TEENAGERS instinctively know that when their mums say something is “a load of old rubbish”, it is going to be interesting, thought-provoking, entertaining on a range of levels, and basically great fun.

So when “a load of old rubbish” issued at great volume from my mum’s mouth in 1983 at the news that Channel Four was to repeat the 1967 TV series The Prisoner in its entirety, I was already hooked.

And it didn’t let me down. OK, so it was a bit self-consciously hey-man-groovy-baby-60s at times, but the plus-points so far outweighed the minuses it didn’t matter.

And its impact survived mine and many others’ teenage years. Even today it remains the most singular series ever committed to film - so it is with regret Off Centre notes the passing of its star and creator, Patrick McGoohan, who as Number Six weekly infuriated his shadowy captors and his viewers alike.

I can still recall large tracts of plot from the series, and cannot think of anything, early series of Cracker aside, that I have sat through faithfully every week, since.

In these days of increasingly inane but ratings-friendly reality TV, cerebral, escapist productions like The Prisoner are increasingly unlikely to be made, let alone find a huge audience.