Gypsy Jane - I've Been Shot Four Times and Served Three Prison Terms?This is the Incredible Story of (13 page)

‘You two are selling marijuana for her,' he said, pointing at us in turn. Well, we had been grassed. We denied it all the way. My two mates were pukka. I must say, nearly everyone in that prison was. Some weren't but you'll hear about them later and, at this moment, everyone was proper and the two I was with were the best.

‘Look, sir, just because were being good girls, you have to blame it on drugs, don't you?' one of them said to the officer. ‘It's us, sir, not drugs, that is keeping us mellow and happy. We are good girls now. We don't want riots or fighting. We just want to be good girls and I swear we don't know anything about drugs. It's just us being good.'

I was trying so hard not to laugh and it was killing me. I mean, we didn't want to upset this officer and piss him off but he just burst into laughter and threw us out of his office. I was screaming with laughter at what happened. Then my mate said, ‘Jane, puff makes us mellow and they know it. While we're all puffing, we're all happy and I just told him, if he wants to nick us and start fucking with us and making us take piss tests to check for drugs, we're going to start rioting – but in a girly, respectable way. There hasn't been any trouble on this wing since you arrived and they know it. They aren't stupid. Puff's not legal but it's not bad. We're not
rubbing their noses in it. On the other wings it's full with heroin and, believe me, Jane, they are having wars to deal with over there.'

It made sense and I understood. It was sweet in Cookham Wood. Don't get me wrong, there was no place like home and nobody wanted to be in prison but we had no choice and you had to make do. It was one good prison. Even the screws were fair and treated us like humans, rather than as if we were their enemy. There was the odd wrong 'un but that was rare in this prison.

Even when I had to go on an anger management course as part of my rehabilitation, that was a laugh too. I loved it. I had to take it because I'd beaten the bird up in East Sutton Park. There were about 20 of us in the group and we had to do role-playing to help us control our anger. I loved these classes. We were in the group one day and I saw that the worst of the worst in the prison were present. The officer running the class asked me what I would do if I was at the prison medical hatch with a headache and someone pushed in. Well, I jumped up and warned the inmates that, if anyone tried to bunk in front of me, they would have more than a fucking headache. ‘I'll give yous a headache, neck-ache and back-ache because I'll beat the living daylights out of the lot of you,' I said, playing up to my audience

‘No, no, no,' said the course manager. ‘Sit down, Jane. We're here to help you and teach you how to let people push in front of you without you losing your temper.
You need to control your rage and just let them go in front of you and keep calm.'

I wasn't having that. ‘Are you sick or something?' I asked. ‘This isn't a queue at Tesco with a load of housewives and little old grannies. We all know that, when the old granny bunks the queue in Tesco, you just laugh and tell her it's OK. But we're talking about the prison medical queue, where there are drug dealers, murderers, armed robbers and all the criminals in this country, and you want me to stand here and lie to them and say, “I'll let them push in and take it on the chin?” I don't think so, somehow. Do you? And as for you lot, you have been warned. If you try and bunk in front of me, you know what will happen.' I was play-acting. My eyes were blazing and I was shouting but I knew what I was doing. I was winding her up.

So then she said, ‘Well, let's try something else. You go in to a pub and, when you're at the bar, you see your boyfriend in there with another woman. What do you do?'

I jumped up again. ‘What, my Matt in the boozer with another bird?'

‘Yes,' she said.

Well, I was on my feet now. ‘I'd pull out my 9mm Browning,' I screamed, ‘and I'd point it straight at him and tell him he's got one minute to convince me that she isn't with him or his brains are going to be splattered all over the wall. Then I'd get my other gun from my other pocket and make sure everyone shuts the fuck up and
lets the man I worship start to talk because what he says next, his life depends on.'

‘No, no, no, Jane,' the officer said.

By this time me and the whole class were screaming with laughter. Even the screws were holding their heads and laughing. ‘Jane, you can't do that,' she said, getting a bit exasperated but smiling like she knew it was a big joke.

