Bronson (10 page)

The next day I pulled David Francis. He put himself about as one of the lads. Tattoos, ex-Dartmoor con … he gave the impression he was tough. He worked in the kitchen so I did a deal with him. My plan was taking shape.

Dave was going to get me a knife, snap the handle off, and bury the blade in a large potato. I didn’t tell Dave why I wanted it. Only I knew.

The day after we got it together, and he agreed to get the blade for me, was the day six white coats came for me. I was put into a seclusion cell, stripped naked and then left. They never spoke a word. Soon after they returned with Dr Tidmarsh. He asked me why I wanted a knife. I just couldn’t believe it! Obviously, I denied any knowledge.

I was given pyjamas, slippers and a dressing-gown and escorted out of Gloucester House. The six attendants walked me in silence over to Norfolk intensive care unit.

I had heard about this place. Most patients feared it – it was the dungeon of the asylums. The security door opened, the red light went on. As we walked through, the door locked, the red light went off, and the next door opened.

There, facing me, were a good dozen nurses in
brilliant white coats. I could smell the tension. They were ready, like a boxer waiting for the bell. I was led to a double-doored cell. No words were spoken. They locked me in, first one door, then the second. The bed was a plastic one, the walls were filth. This was a shit-hole.

They returned five minutes later and told me to take two tablets and a medicine tot full of syrupy liquid. I’d already had this bollocks in Rampton. I knew they meant what they said. I was being forced to take these drugs for one reason and one reason only –
control
.

I took them … and my hell began. This liquid medicine was an anti-psychotic drug with bad
side-effects
. I felt as though my whole nervous system was breaking down. It caused muscular spasms so bad that I collapsed in a heap on the floor. My head span, my tongue seemed to double in size. I had no saliva, my body trembled and my eyes blurred. The pain in my neck, shoulders, spine and arms was agony. I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t even sit up. I was confused.

I lay on the floor of the cell a beaten man. This was beyond any pain I’ve ever known. It terrified me as I was twisted up like a cripple. What if I stayed this way? My next attack was on the exercise yard. The pain got so bad, I had to lie down on the concrete. I was crying. I couldn’t fight it. It was a torture worse than any I had ever experienced.

I had been injected many times before, both in Rampton and in prisons, for my acts of violence. I’d been given Largactil, Valium, even Modicate, but I had never suffered side-effects like these. What were they doing to me? It was inhuman. The worst humiliation was to have to be carried back inside. This was the final kick in the arse.

It hurt me badly. I felt bitter and hateful. I knew in my heart that I would get my own back. Time would tell.

It’s strange how a drug can become part of your life. Anyone who knows me knows how I feel about drugs. I won’t even take an aspirin. Obviously, there are times when drugs are necessary. But who knows what some of the permanent side-effects might be?

My whole life turned upside down. My sleep altered, I woke in a confused state and suffered constipation. My weight just went up like a balloon. I had always been super-fit; now I was fit for nothing. I was usually around 12 stone. I was soon up to 17 stone – a fat, weak, breathless, soul-destroyed man.

One of the doctors even wanted to give me electric shock treatment, but I warned him my family would have a hell of a lot to say about that. Many doctors are against electric shock treatment. It can be barbaric, but it’s still used. Guys have bitten their tongues and had fits while being given this treatment. Electrodes are attached to your head and, as the pulses of electricity go through your brain, your whole body experiences spasms and convulsions. You lose control of your bladder and bowels. It’s fucking terrible.

Before the treatment, the patient is given a muscle relaxant and sedative, but you still feel it! I’ve witnessed the trolleys carrying the patients, being pushed into the room where it was done. I’ve seen them being pushed back out – blood on their pillows. And I’ve seen the confused state of the patients hours later.

Life in Norfolk was depressing. These loons were the cream of the madmen, violence was like a walk in the park to them. Their crimes were beyond belief.

One had killed his mother and decapitated her. He was caught on a bus with his mother’s head in a shopping bag! Some of their crimes are so insane I couldn’t even relate them. It’s just repulsive.

But it was their behaviour that did my head in. I witnessed them running into walls, using their heads
as rams. I’ve seen them fall unconscious doing this. They stabbed themselves with pens, needles, scissors. One even blinded himself in one eye and another tore out his own testicle. There was one who just kept trying to eat himself, biting his arms, legs and feet. This all scarred my brain.

I was being watched all the time, and one bad report could increase my dosage of medicine. It’s a sad fact that most inmates in asylums are forgotten people. A lot have never had a normal life or stable relationship. I was different to most. I had my family behind me. Escape was constantly in my mind, but it would be near-impossible on this unit.

