Home › Multilingual Archive Index › 'Horrible' Ives

'Horrible' Ives

Bernard Ives, or 'Horrible' Ives, as he is known by prisoners and wardens alike, was a character in the popular BBC sitcom Porridge. Ives was serving time in Slade for committing fraud. He was played by Ken Jones.

Ives is a creep, a cheat and a snitch, universally loathed (and indeed victimised) by the other residents of Slade Prison. He originated from Liverpool. Almost all his spoken sentences begin with the words "'ere listen".

Fletcher once commented 'Ives is such a loser that if Elizabeth Taylor had triplets, he'd have been the one in the middle, on the bottle'.

Ives is interviewed in the 2003 mockumentary Norman Stanley Fletcher: Life Beyond the Box. While most of the ex-prisoners interviewed are shown to have gone straight, Ives is shown collecting for a fake charity.