The Daddy: Scum, Winstone, and Full Circles

' I’d already served two terms in Borstal by then. I knew the smell of those places and the taste of the fear. Then Scum came out. It hit the screens like a sledgehammer'.

eople talk about gritty realism, but for some of us, it wasn’t just a film. It was a mirror. Ray Winstone played the lead, Carlin, and he didn't just act the part. He inhabited it. He captured the raw violence and the hierarchy of that life in the 70s perfectly. He played a blinder. The film became a classic instantly because it told the truth about a brutal system that tried to break you.

Funny how time works. It folds back on itself in strange ways. Years later, long after I’d left those walls behind, I crossed paths with the Winstone family again. But not through a screen this time.

I met Lois Winstone, Ray’s daughter. She fronted a band called Crack Village back then. Proper energy. We ended up doing a series of gigs together. There I was, standing alongside the daughter of the man who played the character that defined a generation of borstal boys. You couldn't make it up. We shared stages and stories and the music did what music always does. It bridged the gap between the past and the here and now.

A good film is like a good book. It demands you come back to it. You peel back new layers every time. Even now, in 2026, Scum holds up. It stands as a testament to a time that forged many of us, for better or worse.

If you haven’t seen it, you need to fix that. Watch it. Feel the weight of it. It’s a piece of history that still resonates