I made it up to Ward Two. There were 15 of us and we all had to sit in a room. We couldn’t leave our seat unless we asked. Some of these guys were so dangerous it was unreal! One guy stabbed himself in the stomach with a biro, one cut his own throat and another stabbed an inmate in the eye with a plastic knife.

I fear nothing – but even I was on my toes with this lot! My survival instinct told me to be prepared.

Soon, I made my way up to Ward Three, where there were 12 of us. It didn’t take long to get out of Norfolk. I was on the way to Kent Ward.

This ward was to be my last chance. Dr John Hamilton was in charge of Kent. It was spotlessly clean and there were plenty of reasonably sane guys I could relate to. Dr Hamilton was a Scotsman, a pretty fair guy. He practically took me off all the drugs. I began training again. It was hard work but I fought it.

There was only one problem: I was back in a dormitory and Gordon Robinson was in the very next bed. He was bugging me. I knew when I hit the idiot on Somerset Ward our paths would cross again, and here he was, as arrogant as ever, and in the next bed! But I swallowed it for the time being.

I had something much more important to occupy my thoughts. I had to escape. My whole time was spent plotting. It wasn’t like planning an escape from jail, it was double the trouble as there were a lot of grasses around.

I had one or two ideas. One seemed half-decent, but it was a terrible gamble.

All the time I was being plagued by fucking lunatics. I was gradually losing my cool. One in particular completely messed my head up. I was sitting watching
Top of the Pops
and he was staring at me. It made me feel tense. I asked him what his problem was – and he asked me to hit him! He kept on and on, so in the end I hit him. He loved being hit, the harder the better. He used to buy me sweets and chocolates just to get me to hit him again. He said I was the best puncher he’d ever had! I couldn’t understand it. I really felt I was going mad myself.

I ask whoever reads this book to go to the library and look at the
Guinness Book of Records
. Turn to the prison section and you’ll see that Walter Giles served 72 years in Broadmoor. He arrived at the age of 12 and died there aged 84. It is terrifying that someone could be in a place against his will for 72 years! Just thinking about it did my head in.

Once a month there was a disco. Yes, I know it’s hard to believe. Broadmoor has male and female inmates and every four weeks we were allowed to get together for a party. I only went to one disco the whole time I was in Broadmoor … it was enough for me! The girls strolled in and the loons began to buy chocolates for them. The staff were in force watching every move.

Bear in mind, some of these madmen were sex killers and women-haters. Some of the women were no angels either. I know of one who had put her baby in the oven and cooked it. Another bit a man’s private parts off, and one strangled a man with her bare
hands. There were also the hard cases that women’s jails like Holloway could not control. These were pure psychopathic maniacs.

I watched it all from a table. It was madness at its best. One girl got over-excited on the dance floor and started to kick her legs up like a Tiller Girl. She was soon taken away by the staff! It was really amusing.

I even had a dance – a slow one. She was a big black girl. She grabbed me close and her arms were closing tighter round my neck! I could hardly get free. I soon pushed myself away. It was to be my first and last dance!

After only weeks of being on Kent Ward, all my hard work came to an end. All my dreams were wiped out, all my escape routes blocked.

I had fallen over the edge. If I wasn’t insane before, I was now. Gordon Robinson pushed me too far. Now it was time to show every fucker who I was!

My mother and father had just been to visit me; I was happy. But after the visit I went back to the ward and found Robinson with his key in my locker. The toe-rag was trying to open my locker.

I pushed the scum-bag away. He started a load of verbal abuse – so I chinned him. But this wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to kill the motherfucker! My sanity was gone; he was going to die. I was a very desperate man. I saw no future for myself, so what the hell.

I got a silk tie and locked myself in the toilet to test its strength. It held my weight. I was going to strangle him that very night.

I was excited. It was the same buzz you get from an armed robbery, waiting to attack. I can’t fully describe my feelings. I was on an all-time high.

The time arrived. I walked into the dormitory in my pyjamas, the tie around my waist, out of sight. I climbed into bed and waited. Robinson’s left eye was nearly shut where I had hit him earlier.

His right eye was alert, watching me. I smiled my best smile.

The dormitories were well watched throughout the night. The night patrol nurse looked in every half-
an-hour
, through the observation slit.

I only needed a couple of minutes. Fuck the night shift! I lay there, still, deep in thought, just waiting. I had all night. And this was
my
night.

Some will read this and think that I am a heartless animal. I know I was over the top, but that’s how I am. I don’t claim to be something I’m not.

