"While I was there [Portmeirion} I had a look at the pc in the Prisoner shop and as expected, the unmutual sites [sic] were in the favourites folder. Naturally I deleted them and added all the 6o1 sites."Rob Beale, 17/4/04

Beale has also stated that he has asked the village to change the settings on their PC so that the favourites folder can not be altered again. We wonder what Granada would make of this, being that Six of One refuse to promote the Carlton/Granada Official Merchandise which is sold in The Prisoner Shop and elsewhere.

Many of the items featured on this page can be purchased by visiting the PrizBiz website.

As for Six of One's own merchandise, the only things they have sold (for profit - totally against their non-profit making remit) in the last few months is a bootleg DVD and some promotional Sci-fi Channel items which were given FREE to promote the channels screening of The Prisoner in the 1990s.

In the summer of 2004, Six of One also produced a news sheet detailing Prisoner websites. It was interesting to note that of the many Prisoner websites on the internet, the only ones they mentioned were their own websites, stating that these were the only "official" ones. We wonder what Deagostini and the BBC think about this!

In a 2005 Society magazine, Six of One admitted that they do not cover Prisoner items, however official, unless they were personally involved, or had been sent "freebies":

Not content with just ignoring events, Six of One in October 2005 tried a new tactic - attacking an event raising money for terminally-ill children! Click HERE for more on this.

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

This page updated: 5/3/06