Heaven (A Prison Diary 3)

Linda has worked in the Prison Service for over ten years. She has three grown-up children, two sons and a daughter. She was married to a ‘nurse tutor’, Terry, who tragically died of skin cancer a couple of years ago at the age of fifty-three. She works long hours and the prisoners look on her much as I viewed my prep-school matron – a combination of mother, nurse and confidante. She has no time for shirkers, but couldn’t be more sympathetic if you are genuinely ill.

8.15 am

After sick parade, I carry out my rounds to the different parts of the prison to let staff know who will be off work today, before going to breakfast. I ask John (lifer) what meat is in the sausage.

‘It’s always beef,’ he replies, ‘because there are so many Muslims in prisons nowadays, they never serve pork sausages.’

10.00 am

The hospital has a visit from a man called Alan, who’s come to conduct a course on drug and alcohol abuse. He moves from prison to prison, advising and helping anyone who seeks his counsel. There are 150 such officers posted around the country, paid for by the taxpayer out of the NHS and the Home Office budgets.

Alan is saddened by how few prisoners take advantage of the service he offers. In Bradford alone, he estimates that 40 per cent of inmates below the age of thirty are on drugs, and another 30 per cent are addicted to alcohol. He shows me the reams of Home Office forms to be filled in every time he sees a prisoner. By the end of the morning, only two inmates out of 211 have bothered to turn up and see him.

11.00 am

I have a special visit from Sir Brian Mawhinney MP, an old friend whose constituency is about twenty miles south of NSC. As a former cabinet minister and Shadow Home Secretary, he has many questions about prisons, and as I have not entered the Palace of Westminster for the past six months, there are questions I’m equally keen for him to answer.

Brian stays for an hour, and after we stop going over past triumphs, we discuss present disasters. He fears that the Simon Burns scenario is realistic, a long time in the wilderness for the Conservatives, but ‘Events, dear boy events, are still our biggest hope.’ Brian runs over time, and I miss lunch — no complaints.

4.00 pm

Mr Hart passes on a message from my solicitors that my appeal papers have not been lodged at court. Panic. I passed them over to the security officer six weeks ago. Mr Hart calls Mr Hocking, who confirms that they were sent out on 29 October. Who’s to blame?

5.00 pm

Canteen. Now that I’m enhanced, I have an extra £15 of my own money added to my account each week. With my hospital orderly pay of £11.70, it adds up to £26.70 a week. So I can now enjoy Cussons soap, SR toothpaste, Head and Shoulders shampoo, and even the occasional packet of McVitie’s chocolate biscuits.

6.00 pm

I attend a rock concert tonight, performed by the ‘Cons and Pros.’ The standard is high, particularly Gordon (GBH) on the guitar, who sadly for the band will be released tomorrow.

8.00 pm

Doug returns from his second day at work. He has driven to Birmingham and Northampton in one day. He is exhausted, and fed up with his room-mate, who leaves the radio on all night. I’m in bed asleep by ten-thirty. You will discover the relevance of this tomorrow.

DAY 147

WEDNESDAY 12 DECEMBER 2001

2.08 am

The night security officer opens my door and shines his torch in my eyes. I don’t get back to sleep for over an hour.

5.16 am

He does it again, so I get up and start writing.

8.07 am

On my journey around the prison this morning handing out ‘off-work’ slips, I have to drop into the farm. It’s freezing and a lot of the inmates are claiming to have colds. I bump into the farm manager, Mr Donnelly, a charming man who I came to know from my days at the SMU when he sat on the labour board. He introduces me to Blossom, a beautiful creature.

Blossom weighs in at twenty-six stone, and has a broken nose and four stubby, fat hairy legs. She is lucky to be alive. Blossom is the prisoners’ favourite pig, so when her turn came for slaughter, the inmates hid her in a haystack. When Mr Donnelly was unable to find Blossom that morning she was granted a week’s reprieve. Blossom reappeared the next day, but mysteriously disappeared again when the lorry turned up the following week. Once again Mr Donnelly searched for her, and once again he failed to find her. The inmates knew that it couldn’t be long before Blossom’s hiding place was discovered, so they put in an application to the governor to buy her, so that she could spend the rest of her days at NSC in peace. Mr Donnelly was so moved by the prisoners’ concern that he lifted the death penalty and allowed Blossom to retire. The happy pet now roams around the farm, behaving literally like a pig in clover. (See below.)

Blossom and his friend Blossom

8.30 am

On my way back to the hospital after breakfast, I sense something different, and realize that Peter (lifer, arson) is not on the road sweeping the leaves as he does every morning. A security officer explains that Peter is out on a town leave in Boston; the first occasion he’s left prison in thirty-one years. I’ll try to have a word with him as soon as he returns, so that I can capture his first impressions of freedom.