I was buzzing. Twelve o’clock came, then one o’clock. I waited patiently, watching the night nurse. All of a sudden, Robinson moved. He sat up and bent over to put his slippers on. I leapt out of bed.

In a second, the tie was wrapped around his neck. I was strangling the bastard and it felt great! Surprisingly, there was little noise. I pulled tighter and leant over to watch. His eyes were bulging and his tongue was protruding. He was on his way out of planet earth.

Then it happened. The tie snapped. I was in shock – I had half the tie in one hand and half in the other. He began to make a lot of noise – grunting, moaning, and all the others woke up. I was in trouble!

I acted fast. I hit him, straddled over his bed and told him he was having a nightmare. I was now strangling him with my hands. Unknown to me, one of the loons rang the emergency bell. They came charging in.

Gordon Robinson survived but the welts around his neck tell the story.

I hit the Norfolk unit so fast my feet didn’t touch the floor! My next four years were to be spent in this hell-hole.

When the double-doored cell cut me off from the madness, I covered myself with a blanket and cried in
frustration at what I had just attempted. I went through a bout of sheer panic, and a loss of hope.

I tore up my photos and destroyed all my letters. My dreams were no more. I was empty. I wasn’t the person I once was. Once a punch in the mouth was enough, now I had nearly taken a human life.

I wrote letters to tell everyone to forget me. Suicide passed through my mind more than once. We all go through bad spells, it’s what life is all about. But this was my lowest point. I felt sure I would die a lonely old man in Broadmoor.

I don’t know what really saved me, but Ronnie Kray played a big part in it. One day, I received a note from him. He had heard that I was feeling low and arranged for a friend of his on the outside to visit me. This friend was Terry Downs, former middleweight boxing champion of the world.

He was the lift I needed. He gave me a massive boost – the kick up the arse I needed. So thanks to Ronnie, I started to pull out of my depression. God bless you, Ron.

I got my act together. I fought back to fitness. I beat the evil drugs and the psychological games. The time was right; my plan was simple. It took me three months to work my way up to Ward Three. It was my turn to break loose and let fly. I’d come alive again!

CHAPTER SIX

My heart was pounding. I leapt on to a metal beam. It was slippery but I managed to pull myself up. Some bastard had grabbed hold of my right foot. I lashed out with my left and I caught him on the head. He let go – and I was up!

I was the first lunatic to ever break free and hit a roof from Norfolk Care Unit in over 100 years. Three months I had been planning this. I was going to fuck the whole system.

Broadmoor was medieval, a very old, crumbly institution. It was madness even to think of climbing
the 30 feet to the roof, but I had everything to gain, nothing to lose.

I achieved it.

Twelve of us were being escorted to the canteen. This day was the highlight of our week. Time to buy chocolates, toiletries, writing paper and stamps. We all marched in a line. But this was going to be my day. I had prayed for this moment.

The rain was chucking it down, which made my task doubly hard. Doubt entered my mind.

Fuck it!

I was off like a rocket! I ran a good 20 yards, and I never looked back.

I heard a whistle blowing and shouting. I got on to the slippery beam, scrambled free of the screw trying to grab me, dived to a cell window and made it up a drainpipe.

Up I went! I was on top of the world! The rain was pouring down but it felt magic. My friend Jimmy Boyle wrote a book called
A Sense of Freedom
… well, this was
my
freedom. I was the King Loony on top of the Loony Bin!

Dr McGrath came to a cell window on the top floor. He asked me to come down. I shouted to him to ‘Fuck off’. I had begun my mission, a mission of destruction. Slates flew through cell and office windows in the opposite building. I aimed them at workshop windows and anybody within distance. I tore out electrical wires, TV aerials, copper pipes, timber. They had to evacuate Kent Ward Three, which was below me, and they turned off the water supply and electricity at the mains.

Hour after hour I emptied myself of years of pain; all the hatred oozed out of me.

My hands were bleeding and my head was cut. My body was soaked with the rain, sweat, blood, grime and dust. My eyes were full of dirt, my muscles ached and my back was sore – but I loved it!

Every slate I slung off that roof represented a day of my life caged up. It felt great! I started laughing, shouting, singing and screaming. Madness enveloped me. Here was I, making history! They wouldn’t forget me.

Obviously, it had to come to an end, but it took ’til nightfall.

I’d found a place out of the way of the searchlights they had on the roof. I lay there cold, hungry and tired. I wrapped myself up in some polythene I’d found.

