Heaven (A Prison Diary 3)

Yesterday I was frog-marched off to do an MDT. Today there’s an announcement over the tannoy that there are voluntary drugs tests for those with surnames beginning A-E. These are known as dip tests, because once again you pee into a plastic beaker, but this time the officer in charge dips a little stick into the beaker and moments later is able to give you a result.

I walk across to the Portakabin, supply another 60ml of urine and I’m immediately cleared, which makes yesterday’s test somewhat redundant.

I later learn that one of the Bs came up positive, and he had to call his wife to let her know that he won’t be allowed out on a town visit this weekend. As it was a voluntary test, I can’t work out why he agreed to be tested.

10.00 am

Surgery is always slow at the weekend because the majority of inmates who appear with various complaints during the week in the hope that they will get off work remain in bed, while all those who are fit never visit us in the first place.

11.00 am

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Carl and an inmate called Jason who is only with us for two weeks (motoring offence) turn up at the hospital. Together we remove all the beds from the ward and push them into the corridor, before giving the hospital a spring clean.

Jason tells me that ‘on the out’ he’s a painter and decorator, and could repaint the ward during his two-week incarceration. I shall speak to the governor on Monday, because at £8.20 a week this would be quite a bargain. You may well ask why Carl and Jason helped me with the spring clean. Boredom. The spring clean killed a morning for all of us.

2.00 pm

I watch the prison football team lose 72, and witness two more pieces of unbelievable stupidity by fellow inmates. Our goalkeeper, who was sent off by the same referee the last time we played, shouts obscenities at him again, and is surprised when he’s booked. I fear he will be back in prison within months of being released. But worse, our centre forward is a prisoner who’s just come out of the Pilgrim Hospital after a groin injury, and has been told to rest for six weeks. He will undoubtedly appear at surgery on Monday expecting sympathy. It’s no wonder the NHS is in such crisis if patients behave so irresponsibly after being given expert advice.

DAY 214

SUNDAY 17 FEBRUARY 2002

6.01 am

If I had been given the same sentence as Jonathan Aitken, I would have been released today. Jonathan was sentenced to eighteen months, and because he was a model prisoner, only had to serve seven (half minus two months on tag). Tomorrow I will not be returning home to my wife and family because Mr Justice Potts sentenced me to four years. Instead I will be meeting Mark Le Sage, an officer from Stocken Prison who visits schools in Lincolnshire, warning children of the consequences of taking drugs.

I will remain at NSC until I know the result of my appeal, but for the first time in seven months (since my mother’s funeral) I will be able to leave the prison and return to the outside world.

DAY 215

MONDAY 18 FEBRUARY 2002

10.00 am

Mr Le Sage does not turn up for our meeting.

The governor of HMP Stocken has decided that they should not have to bear the cost of my accompanying Mr Le Sage on any school visit, as it would no longer be a voluntary activity that Mr Le Sage would normally pursue in his off-duty time.

As so often is the case in prisons, someone will look for a reason for not doing something rather than trying to make a good idea work. I cannot pretend that I’ve become so used to this negative attitude that I am not disappointed. Mr Berlyn is also unable to mask his anger, and seems determined not to be thwarted by this setback. He has decided that NSC will send its own officer (Mr Hocking) as my escort, so that I might still attend Mark Le Sage’s lectures. As I won’t know if this suggestion will be vetoed until Mr Berlyn has spoken to the Stocken’s governor, I will continue in my role as hospital orderly.

11.30 am

Alan Purser, the prison drugs counsellor, comes across to the hospital to give me a copy of The Management of Drug Misuse in Prisons by Dr Celia Grummitt. Dr Grummitt will become my new bedtime companion.

4.00 pm

Mr Vessey has charged Chris (lifer, murder) and David (lifer, murder) with being on the farm in possession of four potatoes and a cabbage. In normal circumstances this would have caused little interest, even in our self-contained world. However, this will be the new governor’s first adjudication, which we all await with bated breath.

DAY 216

TUESDAY 19 FEBRUARY 2002

10.00 am

Mr Beaumont dismissed the charges against Chris and David as a farm worker came forward to say he’d given them permission to take the potatoes and the cabbage.