Roger Langley - Still in control in 2020

Roger Langley is the self-appointed "head" of Six of One. He has been for many years.

In 2015-2020 the society decided it would be good PR, due to all the problems Langley had created in the past, to tell would-be and current members that Roger Langley is 'not on the team' or is 'not involved' in the running of the society, hoping that former and would-be members would be attracted to joining the society, believing that one of the most controversial people ever to be involved in running the society was no longer involved.

This is a lie.

As of 2020, Roger Langley:

Controls the output and content of the magazine with all articles and magazines needing to be checked and approved by him before printing.

Controls the Six of One society eBay account, with a turnover of several thousands of pounds, and all the income this generates, which is not declared or itemised.

Controls the main society websites, including all statements and wording used on them.

Controls the Six of One society online shop, and all the income this generates, which is not declared or itemised.

Controls all accounts relating to PO Box 66, which is not declared or itemised.

A casting decision, vote, and influence over all non-convention-related decisions regarding the society.

Responsible for dealing with most press enquiries and company matters (such as liaising with the organisers of the doomed life-size Portmeirion statue in early 2017. for example).

Responsible for all society legal statements, and terms and conditions and so forth.

Can any readers explain how 'not on the team' or 'no longer involved' can result in the above current situation?

Simply put, this is subtefuge by the current coordination team. They like Roger Langley to be in control, so they let him be so, but put out spin that he is not involved, to fool would-be members who would greatly object if they knew the truth.

 

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HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? - THE HISTORY OF ROGER LANGLEY'S CONTROL

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, and in 2016 it became aparent that he now even controls the society's eBay page, bringing in much money each month via PayPal. 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 when Roger became the editor of the magazine he managed 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

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

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

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

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 several years later, 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 described 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."

Langley's arrogance could be described as being so great that he thinks he "owns" The Prisoner TV series, so much so that several times he has been found to be breaking copyright!

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

This page updated March 2020