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Brian Oldman

Played by Joe Armstrong

BRIAN OLDMAN: was six years old when he witnessed his mother, Cath, kill grandfather Tiger Braden with a coal hammer, for no reason Brian could understand. It would be twenty five years before he would get the full picture. All he knew was what his mother told him, that it was to protect him. He didn't dare not believe her. His dad, Joey was present and did nothing to stop it. Brian assumed that he too was scared of mum. As a result Brian responded to her every wish, making no protest as she manipulated him emotionally, not even when she dressed him in her clothes. Working in a high-class men's outfitters in The Strand, Brian meets a different class of person such as Tom Driberg MP, who befriends him, and Mr Justice Melford Stevenson, who he later helps out of trouble. Soon Brian begins to change, his way of speaking, too.

You gotta be mad, Jack.
Brian Oldman

Brian was never nervous of girls, only of his mother's disapproval if he got too close to any one in particular. After serious injury and being left for dead following a gang fight with the Krays, Brian is nursed back to health by Leah Cohen, the daughter of a tailor his father does some business with. He falls deeply in love with her, but the course is anything but straight and Brian encounters many difficulties, including a prison sentence for assaulting Leah when he is unable to consummate the relationship. It will be many years and another prison sentence before he is able to heal the relationship when he meets her again as a visiting psychologist.