‘If my Matt wants to play with fire, he knows he will get burned,' I added for good measure. ‘There are no ifs or buts in this conversation, in my book. It's written in stone.' We were all laughing but I asked the teacher what she would say to her husband. ‘That's OK, love, I don't mind? I'll go home and wait for you in bed. You carry on betraying me and you can even bring me home some AIDS and syphilis. I don't mind. I love it.'

But by now everyone was just rolling about. It wasn't all laughs though, I must be honest. It got sad at times in that class. We had to write a problem down with a partner and then try to solve each other's problem. I wanted to sneak Matt in for a night of passion while the girl partnered with me said she had five children and had got eight years in prison and had nobody to look after her kids. So they had all been put up for adoption. At the bottom of her note she added, ‘Please help me get them back.' Tears filled up my eyes. I couldn't even swallow. I just looked at her, grabbed hold of her and we cried. In fact, the whole class ended up crying when the teacher read out her problem. I couldn't believe that,
through going to prison, she had lost her kids. But when a prisoner got more than a five stretch and there was nobody on the outside to look after the children, they lost them. It was that simple. I must say, it woke me up that day. I wouldn't play that game again. Getting shot hadn't hurt me half as much as her problem did.

But, in general, everything was going OK and my 31st birthday was coming round. Matt and John were going to come to see me but there was a petrol strike on and I was getting worried because nobody was getting visits because of the strike. Even the screws weren't turning up for work. As it turned out, I never had so many cards and presents in my life as I did on that birthday. I got done up, as my Matt and my son were coming. I prayed they would make it. I would understand, I thought, if they couldn't because of the strike but, please God, make this day my day. And God answered my prayers and in they walked.

I had earlier asked Matt on the phone to get me a pair of sovereign earrings for my birthday but he refused. He said, ‘You think you can leave us out here on our own, picking up the pieces, and then ask us to buy you presents? Dream on, Jane. You're lucky we come up to see you.' But that was just Matt's way. He said it with tenderness and charm. And I was lucky. Them coming to see me was priceless anyway. No number of presents could match that. We were the only people in the visiting hall and I was like a little girl at Christmas. ‘I'm glad you made it,' I said.

‘I wouldn't let you down, girl, now, would I?' Matt said.

‘Never,' I replied. For all our differences, he never had. Yet I'd let him down so many times. We might not be together as a couple but he was still my knight in shining armour, my best friend and soul mate. What would I do without him? I thought. I said, ‘I didn't think you would be able to get here because of the petrol strike.'

‘I've been out nicking petrol all night just to get here,' Matt said. Well, we all screamed with laughter. It was a brilliant day. John was doing really well and looked so happy. He always made me proud. My poor son had gone through so much with me and took it all in his stride. He was a real soldier and I shone with pride at the sight of him. When it was time for them to leave, I was choked. I knew I wouldn't see them again for a while. But the visit had made me the happiest woman in the world.

‘Guess who is getting the strip search at the end of this visit?' I said. ‘It is usually random but, as I'm the only one with a visit, we know it's me.' I didn't mind though. There was a big difference to being strip searched in Cat A to enduring the odd random search on a visit. This was all good, in my book. I kissed them both goodbye and waved them off. After the strip search, I was taken to the reception area, where they said there was package for me. There was the biggest card I'd ever seen and a small box. Inside it was the pair of sovereign earrings
that Matt had pretended he would never buy. I wanted to cry with happiness. But I didn't. I was in prison and needed to stay strong so I just screamed and ran as fast as I could back to my wing.

That night the girls arranged a surprise party for me. If I say so myself, it was one of the best birthdays I've ever had. Believe me, it was. You might think I'm mad. But let me tell you that I met some decent, loyal and safe people in prison. They wouldn't stab you in the back, set you up, grass you up or go on the enemy's side. On my birthday they made me feel so good and happy. Don't get me wrong. I would have loved to have been at home with my son and Matt and I wasn't but we made the best of it. I thanked them from the bottom of my heart.