This was the first night I’d spent looking up at the stars for almost eight years. Eight fucked-up years. My son was now 11 years old. I had not seen him since he was three. Life had passed us by. I thought about my family. I remembered once looking down at my son sleeping in his cot. He was sucking his thumb; I touched his warm little face. Yeah, I’d thought, that’s my boy.

I remembered going into the bedroom and settling down beside Irene.

‘I wonder what Michael will be when he grows up.’

Irene just looked at me. ‘Sane, I hope.’

A lot of water had passed under the bridge since then, since I was a free man. Right now, this roof was my freedom. I was the Governor!

The Berkshire countryside was lovely to see. The lights shone for endless miles – I could see it all!

All the villagers were beyond the wall. They had been watching for most of the day. Kids were shouting, ‘Jump, jump.’ This upset me, but mostly it was peaceful, time to reflect on my life.

Broadmoor has always been a source of fear for the public and the media. John Straffen caused the biggest scare in the 1950s. Straffen was sent to Broadmoor for strangling two little kids in a park. He was found to be subnormally insane. After five years of incarceration in Broadmoor, he escaped and within
24 hours a little girl’s body was found a mile from the hospital. She had been strangled. Straffen was eventually caught and was again ‘lifed off ’. Over 35 years later, he still went out into the prison exercise yard, a walking shadow of death. Straffen was a monster, but there are many other old lags who have been locked away for 30, maybe 40 years.

There was one film,
The Shawshank Redemption,
which I’m told got close to the mark. But unless you’ve witnessed it with your own eyes, you’ll never fully understand the utter emptiness of these old boys, shambling around with their hearing aids and walking sticks.

It was Straffen’s escape that really put the fear into the people living in Crowthorne. Every Monday morning a test siren blares away. It can be heard for miles around. The villagers must dread those Monday morning calls, especially those old enough to remember ‘Straffen the Beast’.

As far as I was concerned, I was just another madman on the roof. But I knew I would not get much help from the media. I thought of my mum and dad, my brothers, the rest of my family and the closest person alive to me, my lovely cousin Loraine. But here I was alone. Lost in a world that had left me behind.

I actually felt a sadness come over me. I was going nowhere. To stay where I was would be to die; to jump would be to die; and to climb down would be to die. I had no life to look forward to. A double-doored cell. Solitary and emptiness. Drugs, boredom and no company. Just every day the same.

I thought about it all, about Ron Kray and Colin Robinson. They had settled in – why couldn’t I? I knew then that I never would. Escape must be my only goal and to escape I had to stay strong, train and be prepared. I decided to climb down. I would
take the treatment they were going to dish out – I had to.

I came down.

One whitecoat, one of many surrounding me, grabbed my arm. I told him to fuck right off, and a big charge nurse called Roger Russell told them all to leave me alone.

Roger’s 6ft 7in tall and 16-and-a-half stone. A good footballer in his day, he respected me and I respected him. He was always decent with me. You see, I don’t hate all screws and whitecoats – I just want to be treated fair; to be told the truth about where I’m to be moved. Fuck! They’re the most basic of rights.

Sure, I’ve caused damage. A considerable amount. I’ve laughed, sung and cried while I’ve been on jail roofs and while I’ve held my hostages. But I’ve never killed a hostage – or even seriously harmed one. I’ve certainly never stabbed one.

They are just pawns in the game. But, unlike pawns, I don’t sacrifice them. I don’t mean them any serious harm.

I was covered in blood and dirt when I came down from Broadmoor’s roof. I was a mess. I was led into Norfolk and allowed a bath. Roger took all the splinters out of my hands. He patched me up and cleaned my eyes.

A doctor gave me some medicine. They led me into the cell and I climbed on to the plastic bed. I can’t remember any more. I felt like I was in heaven but in my subconscious I knew that the opposite awaited me when I woke up.

I slept all that day and most of the night. I woke stiff, aching and in a lot of pain. Every time I inhaled, I was in agony. A doctor came in to examine me – I had pleurisy. It felt like Marciano had worked out on my body for 15 rounds. Just breathing was an effort, and moving was even worse.

Let me tell you about another guy on Norfolk. I have to say I hated Jonathan Silver at first. But my anger turned to compassion.

Jonathan was a legend among us loonies. Every institution has one, whether a prison or an asylum or even an old people’s home, anywhere where people are crammed together, someone special sticks out. This guy, all 6ft 101½in of him, was the most talked-about loony in Broadmoor. He was a giant; size 14 shoes, hands like shovels. Sadly, I never spoke to him the first two years in Norfolk, because I knew that back in 1969 Jonathan Silver had killed his three children and attempted to kill his wife and himself. It was a horror story.

