Heaven: A Prison Diary (22 page)

Why would
anyone risk losing so much for a couple of vodkas?

Linda leaves at
midday so I spend four of the next six hours editing
Belmarsh,
volume one of these diaries.

During the
evening I read
Here
is New York
by E. B. White, which Will
gave me for Christmas. One paragraph towards the end of the essay is eerily
prophetic.

The subtlest
change in New York is something people don’t speak much about, but that is in
everyone’s mind. The city, for the first time in its long history, is
destructible. A single flight of planes, no bigger than a wedge of geese, can
quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the
underground passages into lethal chambers,
cremate
the
millions. The intimation of mortality is part of New York now; in the sound of
jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest edition.

This was
written in 1949, and the author died in 1985.

Four new
prisoners arrive at the hospital from Nottingham, looking lost and a little
disorientated. I’m surprised that Group 4 has deposited them before lunch as
they don’t usually arrive until around four in the afternoon.

‘It’s New
Year’s Eve,’ explains Linda.

‘They’ll all
want to be home by four.’

Linda checks
her books and tells me that NSC had a turnover of just over a thousand
prisoners during 2001, so after eleven weeks, I’m already something of an old
lag.

Mary and I
usually invite eight
guest
to dinner at the Old
Vicarage on New Year’s Eve.

This year I’ll
have to settle for a KitKat, a glass of Ribena and hope that Doug and Clive are
able to join me.

The camp is
silent, so I begin to go over volume one of these diaries. Reading through
those early days when I was so distressed, I can’t believe how much I have made
myself forget. And this has become even more pronounced since my appointment as
hospital orderly, where I have everything except freedom and the daily company
of my wife, family and friends; a punishment in itself, but not purgatory and
certainly not hell.

Mr New drops
into the hospital to say his farewells. He leaves NSC tonight and will, on 8
January, change his uniform for a suit, when he becomes a governor at Norwich
Prison. He’s taught me a great deal about good and evil during the past three
months.

I miss my wife,
I miss my family and I miss my friends. The biggest enemy I have to contend
with is boredom, and it’s a killer.

For many
prisoners, it’s the time when they first experiment with drugs. To begin with,
drugs are offered by the dealers for nothing, and when they demand more, in
exchange for a phonecard and an ounce of tobacco or cash, and finally, when
they’re hooked, they’ll give anything for a fix – including their life.

Tonight, the
Lincolnshire constabulary informed sister that a former prisoner called Cole,
who left NSC six weeks ago, has been found under a hedge in a quiet country
lane.

He died from an
overdose.

Happy New Year.

I continue to
edit
A Prison Diary Volume One –
Belmarsh: Hell
.

Mr Berlyn drops
in to tell me that he already has plans for my CSV work should my sentence be
reduced, and this even before the date of my appeal is known. He wants me to
work in an old-age pensioners’ home, as it will be out of sight of the press.
He also feels I would benefit from the experience. I had hoped to work in the
Red Cross shop in Boston, but Mr Berlyn has discounted that option after Maria
brought in, without permission, some books for me to sign before Christmas to
raise money for their Afghanistan appeal. The Rev Derek Johnson, the prison
chaplain, has been to see him to plead their case, explaining that he is in the
forgiveness and rehabilitation business. Mr Berlyn’s immediate retort was, ‘I’m
in the punishment and retribution business.’ He must have meant of prisoners; I
can’t believe he wishes to punish a hard-working, decent woman trying to run a
Red Cross shop.

Linda looks
very tired. She’s worked twentyone of the last twenty-four days. She tells me
that she’s going to apply for a job in Boston.

My only selfish
thought is that I hope she doesn’t leave before I do.

Doug turns up
at the hospital for his nightly bath and to watch television. He’s now settled
into his job as a driver, which keeps him out of the prison between the hours
of 8 am and 7 pm. I wonder if, for prisoners like Doug, it wouldn’t be better
to rethink the tagging system, so he could give up his bed for a more worthy
candidate.

Morning surgery
is packed with inmates who want to sign up for acupuncture. You must report to
hospital between 7.30 and 8 am in order to be booked in for an eleven o’clock
appointment. Linda and Gail are both fully qualified, and ‘on the out’
acupuncture could cost up to £40 a session. To an inmate, it’s free of charge,
as are all prescriptions.

The purpose of
acupuncture in prison is twofold: to release stress, and to wean you off
smoking. Linda and Gail have had several worthwhile results in the past. One
inmate has dropped from sixty cigarettes a day to three after only a month on
the course. Other prisoners, who are suffering from stress, rely on it, and any
prisoner who turns up for a second session can be described as serious.

However, back to the present.
Eight inmates suspiciously
arrive in a group, and sign up for the eleven o’clock session. They all by
coincidence reside in the south block and work on the farm, which means that
they’ll miss most of the morning’s work and still be fully paid.

At eight
o’clock Linda calls Mr Donnelly on the farm to let him know that the morning’s
acupuncture session is so oversubscribed (two regular applicants, one from
education and one unemployed) so she’ll take the eight from the farm at four
o’clock this afternoon. This means that they’ll have to complete their day’s
work before reporting to the hospital. It will be interesting to see how many
of them turn up.

Young Ron (both
legs broken) hobbles in to see the doctor. He’s on the paper chase and has to
be cleared as fit and free of any problems before he can be released at 8 am
tomorrow. After the hospital, he still has to visit the gym, stores, SMU,
education, unit office and reception. How will they go about signing out a man
with two broken legs as fit to face the world? Linda comes to the rescue,
phones each department and then signs on their behalf. Problem solved.

