Purgatory (A Prison Diary 2)

‘On every wing there is a communal iron, which always ended up in Mario’s cell on a Saturday evening,’ explained Darren.

‘How much did the chef charge?’

Tor two nights’ supply, a two-pound phonecard.’

‘And how did they punish him?’

The iron was confiscated, and Mario demoted to washer-up, with twenty-one days added to his sentence. But they had to reinstate him after a couple of months because so many inmates complained about the standard of cooking dropping during the weekends. So he was brought back, and after another six months they also forgot about the twenty-one-day added sentence.

‘And what is Mario in for?’ I ask.

Tax evasion - three years - and the fraud squad needed to be just as sharp to discover what he was up to then,’ says Darren as we leave the hotplate. I make a mental note to make sure I meet him.

2.00 pm

Dale wants to talk to me about my canteen list for next week and has set an upper limit of PS20. ‘Otherwise the screws will become suspicious,’ he explains. PS20 will be quite enough as I’m still credited each week with PS12.50 from my own account.

Dale’s also solved my writing pad problem, because he’s somehow got his hands on three A4 pads, for which he charges me PS4 I would happily pay PS10 as I’m down to twenty pages of my last pad, but this new supply should last me a month.

5.00 pm

I call Mary at Grantchester, but there is no reply. I try London but only get Alison’s voice on the answer machine. I forgot she’s away on holiday. In any case, it’s Sunday.

5.45 pm

Supper. The ham looks good, but I’m down for the vegetarian dish and you can’t change your mind once you’ve signed the weekly menu sheet Dale thinks about giving me a slice, but as my bete noire is on duty behind the hotplate, he doesn’t risk it. Every Sunday you are given a meal sheet which rotates on a four-week cycle (see opposite); you fill in your selection from a list posted outside the main office, giving the kitchen advance notice of how much they will have to order of each item. Can’t complain about that.

6.00 pm

Banged up for the next fourteen hours. I begin The Basement Room by Graham Greene. His description of minor characters is breathtaking in its simplicity and the story, although complex, still demands that you turn the page. I consider it a reflection on the Nobel Committee, not Mr Greene, that he has never won the prize for literature.

DAY 33 - MONDAY 20 AUGUST 2001

5.54 am

Wake and wonder how long it will take the police to close their file on the Kurds and allow me to be transferred to an open prison. I heard a story yesterday about a prisoner who wanted to do it the other way round. He put in an application to be transferred from a D-cat open prison to a C-cat - a more secure environment with a tougher regime. His reasons seem strange but, I’m told, are not uncommon.

He was serving a twenty-two-year sentence for murder. After five years, they moved him from an A-cat to a B-cat, which is a little more relaxed. After a further twelve years they transferred him to Wayland. At Wayland he became an enhanced prisoner with all the privileges that affords. He was also chief gardener, which allowed him to be out of his cell for most of the day and gave him an income of more than PS30 a week. In his own world he wanted for nothing, and the governor considered him to be a model prisoner.

After twenty years he was granted D-cat status as part of his preparation for returning to the outside world. He was transferred to Ford Open Prison in Sussex to begin his rehabilitation.

He lasted at Ford for less than a month. One Saturday afternoon he absconded and turned himself in at the local police station a few hours later. He was arrested, charged with attempting to abscond and sent back to Wayland, where he remained until he had completed his sentence.

The governor at the time couldn’t resist asking him why he’d absconded. He replied that he couldn’t handle the responsibility of making his own decisions. He also missed not having a proper job and the ordered discipline of the Wayland regime. But most of all he missed the high walls that surrounded the prison because they made him feel safe from all those people on the outside.

With less than six months to go before the end of his sentence, he was found in his cell with a piece of silver paper from a KitKat wrapper, a few grams of heroin and a lighted match. He had even pressed the emergency button inside his cell to make certain that he was caught. The governor wasn’t sure what to do, because he knew only too well that the prisoner had never taken heroin in twenty years. Only six weeks were added to his sentence and he was released a few months later. Within a month of

leaving prison, he committed suicide.

8.15 am

Breakfast. I have a Shredded Wheat and think of Ian Botham. This is doubly appropriate because it’s twenty years ago this week that he scored 149 at Headingley and, with the assistance of Willis and Dilly, defeated Australia, despite England having to follow on. In today’s match, Australia lead by 314, and I assume Adam Gilchrist will soon declare, as they’ve already won the series and England have only scored more than 300 in a final innings against Australia once in the last hundred years.

9.11 am

One of the prison chaplains visits me. She bears a message from Michael Adie, who until recently was the Bishop of Guildford. Michael and I first met in 1969 when he was Vicar of Louth and I was the Member of Parliament for that beautiful constituency. He was a more natural friend for Mary, having gained a first-class honours degree in mathematics at Cambridge. Michael wants to visit me and has discovered that a bishop can see a prisoner without it affecting his quota of fortnightly visits.

I suggest to Margaret, the prison chaplain, that for Michael to make the long journey to Norfolk is typical of his generous spirit, but it might be wiser to wait and find out which D-cat prison they are going to transfer me to. I feel sure it will be nearer London and he could then visit me there. She kindly agrees to relay that message back to him.