[Spoilers] Sir Harry Pearce

[almh]

I think that his divorce has definitely changed him, perhaps it has made him harder - the loss of contact with people he loved, and the knowledge that it was mostly because of his actions that they're no longer in contact.

Continuing to plug Harry's Diary (go buy it off Spooksforum Amazon!!!) it says in there a story about how Graham ran away, I think, and he got a married couple who he was friends with, and worked for him, to find him.

Spoiler: show

I think that one of the couple tells him how bad a parent he is, and that same evening the couple died, along with their young daughter, because they had been speeding away from finding Graham to take their daughter to a pantomime.

I think that that event in particular shaped him so much.

[JHyde]

Yeah I was hoping someone would weigh in with something from the Diary. I'll pop tags on it though, just because that might be news to people who don't know the contents. We'll save some spoilers until purchase! (So much for no tags after all!)

That is definitely more recent. Graham couldn't have run away before maybe 1999 or 2000 (he's my age, that's how I'm working it out) so that big happening would be pretty near to the Harry we first meet in Season 1.

[almh]

Sorry, wasn't sure whether or not to put it in tags.

Just got the book down from my shelf - it was July 1996. Graham was 13.

[JHyde]

Wow he was young to develop a drug habit! (He's a couple of months older than me.) I guess with a father saving the British Empire, a depressed mother, parents divorced, clever, without guidance - it's easy to see how it might go wrong, especially at that age for a boy. And poor Catherine, how much she must have had to deal with. No wonder she kind of hated him.

I imagine this would weigh on Harry greatly, especially in terms of getting involved with Ruth. Forget kids, trusting people would be hard enough in his job, let alone the anxiety that everyone he gets close to is hurt.

Don't worry almh - just a precautionary measure, given it's bonus material. Just to be decent to those who haven't read that particular item. It was mainly just that second bit, which was certainly a shock to me, as it's not anything I've read elsewhere. Good to know the book might still hold surprises!

[almh]

Oh, it definitely does! As well as some parts of... comedic value (aka my favourite quote ever

Spoiler: show

"I radioed two of my agents in the crowd. 'Two minutes,' I said. 'On my count. I need you to take your clothes off and run on to the pitch. All subsequent fallout will be taken care of.'

I wondered how I'd react should I ever receive such an order."

)

Serious LOL moment there - I read that first in a restaurant on my birthday (it was one of my birthday presents ) and I burst out laughing. My family looked at me very strangely...

It does quite clearly show Harry's calmness of mind and maturity - I dread to think what Zaf would have written if he had been in Harry's shoes.

[JHyde]

Harry's a dear. It's funny you say that, because (again, I'm a broken record) I LOVE Harry in the field. And it's interesting how many people, even people who ultimately turn out to be villains like Angela or Juliet, speak so highly of him as an officer in the field. His instincts, his B.S. barometer, and his level head. which makes his emotional responses when they occur, so much more terrifying. Not merely his discomfort (for lack of a better word) when there's a nuke floating around, but when Northern Ireland rears its ugly head, or when Ruth or Catherine is threatened, it's distress, just raw guts of emotion.

It makes you wonder how reluctant they might have been to promote him in the first place. Maybe someone just saw that having a Harry in charge of Section D was worth it, because he could really look after things in a bigger way.

[Silktie]

I think the fact that Harry cries when he sees Catherine again is a definite indication that he is no longer the same man he was when the kids were small and the marriage was falling apart. He is definitely remorseful about being a poor father. I'm not sure about the chronology of events, but the horrible death of his friend Bill described in season 1 must have had a profound effect on Harry. Perhaps that's when he subconsciously decided that the job was so important - a tribute to the sacrifice made by his friend? Maybe it also contributed to Harry beginning to withdraw from others that were close to him, i.e. his wife and kids, because he began to understand the danger his job held for the people close to him. Then when Ruth came into his life, she slowly began to break down the barriers he had built up to keep people at a distance, leading to his emotions coming to the surface when Catherine became involved in an operation, and later Harry's attempts to start a relationship with Ruth.

[almh]

He definitely has changed - he really does want to be a better person, and to have a proper relationship with the people he loves (Don't worry - I'm going to scuttle back off to the Harry and Ruth thread now before I go on a massive rant about how she's influenced him )

[JHyde]

Bill was prior to France, I'm sure of it. Northern Ireland was his first assignment.And Catherine was conceived after during, or immediately after, his affair with Juliet in France. Catherine born in Boulogne, I think? It's definitely on the wiki page, and it's one the few times you could probably trust it, given it's probably lifted right from the personnel files.

[almh]

Back to your previous post JHyde, he was promoted because

Spoiler: show

he had a dodgy knee and was going to be back on a desk job anyway.

... Yes I am continuing to advertise his diary here. But to find out about Harry, his diary is a must

Bill died 1978, so before Catherine, and I think just before the affair.

Yes, the wiki page is accurate - there are some dedicated Spooks fans on wikipedia (me included but I've only ever edited one page... which was a Spooks page.)