ABSTRACT
In appearance and manner, and in the quiet Mancunian timbre of his voice, there was nothing to suggest that this was other than a very pleasant man, courteous and kind and with the kind of twinkle in his eye that suggested an engaging sense of humour. At least, that is how he immediately struck me one evening forty years ago when we met within the confines of Her Majesty’s prison at Pentonville. Yet Tony Parker was, in the literal sense of the word, an extraordinary person. I was doing some academic research on the prison community; he was what was termed in those days an ‘unofficial’ Prison Visitor. It meant that he came at regular intervals to visit in their cells individual inmates whose names had been given to him by the prison chaplain. It was a meeting that was to begin a friendship which lasted until the end of his life.
