Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Deptford Prison - Stolen Identity

My niece texted me this evening: "Deptford was featured in 'Identity'! (well the prison was ;) )"...
It was 10pm and I'd just finished work and hadn't seen the programme. I texted back "Deptford doesn't have a prison." "Oh ha, ha," she texted back, "they got that wrong then..."

As it turns out I had unwittingly recorded the episode on series link so was able to watch this pile of shite when I got home. I'd watched the first two in the series and had decided that the presence of Aiden Gillen was completely ruined by the presence of Keeley Hawes, not to mention a terrible script. Now I had to watch it cos it had a Deptford reference in it – a fictional prison by all accounts.

The reference came halfway through. There's no Deptford scenes, just a visit to a character banged up in a studio set, then later at the end, a reflective scene where the narrative, such as it is, revisits the jail, establishing the scene with a fictional sign (see above) and then we see a prison officer querying the identity of our hero. Bloom, or is it Shea?  The central conceit of this cop drama about an over-resourced team investigating identity fraud is that one of the team is an ex-undercover cop who is still playing with his identity...

We Deptfordians are used to some degree of misrepresentation, and the presence of helicopters sweeping round every night between 10 and 11pm certainly contributes to a feeling of being locked up for the night in a police state, but REALLY!

Unless you count the gigantic Lewisham Police station (is it really a prison as well?), our nearest jail is BELMARSH and it's quite some distance away in Thamesmead. However, the fact that my niece lives in Swindon (most terribly slandered itself, of course) and has never been to Deptford, so was willing to believe we had our very own prison, well, it makes me wanna SHOUT.

But curfew has begun so I can't. (Unfortunately those chavs partying on the ground floor round the corner have got some deal going with the guards so they're probably gonna shout all night)...

6 comments:

  1. Chavs? Im sure they'd have an equally rude word to describe you LOL Perhaps not the most politic description... And like you never kept the neighbours up all night HAHAHAHA XXXX

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  2. Axshirley, there not bovering me two much, (not as much as yor TV waz urlier, no, jus kiddin), but I ad a tex from the bloke what livs abuv them and he waz qite upset (he called them the 'fat chav family') but I fink e's put is earplugs in nah...so all's well that ends well...

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  3. Yeah they eventually have quietened down by the sound of it... And I'm sure if you have a problem with any noise you can deal with it in a civilised and polite way eh :O))

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  4. Shhh, don't let Greenwich hear about us having a prison, they'll be wanting to claim it as their own.

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  5. Deptford Prison? Surely that should be West Greenwich Correctional Facility.

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  6. I'm sure I once heard that the land on which Crossfields is built on was originally a jail. Not sure in which period of history..... internet searches have been fruitless so far.

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