Episode 22 – Revisiting Reminder (Dennis Waterman Autobiography)

May 8^th is of course the one year anniversary of Dennis Waterman’s passing. If you haven’t already done so you might want to listen to the tribute to Dennis released in June last year.

In this episode we are going to look back at Dennis’ 2000 autobiography, Reminder, specifically the chapter on Minder.

The book, written with Dennis’ manager Deke Arlon’s wife Jill was, as I mentioned in the tribute episode, a little disappointing at the time of release. It seemed to have too many contributions from others for an autobiography and it was very light on the Minder material.

However, I reread the book at the beginning of the year and enjoyed it much more than previously. Perhaps with having more context myself it just made a little more sense.

By and large the contributions from others do help the story Dennis tries to tell though often the book is at its best when the subject takes over and reveals his own experiences.

What disappointed me initially was the fact there were only recollections from a few episodes and very little from behind the scenes. This is still quite disappointing but it’s still a useful overview of the show and how it came to be made.

In this episode I read the Minder chapter in full so if you don’t have the book you can hear some of the inside take on the show. Some of this material follows on well from the Leon Griffiths tribute also.

If you do have the book then perhaps this might be a nice reminder for you. I am also aware there is an audio version of the book read by Dennis himself. I have not heard it in full but as far as I know there is quite a bit of material missing. I think this might be the inclusions from others so if anyone has the audio version let me know.

But this is definitely the full Minder chapter coming up with just a very small amount of editing.

The material is copyright Arrow Books, 2000.

I also want to address the way Dennis seemed to have an aversion to talking about Minder for so long. He obviously knew he had to cover it in his book and seemed to begrudgingly do so. For many years I have wondered just what he had against the show. After all it seemed to underline his already magnificent career.

Everyone loved the show, what’s not to like? He even went on to reinvent himself with New Tricks and have yet another golden series loved by the public. So why did he want to move on so much from Minder – what exactly was it that he didn’t want to relive?

After reading the book in full the answer to me was obvious and it had nothing to do with Minder. When the chapter finishes I cover the reason for Dennis’ negative opinion on the show. It’s just my opinion of course but it makes much more sense than Dennis having an aversion to the show continuing past its best.

So, in tribute to Dennis Waterman once again and in honour of some fascinating insight into Minder, here is Revisiting Reminder. Download the show here.

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