Arthur Daley

Arthur Daley

Arthur Daley is the iconic character played by George Cole, OBE in Minder that was made by Euston films a.k.a. Thames television from October 1979 to March 1994.
Arthur Daley was a highly unscrupulous, but visionary importer and exporter, general wholesaler and best remembered as a dodgy used-car sales person. Arthur was almost always commenting on how he would take Daley into Europe, when in real life the British public were only just getting their heads around what Europe actually meant for businesses.

Alongside George Cole was his gopher and bodyguard Terry McCann played by Dennis Waterman. This is where the series acquired its name "Minder" which was cockney rhyming slang for the word bodyguard.
Very much like the other cult television series of this era The Professionals, the cars driven by these two were as iconic as the Minder television series itself. Arthur typically drove a Jaguar XJ6 (which became later a Daimler sovereign) and Terry drove a Ford Capri.

Dennis Waterman was originally in the Sweeney and the whole Minder series was written so that when Waterman had left the Sweeney he would slip straight into the role as the ex-boxer minder.

As much as the series was a huge hit the first series was slated by the critics and did not receive large viewing figures because it aired soon after the 1979 ITV strike, in fact senior management at Thames television had their heart set on scrapping the series but the managing director convince them to film a more serious and repeat the first series. It was through this foresight that the programme became a 10 series success.

When Arthur and Terry weren't at the lockup fencing their newly aquired ever so slightly dodgy stock, they frequented a gentlemens members only club called the Winchester Club, where they were served and often protected by Dave the owner and barman the late Glynn Edwards.

Terry was an ex professional boxer who had spent two years inside Wormwood scrubs prison for Grievous Bodily Harm and a further three years for attempted armed robbery, while Arthur as it turned out had spent eighteen months in prison and some point during the 1950's but we were never informed why.

Arthur Daley made famous the catch phrase "er indoors" referring to his wife, whom we never saw but she featured a lot in all the plots in a manner of quotes like "Terrance er indoors wouldn't like it" and another popular Arthur phrase was a "nice little earner" when referring to anything with potential profit.

Dennis Watermans second wife Patricia Waterman wrote the theme tune to Minder and Dennis sung it and later sang the theme tunes to New Tricks, Stay Lucky and On the Up, their daughter Hanna Waterman played the character of Laura Beale in Eastenders as the third wife of Ian Beale (Adam Woodyatt).

Waterman announced he would leave after series seven and subesquently for series eight and ten Ray Daley (played by Gary Webster) appeared as the nephew of Arthur Daley, where he appeared from Series eight through to ten.

Series eleven was a complete change around and featured Shane Richie as Arthur's nephew and Cole/Waterman/Webster did not make any appearances whatsoever.