A Prison Diary Purgatory (2003) Read online

  ‘No, we both use the same chapel. Father Christopher has so many parishes outside the prison to cover each Sunday he holds his service on a Saturday morning at ten thirty.’ Mr Framlington is interested to discover why I wish to attend both services. I tell him about my daily diary, and my failure to hear Father Kevin’s sermon while at Belmarsh. He sighs.

  ‘You’ll quickly find out that Father Christopher preaches a far better sermon than I do.’

  2.40 pm

  The first setback of the day. Mr Newport returns, the bearer of bad news. Six new prisoners have arrived this afternoon, and once again I will have to share. I learn later that there are indeed six new inductees but as the prison still has several empty beds there is no real need for me to share. However, there are several reporters hanging around outside the prison gates, so the authorities don’t want to leave the press with the impression I might be receiving preferential treatment. Mr Newport claims he has selected a more suitable person to share with me. Perhaps this time it won’t be a Stanley-knife stabber, just a machete murderer.

  I transfer all my personal possessions out of one of the cupboards and stuff them into the other, along with the prison kit.

  3.18 pm

  My new room-mate appears carrying his plastic bag. He introduces himself as Jules (see plate section). He’s thirty-five and has a five-year sentence for drug dealing. He’s already been told that I don’t smoke.

  I watch him carefully as he starts to unpack, and I begin to relax. He has an unusual number of books, as well as an electric chessboard. I feel confident the evening viewing will not be a rerun of Top of the Pops and motorbike scrambling. At five to four I leave him to continue his unpacking while I make my way to the gym for another induction session.

  3.55 pm

  Twenty new inmates are escorted to the gym. There are no doors to be unlocked on our unimpeded journey to the other side of the building. I also notice that on the way we pass a library. I never even found the library at Belmarsh.

  The gym is an even bigger shock. It’s quite magnificent. Wayland has a full-size basketball court, which is fully equipped for badminton and tennis. The gym instructor asks us to take a seat on a bench where we’re handed forms to fill in, giving such details as age, weight, height and sports we are interested in.

  ‘My name is John Maiden,’ he tells us, ‘and I’m happy to be called John.’ I never learnt the first name of any officer at Belmarsh. He tells us the different activities available: cricket, basketball, badminton, football, rugby and, inevitably, weight training. He then takes us into the next room, an area overcrowded with bars, dumb-bells and weights. Once again I’m disappointed to discover that there is only one treadmill, three rowing machines and no step machine. However, there are some very strange-looking bikes, the likes of which I’ve never seen before.

  A gym orderly (a prisoner who has obviously been trained by Mr Maiden) takes us round the room and describes how to use each piece of equipment. He carries out the task most professionally, and should have no trouble finding a job once he leaves prison. I’m listening intently about bench pressing when I find Mr Maiden standing by my side.

  ‘Are you still refereeing rugby?’ he asks.

  ‘No. I gave up about ten years ago,’ I tell him. ‘Once the laws started to change every season I just couldn’t keep up. In any case I found that even if I only refereed veteran teams I couldn’t keep up, quite literally.’

  ‘Don’t let knowledge of the laws worry you,’ said Mr Maiden, ‘we’ll still be able to use you.’

  The session ends with a look at the changing room, the shower facilities and, more importantly, clean lavatories. I’m issued with a plastic gym card and look forward to returning to my old training regime.

  5.00 pm

  Back in the cell, I find Jules sitting on the top bunk reading. I settle down to another session of writing before we’re called for supper.

  6.00 pm

  I select the vegetarian pie and chips and am handed the obligatory yellow lollipop, which is identical to those we were given at Belmarsh. If it’s the same company who makes and supplies them to every one of Her Majesty’s prisons, that must be a contract worth having. Although it’s only my third meal since I arrived, I think I’ve already spotted the power behind the hotplate. He’s a man of about thirty-five, six foot three and must weigh around twenty-seven stone. As I pass him I ask if we could meet later. He nods in the manner of a man who knows that in the kingdom of the blind… I can only hope that I’ve located Wayland’s ‘Del Boy’.

  After supper we are allowed to be out of our cells for a couple of hours (Association) until we’re banged up at eight.

  What a contrast to Belmarsh. I use the time to roam around the corridors and familiarize myself with the layout. The main office is on the first landing and is the hub of the whole wing. From there everything is an offshoot. I also check where all the phones are situated, and when a prisoner comes off one he warns me, ‘Never use the phone on the induction landing, Jeff, because the conversations are taped. Use this one. It’s a screw-free line.’

  I thank him and call Mary in Cambridge. She’s relieved that I’ve rung as she has no way of contacting me, and can’t come to see me until she’s been sent a visiting order. I promise to put one in tomorrow’s post, and then she may even be able to drive across next Tuesday or Wednesday. I remind her to bring some form of identification and that she mustn’t try to pass anything over to me, not even a letter.

  Mary then tells me that she’s accepted an invitation to go on the Today programme with John Humphrys. She intends to ask Baroness Nicholson to withdraw her accusation that I stole money from the Kurds, so that I can be reinstated as a D-cat prisoner and quickly transferred to an open prison. I tell Mary that I consider this an unlikely scenario.

  ‘She’s not decent enough to consider such a Christian act,’ I warn my wife.

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Mary replies, ‘but I will be able to refer to Lynda Chafer’s parliamentary reply on the subject and ask why Ms Nicholson wasn’t in the House that day if she cares so much about the Kurds, or why had she not at least read the report in Hansard the following morning.’ Mary adds that the BBC have told her that they accept I have no case to answer.

  ‘When are you going on?’

  ‘Next Wednesday or Thursday, so it’s important I see you before then.’

  I quickly agree as my units are running out. I then ask Mary to warn James that I’ll phone him at the office at eleven tomorrow morning, and will call her again on Sunday evening. My units are now down to ten so I say a quick goodbye.

  I continue my exploration of the wing and discover that the main Association room and the servery/hotplate double up. The room is about thirty paces by twenty and has a full-size snooker table which is so popular that you have to book a week in advance. There is also a pool table and a table-tennis table, but no TV, as it would be redundant when there’s one in every cell.

  I’m walking back upstairs when I bump into the hotplate man. He introduces himself as Dale, and invites me to join him in his cell, telling me on the way that he’s serving eight years for wounding with intent to endanger life. He leads me down a flight of stone steps onto the lower-ground floor. This is an area I would never have come across, as it’s reserved for enhanced prisoners only - the chosen few who have proper jobs and are considered by the officers to be trustworthy. As you can’t be granted enhanced status for at least three months, I will never enjoy such luxury, as I am hoping to be moved to a D-cat fairly quickly.

  Although Dale’s cell is exactly the same size as mine, there the similarity ends. His brick walls are in two tones of blue, and he has nine five-by-five-inch steel mirrors over his wash-basin shaped in a large triangle. In our cell, Jules and I have one mirror between us. Dale also has two pillows, both soft, and an extra blanket. On the wall are photos of his twin sons, but no sign of a wife - just the centrefold of a couple of Chinese girls, Blu-tacked above his bed.