Heaven (A Prison Diary 3)

I prepare identity cards for the three new prisoners who arrived yesterday. As each officer comes in, I make them tea or coffee. In between, I continue to organize the filing system for inductees. I will still be one myself for another week.

When Mr New arrives, he leaves his copy of The Times in the kitchen, and retrieves it at six before going home.

I am slowly getting into a routine. I now meet new prisoners as they appear, and find out what their problems are before they see an officer. Often they’ve come to the wrong office, or simply don’t have the right form. Many of them want to be interviewed for risk assessment, others need to see the governor, whose office is in the administration block on the other side of the prison. But the real problem is Mr New himself, because many prisoners believe that if their request doesn’t have his imprimatur, it won’t go any further. This is partly because he takes an interest in every prisoner, but mainly because he won’t rush them. He can often take twenty minutes to listen to their problems when all that is needed is for a form to be signed, which results in four other prisoners having to sit in the waiting room until he’s finished.

During any one day, about thirty prisoners visit SMU. I have to be careful not to overstep the mark, as inmates need to see me as fighting their corner, while the officers have to feel I’m helping to cut down their workload. I certainly need a greater mental stimulation than making cups of tea. But however much I take on, the pay remains 25p an hour, £8.50 a week.

12 noon

I pick up my lunch — vegetable pie and beans. No pudding. I take my tray back to the SMU and read The Times.

2.00 pm

A prisoner marches in and demands to be released on compassionate grounds because his mother is ill. Mr Downs, a shrewd, experienced officer, tells him that he’ll send a probation officer round to see his mother, so that they can decide if he should be released. The prisoner slopes off without another word. Mr Downs immediately calls the probation officer in Leicester, just in case the prisoner does have a sick mother.

Bob (lifer) comes to see the psychiatrist, Christine. Bob is preparing for life outside once he’s released, possibly next year, but before that can happen, he has to complete ten town visits without incident. Once he’s achieved this, he will be allowed out at weekends unescorted. The authorities will then assess if he is ready to be released. Bob has been in prison for twenty-three years, having originally been sentenced to fifteen. But as Christine points out, however strongly she recommends his release, in the end it is always Home Office decision.

Christine joins me in the kitchen and tells me about a lifer who went out on his first town visit after twenty years. He was given £20 so he could get used to shopping in a supermarket. When he arrived at the cash till and was asked how he would like to pay, he ran out leaving the goods behind. He just couldn’t cope with having to make a decision.

‘We also have to prepare all lifers for survival cooking.’ She adds, ‘You have to remember that some prisoners have had three cooked meals a day for twenty years, and they’ve become so institutionalized they can’t even boil an egg.’

The next lifer to see Christine is Mike. After twenty-two years in prison (he’s forty-nine), Mike is also coming to the end of his sentence. He invites me to supper on Sunday night (chicken curry). He’s determined to prove that he can not only take care of himself, but cook for others as well.

5.00 pm

I walk over to the canteen and join Ron the fraudster and Dave the ostrich farmer for cauliflower cheese. Ron declares that the food at NSC is as good as most motorway cafés. This is indeed a compliment to Wendy.

6.00 pm

Mr Hughes (my wing officer) informs me I can move across to room twelve in the no-smoking corridor.

When I locate the room I find it’s filthy, and the only furniture is a single unmade bed, a table and a chair. I despair. I am so pathetic at times like this.

In the opposite cell is a prisoner called Alan who is cleaning out his room, and asks if he can help. I enquire what he would charge to transform my room so that it looks like his.

‘Four phonecards,’ he says (£8).

‘Three,’ I counter. He agrees. I tell him I will return at eight-fifteen for roll-call and see how he’s getting on.

8.15 pm

I check in for roll-call before going off to see my new quarters. Alan has taken on an assistant, and they are slaving away. While Alan scrubs the cupboards, the assistant is working on the walls. I tell them I’ll return at ten and clear my debts. The only trouble is that I don’t have any phonecards, and won’t have before canteen on Wednesday. Doug comes to my rescue and takes over Darren’s role of purveyor of essential goods.

Doug appears anxious. He tells me that his fourteen-year-old daughter has suffered an epileptic fit. He’s being allowed to go home tomorrow and visit her.

We settle down to watch the evening film, and are joined by the senior security officer, Mr Hocking. He warns me that a News of the World journalist is roaming around the grounds but, with a bit of luck, will fall into the Wash. Just before he leaves, he asks Doug if he’s on home leave tomorrow.

‘Yes, I’m off to see my daughter, back by seven,’ Doug confirms.

‘Then we’ll need someone to be on duty after sister leaves at one. We mustn’t forget how many drugs there are in this building. Would you be willing to stand in as temporary hospital orderly, Jeffrey?’ he asks.

‘Yes, of course,’ I reply.

10.00 pm

I return to the north block for roll-call, before checking my room. I don’t recognize it. It’s spotless. I thank Alan, who takes a seat on the corner of the bed

He tells me that he has a twelve-month sentence for receiving stolen goods. He owns two furniture shops, in Leicester whose turnover last year was a little over £500,000, showing him a profit of around £120,000. He has a wife and two children, and between them they’re keeping the business ticking over until he has completed his sentence in four weeks’ time. It’s his first offence, and he certainly falls into that category of ‘never again’.