Purgatory (A Prison Diary 2)

10.15 am

Education. I pull on my newly supplied prison regulation heavy brown boots as I prepare for my first pottery lesson. Once I’ve left the spur I have to ask several officers and inmates the way to the Art Centre, which turns out to be on the other side of the prison.

When I finally locate it, the first person I see on entering the room is Shaun, who sits in the corner of the large square workshop working on an abstract pastel. He greets me with a smile. The next person I

spot is a lady who I assume must be our tutor. She’s around five foot six, dark-haired and dark-eyed with a warm smile. She introduces herself as Anne.

The first task Anne sets me is to read a pottery book and see if I come across any object I’d like to recreate. I try to tell her about my lack of talent in this area, but she just smiles. I begin to read the book as she moves on to Roger, a jolly West Indian (bank robber), who is doing a sculpture of the Virgin Mary. She then goes across to Terry (burglar), who is moulding his piece of clay into a lion. I am engrossed in my book when Anne returns, accompanied by a large lump of clay. She also has a thin wooden stick that looks like a knife without a handle, which is numbered four. She glances down at the page I’ve reached to see a head and shoulders figure of a man. With the help of the wooden knife, she carves chunks off the square putty to start forming the shoulders, and then leaves me to begin my first attempt at figurative sculpture.

As I turn my attention to the head and neck, I get into conversation with Shaun who is rubbing his fingers into the pastel to try and give his picture a blurred ‘Turneresque’ look. While he chats away about which artists influence him, I subtly try to steer the conversation off art and find out why he is in prison, quite expecting him to claim that he’s another victim of drugs.

‘No, no, no,’ he says. ‘Forgery.’ My ears prick up. ‘Paintings?’ I ask.

‘No,’ he replies. ‘Much as I’d like to be a Keating or Elmyr Hory, it’s more mundane than that - John Lewis gift vouchers.’ I laugh. ‘So how were you caught?’

‘I was grassed up by my mate who got nervous and turned Queen’s evidence. He got off while I ended up with thirteen months in prison.’

Thirteen months? That’s a strange sentence.’ ‘I was given twelve months for the forgery and an extra month for not turning up to the first hearing.’

‘How much did you get away with?’ I ask casually. ‘Can’t tell you that,’ he responds. ‘But I admitted to a couple of grand.’

‘And you’ll be out in three weeks, so how long have you served?’

‘Just over four months.’

‘So you haven’t that long to carry out my commission.’ He turns back to his sketch pad and flicks over a few pages. Be reveals half a dozen sketches of five figures in different poses and asks which one I would prefer. ‘Which one do you prefer?’

‘Number three,’ he says, placing his thumb on the sketch. I nod my agreement as Anne reappears by my side.

I see what you mean by lack of talent,’ she says, and bursts out laughing at my feeble effort of a head and shoulders, which makes like a cross between ET and a Botero. Roger (bank robber) and Terry (burglar) come across to find out what’s causing such

‘You should have started with a pot, man,’ says Roger, ‘and not tried to advance so quickly.’ He’s already identified my biggest failing.

Without warning, two officers march in and begin to carry out a search. I assume it must be to check on the number of wooden knives and wire used for slicing the putty. But no, I’m told later it was for drugs. The workshops are evidently a common place for dealers to conduct their business.

On the way back to my cell I get lost again, but Shaun accompanies me to A wing and tells me that he has come up with a concept for the cover of Wayland (see plate section). I had always assumed that a graphic designer would do the cover of the book, but the idea of a fellow prisoner carrying out the commission is very appealing. I also admire Shaun’s enterprise in spotting the opportunity. As we part at the T-junction between our two blocks, we agree to meet up during afternoon exercise to continue the discussion.

12 noon

Lunch. Dale’s mushroom soup plus a vegetable fritter.

2.14 pm

I call my solicitor to try to find out the latest on the Simple Truth investigation. The police have been supplied with all our documents plus a detailed report from the Red Cross. Detective Chief Superintendent Perry, who’s in charge of the case, is sympathetic, but says he must follow up all Baroness Nicholson’s accusations. To DCS Perry a day is nothing; to me it’s another fourteen hours locked in a cell.

5.00 pm

Supper: Chinese stir-fry and vegetables. An original recipe served up in one blob, and certainly not cooked by anyone who originated from the Orient.

6.00 pm

No evening gym because there is a cricket match between A and D blocks (the drug-free wing known as junkies’ paradise). I am going over my script for the day when Jimmy appears outside my cell door.

You’re batting at number five, my lord,’ he says, looking down at his team sheet.

‘What?’ I say. ‘The last game I played was for David Frost’s eleven against the Lords Taverners and on that occasion I was dean bowled first ball.’

‘Who was the bowler?’ he asks.