When Dr Walling
has finished ministering to his patients, he joins me in the ward. We discuss
the drug problem in Boston, sleepy Boston,
(
population
of around 54,000).

Recently Dr
Walling’s car was broken into.

All the usual
things were stolen – radio, tapes, briefcase – but he was devastated by the
loss of a box of photographic slides that he has built up over a period of thirty
years.

Because he
hadn’t duplicated them, they were irreplaceable, and the theft took place only
days before he was due to deliver a series of lectures in America. Assuming
that it was a drug-related theft (cash needed for a quick fix), Dr Walling visited
the houses of Boston’s three established drug barons. He left a note saying
that he needed the slides urgently and would pay a reward of £100 if they were
returned.

The slides
turned up the following day.

The true
significance of this tale is that a leading doctor knows who the town’s drug
barons are, and yet the police seem powerless to put such men behind bars. Dr
Walling explains that it’s the old problem of ‘Mr Big’ never getting his hands
dirty. He arranges for the drugs to be smuggled into the country before being
sold to a dealer. Mr Big also employs runners to distribute the drugs, free of
charge, mainly to children as they leave school unaccompanied, so that long
before they reach university or take a job, they’re hooked. And that, I repeat,
is in Boston, not Chelsea or Brixton.

What will
Britain be like in ten years’ time, twenty years, thirty, if the police
estimate that 40 per cent of all crime
today
is drug-related?

No one from the
farm turns up for acupuncture.

Carl rushes in,
breathless, to say a prisoner has collapsed on the south block. Linda went home
two hours ago, so I run out of the hospital, to find Mr Belford and Mr Harman a
few yards ahead of me.

When we arrive
at the prisoner’s door, we find the inmate gasping for breath. I recognize him
immediately from his visit to Dr Walling this morning. I feel helpless as he
lies doubled-
up,
clutching his stomach, but
fortunately an ambulance arrives within minutes. A paramedic places a mask over
the inmate’s face, and then asks him some routine questions, all of which I am
able to answer on his behalf – name off doctor, last visit to surgery, nature
of complaint and medication given. I’m also able to tell them his blood
pressure, 145/78. They rush him to the Pilgrim Hospital, and as he failed his
recent risk assessment, Mr Harman has to travel with him.

As Mr Harman is
now off the manifest, we are probably down to five officers on duty tonight, to
watch over 211 prisoners.

I finish
editing
Belmarsh
, and post it back to
my publishers.

I leave the
hospital to carry out my morning rounds. This has three purposes: first, to let
each department head know which inmates are off work, second, in case of a
fire, to identify who is where, and third, if someone fails to show up for
roll-call, to check if they’ve absconded.

En route to the
farm I bump into Blossom, who had one of the pigs named after him.

(See photo page
193.) Blossom is a traveller, or a gipsy as we used to describe them before it
became politically incorrect. Blossom tells me that he’s just dug a lamb out of
the ice. It seems it got its hindquarters stuck in some mud which froze
overnight, so the poor animal couldn’t move.

‘You’ve saved
the animal’s life,’ I tell Blossom.

‘No,’ he says,
‘he’s going to be slaughtered today, so he’ll soon be on the menu as frozen
cutlets.’

I pick up my
post from the south block. Although most of the messages continue along the
same theme, one, sent from a Frank and Lurline in Wynnum, Australia is worthy
of a mention, if only because of the envelope. It was addressed thus:

Lord Jeffrey
Archer Jailed for telling a fib
Somewhere
in England.

It is dated
Christmas Day, and has taken only nine days to reach me in deepest
Lincolnshire.

The main
administration block has been sealed off. Gail tells me that she can’t get into
the building to carry out any paperwork and she doesn’t know why. This is only
interesting because it’s an area that is off-limits to inmates.

Over the past
few months, money and valuables have gone missing. Mr Berlyn is determined to
catch the culprit. It turns out to be a fruitless exercise, because, despite a
thorough search, the £20 that was stolen from someone’s purse doesn’t
materialize.

Mr Hocking, the
security officer in charge of the operation, found the whole exercise
distasteful as it involved investigating his colleagues. I have a feeling he
knows who the guilty party is, but certainly isn’t going to tell me. My deep
throat, a prisoner of long standing, tells me the name of the suspect. For
those readers with the mind of a detective, she doesn’t get a mention in this
diary.

A prisoner from
the south block checks into surgery with a groin injury. Linda is sufficiently
worried about his condition to have him taken to the local hospital without
delay.

Meanwhile she
dresses his wounds and gives him some painkillers. He never once says please or
thank
you. This attitude would be true of over half
the inmates, and nearer 70 per cent of those under thirty. Although it’s a
generalization, I have become aware that those without manners are also the
work shy amongst the prison population.

Among the
thousands of letters I’ve received since I’ve been incarcerated, several are from
charities that continue to ask for donations, signed books and memorabilia, and
occasionally for a doodle, drawing, poem or even a painting. Despite my
life-long love of art, the good Lord decided to place a pen in my hand, not a
paintbrush. But I found an alternative when I came across Darren, an education
orderly. Darren has already designed several imaginative posters and signs for
the hospital. The latest charity request is that I should produce a sunflower,
in any medium
. I came up with an idea which
Darren produces. (See overleaf.)