Bronson (7 page)

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Because that’s the rules; you wear a shirt.’

‘Fuck the rules.’ With this I spat in his face and walked back to my cell. I just felt my head pounding and I blew up. I began tearing my cell apart.

They were in like a shot and dragged me out. I was put in the box, and all the psychological games began. They banged my doors, gave me cold food, half a cup of tea, no slop-outs, no toilet roll, no soap. They were spying on me every 15 minutes, waking me up with the bolts. All mental games – but what they fail to
realise is, it just makes a man worse. It breeds contempt and distrust. It also breeds violence. If not right now, then later. It scars a man, it turns him nasty. If you keep poking a dog with a stick, eventually the dog will bite. They were loving every minute of it.

I was eventually allowed to exercise on my own. I had to walk around a little yard by some workshops. I could see the other cons looking at me. It was a cold, wet day. My feet were bad owing to the tightness of the shoes that they had given me. I took them off, and my socks, and slung them over the fence. The screws pretended they never saw it, but what I saw upset me. A con was at the workshop window talking to the screws and passing them cups of tea. He totally blanked me. I shouted at the rat, ‘Where’s mine then?’ He still blanked me and went back to work. This really upset me a lot. I just couldn’t work it out, couldn’t understand it. I never locked his door at night, yet he gives the screws a cup of tea and ignores me. It just didn’t make sense to me.

My next week was a tough one, very tense. They never gave up – but neither did I.

I was so close to hurting someone. Every time I came out of the box, I searched for a tool, a needle, a nail, a piece of glass … anything to hurt someone with. Punching them on the jaw isn’t enough in situations like this. You’ve got to hurt them badly to show them you won’t be messed about. I felt I was at war. My back was up against the wall.

I’d lost all track of time. I didn’t realise I’d been in the box for ten whole days – it seemed like 100. On the tenth day of arriving in this piss-hole, they all piled in. Something was up.

‘You’re on the move now.’

I asked them where and they said I’d find out soon enough.

A row broke out, there was a bit of a scuffle, and the next thing I knew I was secured in a body-belt with my ankles strapped. They carried me out to the waiting van but there was actually a smile on my face! I was glad to be leaving.

The journey was a long one, trussed up and lying on the floor of the van. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone! Yorkshire to London is a fucking long way. I didn’t know where the hell I was when I arrived.

The van stopped outside the punishment block. Then I was told where I was – Wandsworth, a tough jail with 1,000 cons. The only jail left in the country with working, if unused, gallows. Still, it felt better than Wakefield. In this place, everyone knew where they stood. Step out of line here and they knock you back (or try to). There are no psychological games. It’s pure prison; it smells and tastes of prison. I was to spend my next ten months here.

The block was tough. But from the word go, the screws and the Governor told me what the rules were. There was no bollocks, no lies, just straight talk to my face. I respect that. Obviously, I did not like the prospect of staying too long there, but the decision had been made long before my arrival.

Unfortunately, after a couple of days, I blew. I chinned a hospital screw and a block screw – and, as I was being manhandled, I bit another screw on the hand. He was a senior officer called Mr Hastings, who was, in fact, a decent guy. I spent a week or more in the strong box. Bad, lonely, empty times – but the biggest shock of all was to come for me in this box.

Only days after I had survived a good kicking, a screw slung in a big brown envelope and said, ‘Even your missus don’t want you.’

Inside the envelope were divorce papers.

It was the smack in the face that I never recovered
from. I cried my fucking eyes out that night, in my own emptiness, under a stinking blanket.

I had thrown my whole life away, the woman I loved and the son I worshipped. I knew from that night that my life would never be normal. I’d lost everything, including my sanity. I could hear Irene’s voice in my head: ‘You’ll end up in a nut-house …’

I was beginning to believe her.

CHAPTER THREE

It was only a matter of time before Irene’s prediction came true.

I managed a month or two without any incidents, then a big fucker arrived from Chelmsford Jail. His name was ‘Sie-Sie’. He was black as coal and he was a bully. I hate a bully.

They put him in the cell next to me and we had words through the window. He was going to tear my head off, I was going to stab him in the eye. We were both going to kill each other.

The problem was – how? In this block we had to
slop out alone, we didn’t mix. It was frustrating for us both. The tension was building and we couldn’t get at each other.

But I had a plan. I was going to poison the ugly fucker! I’d never poisoned anyone before, but I felt happy to poison this slag. The only problem was, I had no poison. So I used glass. I got a piece of glass and crushed it up into dust and added it to some sugar.

I banged on his wall, ‘Oi,’ I said. ‘Do you want some sugar?’

‘Yeah, I’ll have some,’ he said.

So I arranged a hiding place for when he slopped out. After he got it, he banged my wall, ‘Cheers, brother!’

Three or four days passed, then it happened. He began pissing blood. The security were brought in, the bag of sugar was analysed, I was questioned. He made a statement to the effect that I gave him the sugar. He also said, again, that he was going to tear my head off. I’ve never seen him since.

