UTOPIAN DREAM

You may think that not touching a woman for so long would result in an uncontrollable urge from my loins, but it was never like that. I had been in Risley Remand Centre fourteen months, but I had only made love once in the last four years, and that was to my wife. What caused me to do it on that occasion, I do not know. Not surprisingly, Karen was far from adept at making love, but I knew that she expected it from me. During those later years of marriage I could see the expression 'he doesn't love me any more' on her face at night. I could not deliver, simply because of the constant strain on my mind, night and day. I knew Karen would never understand.

Teaching Karen was difficult at the best of times, but teaching her the language of love I was never able to succeed in doing. In the early years of our marriage, she would squeal with excitement when getting into bed, but as far as she was concerned, I was just another teddy bear, something to cuddle.

In her romantic moments, she would flicker her eye lashes against my cheeks. Whenever I tried to arouse her with a French kiss however, she would do her damnedest to bite my tongue off. Whenever my hand tried to arouse her erogenous zones, she would simply giggle. I found it most off putting. Any further move on my part, and her strong thighs would slam shut like a giant clam. I found it necessary to relax her, first with alcohol, and then where it mattered most with liberal applications of baby lotion. By this time I was usually either too drunk or too exhausted to go further.

Unfortunately I could not change Karen's attitude to sex. She just would not take it seriously. For the first time in my life I felt a sexual failure, but I could not afford to let it show. Given time, and if her mother had kept her nose out of things, then I have no doubt that our marriage would have been more wholesome. As it was, I felt that my sex life was under a microscope. Every time Karen went to stay with her parents, they would give her a grilling concerning our sex exploits. It was most off putting. I remember being in the legion one afternoon, when my mother-in-law asked me what size shoes I wore, then she asked to see my hands. After I showed them to her she turned to her friend and started grinning. That was the sort of sick mind she had.

A marriage will only last if it is built on need. That need must apply to both partners, and last for as long as those partners remain alive. A marriage based solely on sex will not survive. I needed Karen as a companion, to ward off the loneliness of earlier years, and to give me a purpose in life. Karen needed me as a passport to freedom and the care she deserved, but was not getting through her parents. Our marriage was built on love and respect for one another. Given the chance, it would have blossomed.

I had led a rather limited sex life. I did not have a girlfriend until I came out of the merchant navy at the age of twenty-one. Between then and the age of twenty-nine, when I met Karen, I had only four girlfriends and three casual relationships. Of the four girlfriends, the first Margaret relocated about ten miles away, the third Gill, went to Newcastle University as a student and later worked at the British Museum, London. The second Sallyanne, was too religious and immature. She told me her parents had sex on a Sunday afternoon, which may have had something to do with it. The fourth of course, was Pamela. Between Pam walking out on me, and meeting Karen, I had two casual relationships.

Love on the dole with Karen was a much different affair. With a wife and cat to feed, mortgage, rates and electric bills to pay, DHSS obstruction, next door neighbour and in-laws to contend with, the pressures held down any biological urge for copulation. It was a totally different 'ball' game.

Lin was a woman with dubious sexual motives. One Saturday afternoon she came around to my flat in Aston. I thought that she wanted to make love as usual, but a few minutes later there was a knock on the door. It was her friend, Little Lin. I felt like turning her away, but I could tell from the cheeky grin on her face that it was no coincidence, so in she came. A few minutes later there came another knock on the door. It turned out to be the third member of the trio. So now I had three girls in my flatlet, all guzzling my booze. I could not help thinking that I was being taken for a ride. Lin was still on the bed, and obviously wanted my attention. Just as I was getting warmed up, the other two decided to leave, obviously not feeling inclined to join in. Much to my consternation, Lin also decided to leave with them. I was left with the empties, and a feeling that I had failed my entrance exam into the permissive society. It turned out that Lin's liaison with me was simply a means of persuading her real boyfriend to marry her. The other two girls were there simply to back up what she said about me to her boyfriend. I think her technique succeeded. As for Little Lin, she gave up her job as a librarian, and became a call girl. To most Brummie women, sex is a means to an end.

I met Gill at my local, Bogarts on Broad Street, Birmingham. After she left for Newcastle University I went out with her friend Pamela. They were both from Solihull. As for Pamela, I will never forget the first time we made love, after knowing one another for no more than a week. We went back to my flatlet, whereupon she commenced consuming my booze. At the point of inebriation, she took her shoes off, then lay on the bed. Even in my intoxicated state, I could not mistake the message. We were both pretty well gone by this time, but I realised that if I did not perform she probably would not want to know me later. In my intensely saturated state, I slowly undressed her. Finally she lay there naked, with her hands behind her head in wanton abandonment. In those days she had very long fair hair and a gorgeous figure. I was filled with lust.