I first heard about his case from Ron and Reg Kray back in the mid-’70s. He’d been in Brixton Jail on remand at the same time as them. Anyone who kills children is a hated prisoner – by cons and screws alike. It’s unacceptable, it goes against humanity. He was found unfit to stand trial and they sent him to Broadmoor. Most of his time there had been spent in seclusion because he was forever attacking the staff. He was famous for his right hooks. He’d even hit Dr McGrath, the Superintendent.

We lived in neighbouring cells for almost two years and no words had ever been spoken between us. I heard him get beaten up and his screams when they pierced his skin with the hypodermic needle. At times, I had to stop myself from banging on his wall to see if he was OK.

I often wondered why he’d killed his kids … what makes a man snap like that? But my code of conduct always stopped me getting close to him.

Then, one night, it happened. It was a quiet evening. I was lying there, staring at the ceiling and just thinking, when all of a sudden my wall knocked. After two years he shouted, ‘Micky, come to your hatch.’

I got up and he shouted at me again. This time he
asked me for a plastic bag or a razor blade. I told him I hadn’t got them.

It didn’t take much working out that he wanted to commit suicide; this place had driven him to try to kill himself. I told him to slow down and take it easy. That evening was the beginning of a long friendship.

I found out later that Jonathan killed his kids because he thought the world was too evil for them. I saw photos of him pushing his children on the swings and them sitting on his shoulders. He had a lovely happy family but he wanted them all to go to a better place.

I am not justifying what he did, but I felt this man’s agony. Some people asked why I was talking to him. My only answer to this is that I came to know the real guy. I felt the man’s sorrow.

Then there was George Shipley. I knew from the moment I saw him that our paths were destined to cross over the years. He hit Norfolk Wing and ended up a long-term inmate. He had had a bad day, picked up some scissors, and stabbed another loony. The loony had multiple stab wounds.

When I next saw George he was heavily drugged. His eyes were heavy and his speech slurred. I felt sad for the guy, as basically he was a good lad although a little headstrong and quick tempered. He did the stabbing to brighten up the day; he was bored! But George was to pay for it with more years of his life locked away.

Dr McGrath retired a few weeks after I completed my demolition job on his precious roof. I was told the incident broke his heart. It was an embarrassment for him; he had a lot of questions to answer for it. He’d once said to me, ‘We only take the best in Broadmoor – and you are the best, Micky.’ I don’t know to this day whether that was meant as a compliment or an insult! But for all it’s worth, I did respect the old git!

I can put my hand up and say that I have
experienced my share of pain, but nothing could have prepared me for what was about to happen next.

I woke up in agony. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t talk. The right side of my face had all swollen up. This was like toothache and earache and a lot worse all rolled into one ball of agony. I was sick, but no one would believe me. I went berserk.

Again, I was injected, only to wake up in more pain. A couple of screws, Stuart Elliott and John Turner, saw how bad I was. They made sure that I had
pain-killers
but, apart from that, no one helped.

I’d got an abscess. It finally burst and treatment arrived immediately. The pain was so bad by now and I was actually banging my head and face so hard that I caused myself concussion! My pillow was covered in blood.

They took one look at me and called in an ear specialist. He examined me properly. It had been a giant abscess, deep inside my ear, which had burst open.

I hate the sight of prison doctors!

Little George Heath arrived. He was a breath of fresh air to me. Just nine stone and 5ft 2ins, he was fearless. He lasted only days on Somerset Ward and ended up on Norfolk with me. George got life for stabbing someone to death in London, then got another life sentence for a stabbing in prison. He always says that he’s not big enough for a punch-up, so he stabs himself out of trouble.

George was just too much for them in Broadmoor. He wasn’t mad, he was just living by his code – kill or be killed. He is still plodding on with his sentence all these years later. Last I heard, he was in Parkhurst. God bless him.

There were two escapes in 1981 – Alan Reeves and James Lang. Alan is a personal friend of mine, a smashing guy. He was sent to Broadmoor at the age of
16 after he’d killed a friend. While in Broadmoor he was found guilty of murdering another inmate. Twenty years later, he still had no hope of release. He escaped from Essex House.

Essex is a ‘trusted’ house. Most on there have served 20, 30, even 40 years. They have long accepted Broadmoor as their home.

Not Alan! His escape was a classic. He used a TV aerial to get over the wall and a car was waiting. He hit Dover, went over on the ferry, and was free. Three months later, in Holland, he was walking out of an
off-licence
when a copper shot him. Alan spun round and shot the copper dead. He got 15 years. As I tell this story, he has been freed.