It’s weird how the mind works in jail. You have to be mad to survive it. There’s a lot of violence – it’s facing us every day. Even talk of violence goes on all the time. I’ve lain on my bed listening to them until I’ve fallen asleep … how the guy will kill the lover-boy when he gets out, or shoot the copper. Most, of course, is just talk. Pure hot air.

I saw a lot of cons come and go over the ten months I was at Wandsworth. Dave Anslow popped in, along with Stevie Lannigan, ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser, Micky McConnell, Billy Armstrong, Cyril Berkett, Tommy Tedstone and Albert Baker. Not forgetting poor Dave Martin, who hanged himself in Parkhurst Prison some years after – a very sad ending.

I kept my training up every day and the ten months just flew by. I was getting my head together. It was now 1976.

However, my world was solitary confinement and it was obvious I was achieving nothing. I began to feel restless, aggressive. It was clear to everyone, including the Governor, that I needed a break. Soon I was on my way to the Island!

It was a weird feeling going over on the ferry. I was double-cuffed and had to remain in the back of the van with five screws. The Isle of Wight has three jails on it: Albany, Camp Hill, and the most notorious of all, Parkhurst.

Parkhurst is probably the most infamous jail in Britain. It’s known around the world. It’s seen it all: riots, murders, stabbings, hostages, fires, suicides, sieges, attempted escapes, the lot. The hardest villains in the country have spent time there. Legends, myths, have all been created. Stories have lived on for decades.

From the second I entered Parkhust, I could taste the atmosphere. It’s the only jail that can throw off an aura. It reeks of history.

Every cell tells a story – mine certainly did. The first night I was there, some idiot upset me and I smashed up my cell. In the early hours, they came for me; I was on my way to the block. I spent the first night in the box, the next day I was moved to C Unit, where I was to meet the best two guys I’ve ever met in my life – Ronnie and Reggie Kray.

Obviously, I had heard of the Kray Twins, but meeting them was something else. As I tell my story 26 years later, I remember Reg as the loyal friend I met in 1976. Ron, too, I remember as a gentleman. Both passed away while serving their sentences. God bless them both.

The Twins were unique, a special breed of men.
Later, I was honoured to meet their lovely mother (who sadly is no longer with us) and also their brother, Charlie.

‘C Unit’ was known as ‘Cooper’s Troopers’ – after the doc in charge – or, sometimes, the ‘Psycho Wing’. There were 12 to 14 of us, most with bad problems. A lot of us had spent months, if not years, in punishment blocks. We had our own gymnasium, library, exercise yard. It was a self-contained unit, segregated from the other wings. Some of the guys I met down there included Dougie Wakefield, Eddie Wilkinson, Wally Lee, Chilly (from my home town in Luton), Colin Robinson, Joey Cannon, Johnny Bond, Johnny Brookes, Mad Jacko, George Wilkinson, and Nobby Clark.

I thought I might settle there, but it was strange for me to mix with people. Solitary can affect people in different ways. It turned me inside myself.

I was withdrawn and very bitter towards the screws – and the Parkhurst screws were really very relaxed compared to those in a lot of prisons. They just wanted a peaceful time – they couldn’t afford trouble, not with the kind of cons they had in there. Thirty years is no fucking joke and some of the cons in Parkhurst had absolutely nothing to lose by sticking a knife in one of them. The screws accepted this. The policy was to keep us happy. But there was always a minority who upset us.

I had been doing well, thanks to a lot of the lads. I worked out in the gym with Ron, Reg and Robbo. I ate well, slept well, and felt a lot better in myself … until this fat screw upset me.

I pushed the bastard up against a wall and spat in both his eyes. I told him I’d kill him if he upset me again. I meant it and he knew I meant it. I was moved the next day over to the hospital wing – F2. This wing was notorious, the wing that certifies people insane
and sends you packing off to the asylums. F2 was a dangerous, bad, bad place to be locked up.

I fucking hated it, I had to get out. I was now plotting to smash a sex-case’s head in with a brick. Me and another con were going to do it … but for some reason I got moved out! After only a month in Parkhurst, I was put in the van and whisked away. I don’t know if I was pleased or sad. Strangely though, I felt I would be back. They say that Parkhurst is a magnet which will always pull you back. How true that is.

The van drove off the ferry at Portsmouth and we headed for London. A couple of hours later, we pulled up outside the punishment block at Wandsworth. I was fucking sick! I knew one thing though – there was no way I was going to stay in this block for another ten stinking months … no way. They put me in the same old cell and the Governor came to see me. He said if I behaved myself for a month I could go up on D Wing, the long-term wing. I thought it over. It had to be better than staying in this cell, as this cell was becoming a tomb.

There were around 250 cons on D Wing, all doing five years and over. A lot of faces, London mobsters, armed blaggers, murderers, terrorists. I never liked it; eyes seemed to be everywhere. I’d spent too long in solitary.

I sat in the mailbag shop, watching villains sewing bags for £1 a week. I couldn’t understand it. I don’t know if they were doing it for the money or for good reports. Whatever, I wasn’t sewing fucking bags – not for £100 a week. I was sick to my back teeth of it all. It was time to put something together. Escape!