I simply could not get undressed fast enough, finally slipping on a rubber, I clambered aboard, kissing her footie studs in the process. When I commenced offerings of French kisses she started to panic. She writhed all over the place, finally grabbing my vitals, and pulling off the johnny. Of all the underhanded tricks I thought, as I lay there stumped at the winning post. Exhausted, I collapsed and we then fell asleep. Hours later she woke up.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"I don't remember anything. What happened?" Pam asked.

"Oh, we made love. We did it," I mischievously replied.

"Really! I don't remember," she said again.

"You don't have to worry, I took precautions," I said, somehow keeping a straight face.

To this day she still thinks that she lost her virginity on that Saturday afternoon, whereas in actual fact it was a week or so later, when she was no longer so flustered. Even so life was still not so easy. She refused to use the spermicide tablets I bought her, which proved difficult to slip in unnoticed. She became very neurotic concerning the possibility of becoming pregnant, and would worry me sick until her period started, even though I knew there was nothing to worry about. I must admit that there were times when I felt like going around to her old school and beating up her sex education teacher. Sex education in schools appeared to be confined to the animal processes. How to make love and select contraceptives, had apparently got nothing to do with it.

One of Pam's jobs at the jobcentre was to interview newly released offenders, including murderers. They usually would not admit they had been in prison, stating simply that they had been abroad. Pam would quickly recognize the address they gave as being that of a parole hostel. This gave her her opportunity to dominate the male sex, a role she relished.

"It's no use lying to me. We know everything," she would say.

She could be a bitchy cow at times. Judging by the hard lot at Risley, she was lucky to stay alive. Her next boyfriend apparently telephoned the birth control advisory centre, and arranged an appointment for her, which she surprisingly went to. It is easy when you know how. Why is it I keep asking myself, that women can be more ignorant of sex than men, when it is the female of the species that has to carry the burden, namely the foetus. When it comes to birth control, women have far more choice, coil, sheath, before or after pill, or an injection that can last up to five years. And yet if the woman gets pregnant, it is always the man whose to blame. Why should a man have his intelligence insulted, through accusations of male irresponsibility?

My relationship with Pam ended when she was raped. After failing to find me one Sunday afternoon she decided to go on a pub crawl on her own. She met an architectural student from Hong Kong. She was raped and held prisoner for two nights. The other two students in the digs failed to assist her. Upon returning to work she was given an official reprimand and ended up going out with her rapist. Well that's life.

As I lay in bed that night, mulling over the nightmare of living in a female dominated society, the silence was shattered by a rip roaring sound reverberating down the corridor. It went on and on and on, for ten to fifteen seconds, followed by whistling. Then the noise, like a moped's exhaust at full revs, would start up again. What the hell is it, I wondered. No surely not, not that long. Again and again that nose twitching noise, followed by whistling. Who the hell's farting, I wondered. It began to bug me. I felt like shouting along the landing, threatening whoever it was with a decidedly runny nose in the morning. It vent on for ages. When it finally stopped I lay in bed waiting and waiting, for those obscene decibels to insult our college of crime once again.

It was not until the following morning, after listening to two hours of shouting from a stripped cell, beginning at 5am, that I found out who the phantom farter was. A certain member of staff informed me that it was Mr.Parrot. Since this revelation maybe construed as an offence against the official secrets act, I will refrain from naming the informer. I also believe that this informer was the only member of staff who knew that I was writing a diary. On only one occasion, during my first stay downstairs, was my diary discovered by a screw during a search. He asked me whether I was writing a book.

I replied, "No," as I acted like a loon. That seemed to satisfy him.

Mr.Parrot was probably one of the noisiest members of staff. If he was not trying to rival Concorde's supersonic boom with his flatulence, then he was whistling loud and clear his repertoire of regimental marching music. I think his wife must have fed him on bird seed. I had visions of her going to bed in a see through baby doll nightie after first covering up Mr.Parrot in his cage.

I was just returning my cleaning bucket to the bathroom, the next morning, when violence erupted in the reception area. Hospital staff converged from all directions, seemingly following the laws of planetary accretion. The fracas had developed into a rather nasty scene, with legs and arms sticking out in all directions, from a writhing mass on the linoleum floor. One of the staff was acting as referee, leaping about like a flee over a cow-pat.

"Give it to him!" The referee shouted.

Just which side he was supporting was unclear, as I could not see the prison inmate, just a mass of prison officer's and hospital officer's uniforms.

