Heaven Read online

  10.00 am

  An extra bed has appeared in my room, because two of the spurs are temporarily out of service while they’re being fitted for TVs. I found out today that prisoners are charged £1 a week for the hire of their TVs, and NSC will make an annual profit of £10,000 on this enterprise. At Wayland, I’m told it was £30,000. Free enterprise at its best. Still, the point of this entry is to let you know that I will soon be sharing my room with another prisoner.

  2.40 pm

  At Mr New’s request, I join him in his office. He’s just had a call from his opposite number at Spring Hill, who asked if I was aware that if transferred I would have to share a room.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply.

  ‘And can they confirm that the principal reason for seeking a transfer is the inconvenience to your family of having a 250-mile round trip to visit you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I reply.

  Mr New nods. ‘I anticipated your answers. Although a decision has not yet been made, the first vacancy wouldn’t be until 28 November.’

  Suddenly it’s crunch time. Would I rather stay at NSC as the hospital orderly, with my own room, TV, bathroom and fridge? Or move to Spring Hill and be nearer my family and friends? I’ll need to discuss the problem with Mary.

  5.00 pm

  I return to my room to do a couple of hours writing; so far, no other occupant has appeared to claim the second bed.

  6.42 pm

  My new room-mate arrives, accompanied by two friends. His name is Eamon, and he seems pleasant enough. I leave him to settle in.

  When I stroll into the hospital, Clive has a large grin on his face. He spent eleven months in that room without ever having to share it for one night. I couldn’t even manage eleven days.

  DAY 113

  THURSDAY 8 NOVEMBER 2001

  8.15 am

  Breakfast. Wendy, the officer in charge of the kitchen, needs three new workers from this morning’s labour board.

  ‘But only yesterday you told me that you were overstaffed.’

  ‘True,’ she replies, hands on hips, ‘but that was yesterday, and I had to sack three of the blighters this morning.’

  ‘Why?’ I ask hopefully.

  ‘I knew you’d ask,’ she replies, ‘and only because you’re bound to find out sooner or later, I’ll tell you. I set three of them plucking chickens yesterday morning, and last night two of the birds went missing. I don’t know who stole them, but in my kitchen I dispense summary justice, so all three were sacked.’

  9.30 am

  Eight new prisoners arrive for induction today, including my room-mate Eamon. It seems that he worked in the kitchen at his last prison, but ‘on the out’ is a builder by trade. He’s due for release in January, and wants to work outside during the winter months to toughen himself up. Sounds logical to me, so I recommend that he opts for the farm.

  10.00 am

  Eamon gets his preferred job. I also find three new kitchen workers for Wendy, and the labour board is drinking coffee by 10.39 am. I need a new challenge.

  12 noon

  Lunch. I sit next to the new visits orderly, who tells me that ‘on the out’ he was a hairdresser in Leicester. He charged £27.50, but while he’s in prison, he’ll happily cut my hair once a month for a phonecard. Another problem solved.

  2.30 pm

  A fax has just been received from Spring Hill, requesting my latest sentence plan, which cannot be updated until I’ve served twenty-eight days at NSC. Sentence plans make up a part of every prisoner’s record, and are an important element when it comes to consideration for parole. Sentence planning boards are held almost every afternoon and conducted by Mr New and Mr Simpson. I am due before the board on 20 November. Mr New immediately brings it forward a week to 12 November — next Monday, which would be my twenty-ninth day at NSC, and promises to fax the result through to Spring Hill that afternoon. I’ll be interested to see what excuse they’ll come up with next.

  3.30 pm

  Mr Berlyn (deputy governor) drops in to grumble about the prison being full for the first time in years and say that I’m to blame.

  ‘How come?’ I ask.

  ‘Because,’ he explains, ‘the News of the World described NSC as the cushiest jail in Britain, so now every prisoner who qualifies for a D-cat wants to be sent here. It’s one of the reasons I hope they take you at Spring Hill,’ he continues, ‘then we can pass that dubious accolade on to them. By the way,’ he adds, ‘don’t get your hopes up about an early move, because someone up above [prison slang for the Home Office] is out to stop you.’

  4.00 pm

  John (lifer, murder) arrives in SMU, accompanied by a very attractive lady whom he introduces as his partner. This has me puzzled. If John murdered his wife, and has been in prison for the past fourteen years, how can he have a partner?

  5.00 pm

  I return to my room and write for two hours, relieved that Eamon doesn’t make an appearance. I’m not sure if it’s because he’s with his friends from Derby, or is excessively considerate. This morning he told me he didn’t mind my switching the light on at six o’clock.

  ‘I’m in the building trade,’ he explained, ‘so I’m used to getting up at four-thirty.’

  I feel I should add that he doesn’t smoke, doesn’t swear and is always well mannered. I still haven’t found out why he’s in prison.

  7.15 pm

  I find Doug and Clive at the hospital, heads down, poring over the new resettlement directive in preparation for tomorrow’s facility meeting. Doug is determined to be the first prisoner out of the blocks, and if that should happen, then I might become the hospital orderly overnight. For the first time I look at the hospital in a different light, thinking about what changes I would make.

  DAY 114

  FRIDAY 9 NOVEMBER 2001

  6.00 am

  Before I went to sleep last night, I studied the latest Lords reform bill, as set out in The Times and Telegraph by Phil Webster and George Jones, those papers’ respective political editors.

  When I entered the Commons in 1969 at the age of twenty-nine, I think I was the first elected MP not to have been eligible for national service.7 I mention this because, having won a by-election in Louth, Lincolnshire, I experienced six months of a ‘fag-end’ session of which almost every member had served not only in the armed forces, but also in the Second World War, with half a dozen having done so in the First World War. On the back benches generals, admirals and air marshalls — who could add MC, DSO and DFC to the letters MP — were in abundance. At lunch in the members’ Dining Room, you might sit next to Sir Fitzroy McLean, who was parachuted into Yugoslavia to assist Tito, or Airey Neave, who escaped from Colditz.

  In 1970, when Ted Heath became Prime Minister, Malcolm Rifkind, Kenneth Clarke and Norman Lamont joined me — a new breed of politician who would, in time, replace the amateurs of the past. I use the word ‘amateur’ with respect and admiration, for many of these men had no desire to hold high office, considering Parliament an extension of the armed forces that allowed them to continue to serve their country.

  When I entered the Lords in 1992, the House consisted of hereditary peers, life peers and working peers (I fell into the latter category). Peter Carrington (who was Foreign Secretary under Margaret Thatcher) is an example of an hereditary peer, the late Yehudi Menuhin of a life peer who rarely attended the House — why should he? And John Wakeham was a working peer and my first leader — a Cabinet minister appointed to the Lords to do a job of work.

  A strange way to make up a second chamber, you may feel, and certainly undemocratic but, for all its failings, while I sat on the back benches I came to respect the skills, dedication and service the country received for such a small outlay. On the other side of that undemocratic coin were hereditary peers, and even some life peers, who never attended the House from one year to the next, while others, who contributed almost nothing, attended every day to ensure they received their daily allowance and expenses.

  8.00 am