I got some gear to dig through my wall, I made a rope and I got a steel chair to make a grappling hook.
I began digging. Wandsworth is an old jail, the brickwork crumbles. I worked bloody hard on that first brick until it finally came out. I was buzzing, I actually felt convinced I was on to a winner. Once out of the cell, I reckoned it would be easy. Once over the wall, it’s just fate. I would flag a car down and take the driver hostage … my own taxi! Life’s a gamble – win or lose, you have to take a chance. This time, though, unknown to me, the odds were stacked against me.

Through the Judas hole in my door I could normally see the light shining through a small gap. I was chipping away at the cell wall when I just happened to turn. There was no light! I rushed to the door to see why. Through the hole I saw a con walk away – a south Londoner, a flash bastard. Every time he looks in a mirror, until the very day he dies, he’ll remember what he did.

Five minutes later, screws came down the landing – heading straight for my cell. Obviously, someone had grassed me up. Within minutes, I’d been hauled down the punishment block, put in ‘patches’, or escape clothes, and had lost 120 days. I wasn’t happy.

This rat who’d grassed me up didn’t only steal four months of my life, he stole a big dream of mine.

Escape is every con’s dream. Even the trustees – the Governor’s pets – dream of escape. Sure, we may only dream, but it’s those dreams that keep us alive.

The dream had been snatched from me. And the man responsible became my dream.

I ended up back on D Wing and I stayed on the escape list for almost a year-and-a-half. But the shock was, I went to collect my lunch one day and the filthy grass was serving the chips. I couldn’t believe my eyes! It was obvious that he didn’t know I’d seen him on that fateful day. But he soon realised that I did know. It was all over his face. When I kept my plate in
front of him for more chips he couldn’t even look me in the face. He just kept piling on the chips. I said, ‘Cheers, pal,’ and smiled right at him. He managed to say, ‘Nice to see you back up out of the block.’

I almost let him have the tray in his face, but I had something better lined up for him. I’ll leave it there at this stage as I don’t wish to incriminate anyone, but I’ll just say that this con now has a scar from his right eye all the way down to his neck. They found him in a cell on D Wing, bleeding all over the floor and in a terrible, dazed shock. Probably self-inflicted … it’s terrible what some people will do for a bit of attention!

After he was found, the whole wing was banged up. The screws came to my cell and out of 250 cons I was the only one to be put down the block. The snitch had made a statement; his attacker wore a pillow-slip on his head and socks on his hands. No one was ever charged, but I was kept on good order and discipline for another year.

It was at this time my old grandad’s house blew up and we sadly lost him. He was my dad’s dad, Jack, and he’d had a good innings, but it’s always gutting to lose people we love. I went through a silent period. I literally cut myself off from the world. I read a lot, slept a lot, and thought a lot. I now know I was making myself ill.

It was during this period that I really began to be badly affected by the isolation I was enduring.

Isolation twists the mind. It makes normal things, like daylight, or the sound of people’s voices, appear magnified to almost blinding and deafening levels when the heavy door finally swings open. Normality becomes abnormal.

I have now had 24 isolated, lonely years out of a total of 28 inside. I don’t expect you ever to fully grasp what it has been like. But imagine.

Imagine having to look out of the window of one
room for what seems like an eternity, at what is the only view you will ever see. Imagine never walking bare-foot on grass, never smelling a flower or stroking an animal, never waking up alongside the person you love; imagine never having choice – a choice about what you eat, where you go, who you see. Imagine never deciding what you will do today, tomorrow, next week, or next year. Imagine having all your reading material censored, and staring at a blank wall for 23 hours a day.

Right now, I don’t even have the view out of the window. At Hull, I saw the docks in the distance; years later I was to be held in a cage, surrounded by steel, by concrete, by cameras and by bullet-proof screens. Although I don’t like being compared to Hannibal Lecter, it is the closest that you will ever get to imagining how I was held. And he, of course, only ever asked for a cell with a view.

But, as I say, it was at Wandsworth in 1976 that I first began to be seriously affected by the isolation. I would hear noises and rush to the door to see who was talking. If I heard anything, I would be convinced that someone was talking about me.

I was definitely being affected in a bad way. I started getting urges to jump people for looking at me. Eventually, they got a doctor up to see me, but I lost control and went for him. Fortunately I was restrained. I felt myself disappearing under a very big, black cloud. Depression hit me. I always felt very close to erupting violently. It was obvious to everyone it was time I moved on … but where to? Nobody wanted me.

Then the van pulled up, the cuffs went on, and away I went.

They put me straight into the punishment block at Walton Jail, Liverpool. I was told by the Governor that I would be staying there until I was moved to
another prison, which would be as soon as possible.

Three days later I was piled into the van and heading back on the 200-mile journey to London. When I got back to Wandsworth, I was put in the same cell I’d left three days earlier.

It was now becoming insane. The system was fucking up my head!

The Governor was at my door right away; he couldn’t understand why I had been sent back. He agreed it was completely wrong and said he would personally arrange another move somewhere else. Weeks went by and I was beginning to get fed up again. Then the Governor came back to see me. He told me no prison would accept me – except Parkhurst’s notorious C Unit.