McVicar by Himself

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Heslop, a serving soldier, was awaiting trial at the Quarter sessions of the Assize Court (now Crown Court) and jumped down from the roof of this very court during his escape. McVicar brings the reader inside the mentality of the criminals who in one moment plan to mame each other, then the next join ranks to riot against prison staff, before finally engaging in a treacherous escape bid that only Machiavelli could script.

McVicar obituary | UK news | The Guardian John McVicar obituary | UK news | The Guardian

With its winding river, numerous bridges and narrow streets, Durham can be disorientating to the stranger, so we cannot be certain of McVicar's route, but he certainly ran past the police station close to to the prison.

The film was directed by Tom Clegg, and was based on the non-fiction book McVicar by Himself, which McVicar wrote to describe several months of his experiences in prison. He had slept the night in a car parked in a suburban garage before he was picked up in another car by friends who took him back to London. In 2002, John McVicar married Countess Valentina Artsrunik at the Russian Orthodox Church in Knightsbridge, London. Although he wrote a postscript for Arrow's paperback re-issue of McVicar by Himself (1978), its editor, the ex-KGB agent Goronwy Rees, was still alive, albeit barely kicking and the author deferred to his version, even though it contained inaccuracies.

McVicar by Himself - John McVicar - Google Books

It includes hetherto unpublished anecdotes about Britain's most savage criminals of the '60's - the Torture Gang boss Charlie Richardson, his macabre hireling Mad Frankie Fraser, even Moors murderer Ian Brady and others who were imprisoned in Durham's infamous E-Wing at the time.John McVicar died from a suspected heart attack on 6 September 2022, at the age of 82, whilst walking his dog. John McVicar, who has died aged 82 of a heart attack, was a former armed robber who famously escaped from Durham prison in 1968 and became the subject of a film starring Roger Daltrey of the Who. He also began studying for a postgraduate degree at Leicester University, and began a successful career as a journalist.