Heaven (A Prison Diary 3)

The practice at NSC is just plain stupid and, more important, unfair, because it discriminates in such a way as to be inexplicable to anyone. I have only become fully aware of the disparity because of my twice-weekly contact with the labour board, who not only arbitrarily allocate the jobs, but also decide on the wages. For example, as orderly to the sentence management unit, I am paid £8.50 a week. The library orderlies receive £9.40, the gym orderlies £11.90, reception orderlies £10.50, education orderlies £8.40 and the chapel orderly £9.10. However, a farm worker, who starts at eight in the morning and is out in the cold all day, gets £5.60, and a cleaner £7.20, whereas the prison barber, who only works from six to eight every evening, gets £10 a week.

It’s no different in any other prison, but no one seems to give a damn.

Seven prisoners come through reception today. Two of them have been sent to NSC with only eleven and nine days left to serve. Why, when moving to a new prison is a disorientating, frightening and unpleasant experience?13

Why not appoint to the prison board carefully selected prisoners who could tell the Home Office one or two home truths? Here at NSC there are two inmates with PhDs, seven with BAs and several with professional qualifications, all of whom are as bright as any officer I’ve met, with the exception of Mr Gough, who is happy to discus Sisley, Vanburgh and John Quincy Adams rather than the latest prison regulations.

2.00 pm

Carl takes over from me at SMU because I have a theatre visit. By that I mean that the two people who are coming to see me today are the theatre director David Gilmore, and the producer Lee Menzies. David Gilmore (Daisy Pulls it off) is just back from Australia, where he’s been directing Grease, and Lee is about to put on The Island at the Old Vic.

Currently I’m an investor (angel) with both of them. Grease, which is on tour in the UK, has already not only returned my capital investment, but also shown a 50 per cent profit. This is not the norm, it’s more often the other way round. I have 10 per cent of The Island, which hasn’t yet opened. David Ian (who had to cancel his visit at the last minute) has several shows in production in which I have a share: The King and I (London and tour), Chicago (tour), Grease (tour), and he’s now talking about a production of the successful Broadway musical, The Producers. Once David and Lee have brought me up to date on everything that’s happening in the theatre world, we turn to a subject on which I feel they will be able to advise me.

Mr Daff shouts out in his best Sergeant Major voice that it’s time for visitors to leave. Where did the time go?

8.30 pm

Doug tells me that his wife visited him today. She confirmed that he will be offered the haulage job, and therefore I can become hospital orderly next week. I’m going to have to decide which course to take should Spring Hill offer me a transfer.

10.00 pm

Life may be awful, but after watching the ten o’clock news and seeing the conditions in the Greek jail where they’ve locked up eleven British plane spotters, I count my blessings.

DAY 141

THURSDAY 6 DECEMBER 2001

4.45 pm

After a day of no murders, no escapes, no one shipped out, I meet up with Doug for supper. We sit at a corner table and he brings me up to date on his interview for a job. Having applied to the advertisement in the Boston Target, Doug was interviewed in the presence of Ms Tempest. He was offered the job and begins work on Monday as a lorry driver. He will ferry a load of steel coils from Boston to Birmingham, to March, before returning to Boston. He must then report back to the prison by seven o’clock. The job will be for six days a week, and he’ll be paid £5 an hour.

Just to recap, Doug is doing a four-and-a-half-year sentence for avoiding paying VAT on imported goods to the value of several millions. He’s entitled, after serving a quarter of his sentence – if he’s been a model prisoner, and he has – to seek outside employment. This is all part of the r

esettlement programme enjoyed only by prisoners who have reached D-cat status.

It works out well for everyone: NSC is getting prisoners out to work and in Doug they have someone who won’t be a problem or break any rules. Although he has a PSV licence, he hasn’t driven a lorry for several years, and says it will be like starting all over again. Still, it’s better than being cooped up inside a prison all day.

DAY 142

FRIDAY 7 DECEMBER 2001

9.00 am

I’m asked to report to sister in the hospital for an interview. As I walk across from SMU, I have a moment’s anxiety as I wonder if Linda is considering someone else for hospital orderly. These fears are assuaged by her opening comment when she says how delighted she is that I will be joining her. Linda’s only worry is that I am keeping a diary. She stresses the confidentiality of prisoners’ medical records. I agree to abide by this without reservation.

10.00 am

Mr New confirms that Mr Clarke (theft) has been reinstated as SMU cleaner. What a difference that will make. Carl can now concentrate on the real job of assisting the officers and prisoners and not have to worry whether the dustbins have been emptied.

2.00 pm

Do you recall the two prisoners who were caught returning from Boston laden with alcohol? One attacked an officer with a torch so his friends could escape. The escapee, who managed to slip back to his room and thanks to a change of clothes supplied by a friend, got away with it because it wasn’t possible to prove he’d ever been absent. Today, the same prisoner was found to have a roll-on deodorant in his room not sold at the canteen. He was shipped out to a B-cat in Liverpool this afternoon.

6.00 pm

I spend an hour signing 200 ‘Toad’ Christmas cards.

8.15 pm