"Have yea got him, have yea got him? The ref, kept asking.

It could have been a nasty moment for the officers. Grabbing someone's balls, only to find that they belonged to your superior, could seriously affect promotion prospects. Finally the heap of humanity was torn apart. To my amazement, there was not one inmate but two, under the pile.

For Friday lunch we had curry and roast potatoes, which I enjoyed. For evening dinner I had a large salad. It was much too much for me. I turned the slab of cheese and slice of luncheon meat into two sandwiches, adding beetroot to both. These I ate along with the strawberry and cream tart. The remainder of the salad, consisting of celery, lettuce and cucumber, I just could not eat. Maybe the small unidentified creepy-crawly I spotted exploring the lettuce, put me off. I noticed it whilst eating my sandwich, I paused, thought about the sandwich contents, then ate on in preferred ignorance. The salty pork pie, the first I had seen in Risley, I gave to the birds. I simply did not feel hungry enough, as my stomach felt bloated. My stomach often felt bloated, possibly as a result of ulcers in the intestines, though at the time I was ignorant of this possibility.

Meals on a Friday were considerably better than during the rest of the week, probably as a means of placating the inmates over the weekend, during which many staff would be off duty. Also at weekend we had broiler chickens, which was the worst chicken I have ever tasted. It became known as the 'Risley-Vulture', the only good thing about it was that it was tasteless. Eventually, better tasting chickens were introduced, but the quantity dropped as the quality rose. Chicken was then available every two or three weeks. Rumours that the kitchen inmates ate steak nearly every day, as their perk for doing the job, did not go down well with the inmates in the hospital. The only improvement I was to see in the food at Risley, was the introduction of prison bread, which surpassed that generally available on the outside.

The state of the food certainly did not improve the state of my stomach. My dyspepsia came and went, usually in cold weather. Whether it would lead to peptic ulcers or gastric cancer, was up to the gods. I had stopped my exercises as they gave me severe stomach pains, which I thought were responsible for the feelings of nausea I experienced occasionally. I was deeply concerned about my health, and read avidly every scrap of information I could find that might appear relevant. I perhaps went over the top at times, for I recorded in my diary at this time, the following note:

'Pain particularly in the gut, is relieved by naturally occurring opioid peptides, which produce an unpleasant feeling when they act on the receptors of the peripheral nervous system in the gut region. Whether the pain itself was the result of inflammatory bowl disease such as Crohn's disease, or ulcerative colitis, I was not sure. Perhaps a double contrast radiograph of my stomach would show something.'

At this time we had another Belsen type in one of the ground floor cells. His hair had been shaved off, the scabs on his scalp suggesting that it was not done voluntarily. His skeleton features were clearly visible beneath the skin. Having inmates on hunger strike at Risley was not unusual. They did it for various reasons, usually because they felt frustrated by the prison system, or because they could not face the truth about themselves or their crime. Such sights no longer bothered me, as I looked on the bright side. If they would not eat, then it meant slightly more food for me. Nobody gave a shit for anyone else in Risley. It was a dog eat dog environment. The survival of the fittest. I was too concerned about my own health to care about others. Hunger strikes were just another sickening element in that inhuman environment, which I tried my damnedest to ignore.

I remember the case of a small lad of about sixteen years, put into a stripped cell. He would not stop banging on the door and walls. Finally one of the staff went into the cell. There was the sound of a slap followed by a squeal, rather like that of a piglet. The lad did not make any noise after that. Maybe it was the first slap he had ever had. Maybe a disturbed child, the product of turbulent parents. Whatever the reason, you have to catch them young, preferably before lights out. Anyway the stripped cells were always in demand, so the sooner he was out of there the better. Who cares about right or wrong. At least there was relative peace and quiet after that, and it probably did the lad more good in the long run.

Prisoners came and went. Out went Matthews to serve the rest of his twenty-five year prison sentence in a long term prison, with all the excellent facilities that went with it. I was almost envious of him. So Matthews out, Jesus Christ in. At least that is what he called himself. Kevin Wood, who was in the cell next to O'Hare, would take the mickey out of JC by singing renditions of 'Yes Jesus Loves You' and 'Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus.' I suppose you could call him and all the other jokers on the ward the salvation army faction. When Wood was not antagonizing Jesus, he was picking on O'Hare. Every time O'Hare opened his window, Wood would reach outside his cell and close it again. O'Hare would then ram it open again accompanied by a piercing screech of metal against metal, followed by Wood closing it. In addition to being a joker, Wood was also a keen boxer. He was being held on remand for murdering a young Spanish woman in Liverpool Docks, for which he gave himself up.

