Heaven: A Prison Diary (9 page)

Nielsen told PO
New on several occasions that it would have been better for everyone if they’d
hanged him.

Now that the
IRA terrorists are no longer locked up on the mainland, of the 1,800 murderers
in custody, there are currently only seven SSU inmates.

Now Chris, who
killed his wife, is at the other end of the scale. He’s reached D-cat status
after eleven years, and works in the kitchens. He therefore has access to
several instruments with which he could kill or maim. Only yesterday, I watched
him chopping up some meat – rather efficiently. He hopes that the parole board
will agree to release him in eighteen months’ time. During the past eleven
years, he has moved from
A
... cat to D-cat via
seventeen jails, three of them in one weekend when he was driven to Preston,
Swalesdale and Whitemoor, only to find each time that they didn’t have a cell
for him.

All nine lifers
at NSC will be interviewed today, so further reports can be sent to the Home
Office to help decide if they are ready to return to the outside world. The
Home Office will make the final decision; they are traditionally rather
conservative and accept about 60 per cent of the board’s recommendations. The
board convenes at 9 am when Linda, the lifers’ probation officer, is joined by
the deputy governor, Mr Berlyn, a psychiatrist called Christine and the lifers’
prison officer.

The first
prisoner in front of the board is Peter, who set fire to a police station. He’s
so far served thirty-one years, and frankly is now a great helpless hunk of a
man who has become so institutionalized that the parole board will probably
have to transfer him straight to an old-peoples’ home. Peter told me he has to
serve at least another eighteen months before the board would be willing to
consider his case. I don’t think he’ll ever be released, other than in a
coffin.

The next to
come in front of the board is Leon.

The biggest
problem
lifers
face is their prison records. For the
first ten years of their sentences, they can see no light at the end of the
tunnel, so the threat of another twentyeight days added to their sentence is
hardly a deterrent. After ten years, Linda says there is often a sea change in
a lifer’s attitude that coincides with their move to a B-cat and then again
when they reach a C-cat. This is even more pronounced when they finally arrive
at a D-cat and can suddenly believe release is possible.

By the way,
it’s almost unknown for a lifer to abscond. Not only would they be returned to
an A-cat closed prison, but
its
possible they never
would be considered for parole again.

However, most
of the lifers being interviewed today have led a farily blameless existence for
the past five years, although there are often scars, missing teeth and broken
bones to remind them of their first ten years in an A-cat.

During the day,
each of them goes meekly in to face the board. No swagger, no swearing, no
attitude; that alone could set them back another year.

Leon is
followed by Michael, then Chris, Roger, Bob, John, John and John (a coincidence
not acceptable in a novel). At the end of the day, Linda comes out exhausted.
By the way, they all adore her. She not only knows their life histories to the
minutest detail, but also treats them as human beings.

Only one other incident of note today – the appearance at SMU of a
man who killed a woman in a road accident and was sentenced to three years for
dangerous driving.
He’s a mild-mannered chap who asked me for help with
his book on Kurdistan. Mr New tells me that he is going to be transferred to
another jail. The husband of his victim lives in Boston and, as the inmate is
coming up for his first town visit, the victim’s husband has objected on the
grounds that he might come across him in his daily life.

The inmate
joins me after his meeting with Mr New. He’s philosophical about the decision.
He accepts that the victim’s
family have
every right
to ask for him to be moved.

He’s so clearly
racked with guilt, and seems destined to relive this terrible incident for the
rest of his life, that I find myself trying to comfort him. In truth, he’s a
different kind of lifer.

It must be Guy
Fawkes Day, because from my little window I can see fireworks exploding over
Boston.

The big news in
the camp today is that from 1

November, NSC
is to become a resettlement prison. (No doubt you will have noticed that it’s 6
November.) The change of status could spell survival for NSC, which has been
under threat of closure for several years.

Resettlement
means quite simply that once a prisoner has reached his FLED (facility licence
eligibility date) – in my case July next year – he can take a job outside the
prison working for fifty-five hours a week, not including travelling time. The
whole atmosphere of the prison will change when inmates are translated into
outmates. They will leave the prison every morning between seven and eight, and
not return until seven in the evening.

Prisoners will
be able to earn £150 to £200 a week, just as Clive does as a line manager for
Exotic Foods. It will be interesting to see how quickly NSC implements the new
Home Office directive.

Seven new
arrivals at NSC today,
who
complete their induction
talk and labour board by 11.21 am. My job as SMU orderly is now running
smoothly, although Matthew tells me that an officer said that for the first
week I made the worst cup of tea of any orderly in history. But now that I’ve
worked out how to avoid tea leaves ending up in the mug, I need a fresh
challenge.

