Victor McDade

Victor McDade is played by Greg Hemphill. He has been best friends with Jack for sixty years, who also lives on the same floor at Osprey Heights. Victor has lived in Osprey Heights for much longer than Jack, as revealed in the first episode of the first series "Flittin". Like Jack, Victor is also a widower; his wife Elizabeth (Betty) died in 1993, though in the episode "Courtin," Victor states that his wife has been dead longer than Jack's. Victor has a son, John (called Jamie in the first episode), who lives in South Africa with his family. Jack and Victor often visit the Clansman together, where they meet up with their other friends and get caught up in the latest shenanigans. Victor is the one who generally decides what he and Jack will do. He is shown to be slightly more intelligent than Jack on numerous occasions, and usually has a better way with words, frequently cutting Jack off when the latter begins to ramble by saying: "That's plenty, Jack." Of all the pensioners in Craiglang, Victor is frequently shown to be the most honest; for example, in "Cauld," Victor is the final holdout when all of the pensioners begin stealing electricity (he condemns all who participate in the scheme as thieves), and his response to Winston's dishonest request for home help in "Wummin" was, "I don't know how you sleep at night." Victor is 74 at the beginning of the series, but had his birthday in "Smoke on the Water," making him 75. While it has been revealed what Jack and many of the other elderly residents of Craiglang worked as in their youth, it has never been revealed in the show what Victor did. However it is mentioned in the first rendition of Still Game Live (1999) and in Still Game Season 7 "Job" that he worked with Babcock and Wilcox, meaning we can assume he was in the gas business before retirement, possibly working as a plumber or an engineer. He is a tall man, with grey hair and a moustache like Jack. Initially, Victor wore a bunnet like Jack's; but this was changed after the first episode to a trilby hat to add visual distinction between the two characters.