Our wing was generally one big happy family, apart from the odd bit of bitching, which never lasted. There wasn't that much trouble in Cookham Wood as a whole. On our wing we used to hold our own court sessions, just to stop anybody getting out of hand. I was judge, my mates the solicitors and barristers and we would pick the jury from the rest of the inmates. When anyone was rowing, we'd just bring them before our own court and deal with it. It always ended up with everyone laughing and not taking it too seriously. It passed the time and lightened the mood sometimes. We got the odd wrong 'un but they didn't last long. We soon got them evicted off the wing, no bother at all.

One weekend the prison went on lockdown because
the screws were on strike. To tell you the truth, I hated it. I didn't mind being in a single cell because, as soon as my door opened, everybody came in. But when the door wasn't opening all over the weekend, it was a bit quiet and lonely. In those days we didn't have televisions in our rooms and I'd already read virtually the entire library. Well, when I say the entire library, I mean Martina Cole, the fiction writer who writes about gangsters – and especially female gangsters – from the East End.
Dangerous Lady
was one of my favourites, even though I read loads of her other books. But I've got to tell you, Martina, my life has been crazier than any of your characters and I'm not a work of fiction. Lynda La Plante and Patricia Cornwell were my other favourites. I read loads of their books. It was mad though. I'd never read a book in my life until I went to prison.

I decided I didn't like being on my own in a cell and doubled up with my friend Sharon, by now my best mate. She was working in the laundry and it had got a bit much in there. She had hundreds of women's clothes to wash. Some wanted it done one way and some another. I don't know how she coped with all the women bitching about how they wanted their washing. So I told her to do it all the same way and say that, if anyone had special requirements, they should do it themselves. She couldn't stand the moaning she got from them, she told me, and she was worried she would lose her job because of it.

‘No, you won't,' I told her. ‘If they want their clothes washed in a different way, they can do it themselves or it won't get done. Tell them that.' So she did. One day we were lying on our beds when the door flew open and a skinhead bird with a few of her mates told Sharon to get outside, as her top had shrunk in the wash and she was not happy. I just jumped up, grabbed the bird by the throat and warned her that, if I ever heard her talk to my mate like that again, I would do her.

‘You are one of nearly four hundred women whose clothes this girl has to wash and, if anything's going to shrink, don't fucking put it in there. Wash it yourself by hand,' I told the skinhead. Well, baldy wasn't so brave anymore. ‘If you want to pay her for giving your washing the special treatment – like a few other people do – and she agrees, that's fine. But for now, you had better apologise to her before I batter you for piling into our room like you own the place.'

Her mates had already done a runner and left her on her own and this bird was now shitting herself and begging gypsy Sharon for forgiveness. But Sharon wasn't having it and told her to get lost and learn some manners. Good on her.

Another time I was coming back from a visit with Dad when I came across one of the inmates from another wing doubled up on the floor. I picked her up and asked what had happened. She told me she had been ‘
de-crutched
' but that she was alright. Then we went our separate ways. Now, I'd never heard of being de-crutched
so I asked my mate what it meant and she told me. I was not amused. In fact, my blood was boiling. Believe me, the Gran just turned up for the first time in a long time. Being de-crutched meant that this girl had been held down by two inmates while a third stuck her hand up her crotch to see if she had any drugs up there. She had just come from her visit when they pounced. In my book, that's called rape. These sick inmates sexually assaulted this girl and I wanted to know who they were because, if they thought they were getting away with that, they were mistaken. It didn't take long before I found out who all three of them were.

I battered each and every one of those dirty, filthy nonces. I thought I had been around but I had never heard of anything like that before. It didn't happen on our wing and, although I wouldn't usually get involved in the troubles of other wings, I thought this was a prison thing and it wasn't happening while I was in here. Over my dead body. And it didn't. I made examples of those three and it soon got round the prison that I had battered them.

I found time to put my sentence to some good use and get some education. So I signed up for English, maths and computer studies and, you know what? I loved studying and passed with flying colours – NVQ levels 1 and 2 in English, maths and computers. I'd never really had an education. I mean, when I was supposed to be at school, I was out doing armed robberies but I decided it was better late than never.