Mr New warns me
that the prison is reaching full capacity, and they might have to put a second
bed in my room. Not that they want anyone to share with me, after the
News of the World
covered three pages
with the life history of my last unfortunate cell-mate. It’s simply a gesture
to prove to other inmates that my spacious abode is not a single dwelling.

I write, or to
be more accurate, work on the sixth draft of my latest novel
Sons of Fortune.

Doug and I
watch Channel 4 news. Fighting breaks out in Stormont during David Trimble’s
press conference following his reappointment as First Minister. If what I am
witnessing on television were to take place at NSC, they would all lose their
privileges and be sent back to closed conditions.

Doug has a
natural gift of timing, and waits until the end of the news before he drops his
bombshell. The monthly prison committee meeting – made up in equal numbers of
staff and prisoners – is to have its next get-together on Friday. The governor
is chairman, and among the five prison representatives are Doug and Clive; two
men who understand power, however limited.

Doug tells me
that the main item on the agenda will be resettlement, and he intends to apply
to work at his haulage company in Cambridgeshire. His application fulfils the
recommended criteria, as March is within the fifty-five-mile radius. It is also
the job he will return to once he’s released, relieving his wife of the
pressure of running the company while he’s been locked up.

But now for the consequences.
His job as hospital orderly –
the most sought-after position in the prison – will become available.

He makes it
clear that if I want the job, he will happily make a recommendation to Linda,
who has already hinted that such an appointment would meet with her approval.

This would mean
my moving into the hospital, and although I’d be working seven days a week,
there is an added advantage of a pay rise of £3.20 so, with my personal income
of £10, I’d have over £20 a week to spend in the canteen.

But the biggest
luxury of all would be sleeping in the hospital, which has an ensuite bathroom,
a sixteen-inch TV and a fridge. It’s too much to hope for, and might even tempt
me to stay at NSC – well, at least until my FLED.

They call him
Mick the Key. He arrived yesterday, and if he hadn’t been turned down for a job
in the kitchens, I might never have heard his story. Even now I’m not sure how
much of it I believe.

Originally
sentenced to two years for breaking and entering, Mick is now serving his ninth
year. They have only risked moving him to a D-cat for his last twelve weeks.
The reason is simple. Mick likes escaping, or assisting others to escape, and
he has one particular gift that aids him in this enterprise. He only needs to
look at a key once and he can reproduce it. He first commits the shape to
memory,
then
draws the outline on a piece of paper,
before transferring that onto a bar of prison soap – the first impression of
the key. The next stage is to reproduce the image in plastic, using prison
knives or forks. He then covers the newly minted key with thick paint he
obtains from the works department. The next day he has a key.

During his
years in prison, Mick has been able to open not only his own cell door, but
also anyone else’s. In fact, while he was at Whitemoor, they closed the prison
for twenty-four hours because they had to change the locks on all 500 cells.

Getting out of
prison is only half the enjoyment, this charming Irishman tells me, ‘Getting
into kitchens, stores or even the governor’s office adds to the quality of
one’s life. In fact,’ he concludes, ‘my greatest challenge was opening the
hospital drugs cabinet in under an hour.’ On that occasion, the officers knew
who was responsible, but as nothing was missing (Mick says he’s never taken a
drug in his life), they could only charge him ‘on suspicion’, and were later
unable to make the charge stick.

Some of the
prison keys are too large and complicated to reproduce inside, so, undaunted,
Mick joined the art class. He drew pictures of the skylines of New York, Dallas
and Chicago before sending them home to his brother. It was some weeks before
the innocent art teacher caught on. The security staff intercepted a package of
keys brought into the prison by his sister. What a useful fellow Mick would
have been in Colditz.

Mick tells me
that he hopes to get a job in the kitchen, where he intends to be a good boy,
as he wants to be released in twelve weeks’ time.

‘In any case,’
he adds, ‘it will do my reputation no good to escape from an open prison.’

The labour
board turned down Mick’s application to work in the kitchen; after all, there
are several cupboards, cool rooms and fridges, all of which are locked, and for
him, that would be too much of a temptation. He leaves SMU with a grin on his
face.

‘They’ve put me
on the farm,’ he declares.

‘They’re not
worried about me breaking into a pigsty. By the way, Jeff, if you ever need to
get into the governor’s office and have a look at your files, just let me
know.’

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.

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.

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

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.

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.’

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.