There was another inmate in the stripped cells on hunger strike. He said he was on hunger strike because he was not allowed a visit. As with all hunger strikers, his name card was not above the cell door. I therefore did not know who he was as I rarely felt like having a conversation with the loons. As far as I could see, the treatment of hunger strikers consisted of psychological warfare, since staff were not permitted to force feed inmates, a decision made as a result of IRA hunger strikes. A person on hunger strike would initially be ignored. If that failed, then a doctor would interview the inmate in his cell in order to find out the reasons for the inmate's actions. As the reasons were given, hospital officers would laugh, ridiculing the inmate's motives. If after about ten days you still persisted, and there was no way out of the impasse, then you were put in a stripped cell. The isolation imposed by a stripped cell, plus the overpowering heat and smell, were enough to deter most hunger strikers from going further. You were denied fluids for two days. On the third day a mug of milk was placed in the cell. If you did not agree to that then a forced bath was called for, assuming you were a non-conformist. Hopefully after such treatment, suicidal tendencies would be replaced by hate and a strong urge for survival. The ultimate act was the prison haircut, carried out for purely health reasons you understand. With no hair, no sympathy, in total isolation, and with the staff laughing at you, it was enough to make anyone ask themselves 'why am I doing this?'

It was at this time that I got to know Paul Atkins, the comic I had seen in the courtyard a few days previously. He was a man who just could not stop talking, especially at night. I felt like giving him a piece of my mind, if it was not for the fact that he kept giving me presents, an orange, cup of tea or chocolate bar. I do not think he was gay, just another head banger. That is undoubtedly an unkind remark, for what happened to him could happen to anybody. He was obviously in a chronic state of anxiety and depression, for which he refused to take any medication.

Paul told me that he had experienced a bust up with his solicitor over a conveyancing, which became necessary owing to divorce. He wrote to his solicitor enclosing a white feather. In the letter he said that he would get a small box to put part of the solicitor's anatomy in. In this same letter he also stated that if the solicitor went to the police, then he would have no alternative, but to get an even larger box. This the police took to be a death threat, so here he was in Risley, cursing the law society and what he called its secret organization, the Free Masons.

"Sixty-one days. Sixty-one fucking days I've been in here, simply because a dirty rotten shit bag of a solicitor can't do his own fucking job. I'll kill the bastard when I get out," Paul would say, over and over again.

I believe he was later interviewed by two male personages from Rainhill Mental Hospital, who apparently asked him whether he would like to go there voluntarily. He was not amused. Evidently Paul had undergone a nervous breakdown when he became unemployed, then his wife walked out on him. He lived in Birkenhead, but judging by the loudness of his speech, all of his friends probably lived across the River Mersey in Liverpool. He was a nice chap, and a classic example of how unemployment and stress can destroy someone. Whether that was the full story, I simply do not know.

On July 3rd I started taking Prothiaden again, to help me think. For a couple of weeks I also took Maxolon for my dyspepsia. That same day, Mr.Willie gave me a parole form to fill in. The form asked me to state all relevant reasons why I should be considered for parole.

I wrote down the following:

I handed the form back to Mr.Willie, thinking that I had done a good job. My replies were honest, and based upon the assumption that the people who read it would be intelligent and knowledgeable enough to understand. I was to learn the hard way that the Home Office did not reward its inmates for honesty.

July 3rd was also the date on which Great Britain's longest surviving heart transplant patient was cremated. Keith Castle was a man I had admired for his guts and humour. He was the man I felt should have been prime minister.

There were plenty of trials leading up to the court's recess in July and August. Jeff Hart, whom I had met in the open wards, got ten years imprisonment for battering his eighty-six year old grandmother to death, with a brick wrapped in a shirt. He was an intelligent, reliable, nice young man. He had done it whilst his mind had been disturbed by drugs. He had been prescribed Byceptol (something like methadone I believe) on the National Health Service for twelve years, for heroine addiction. A few weeks before the killing the dose had been cut back, ultimately resulting in tragedy. He told me that he had spent two months in the stripped cell at Risley, just drying out. This was a service not available on the NHS apparently. At this time there were seventy thousand heroine addicts in Great Britain. Jeff's case being a living example of the cost in human suffering when one chases the dragon. Drug smuggling and drug pushing did not carry the death penalty in Great Britain at this time, unlike some other countries.

Bruce Harper aged thirty-nine, was a pathetic looking man. It was hard to believe that he managed six optician's shops. He looked as if he had all the problems of the world on his shoulders. All of his problems were related to women. They began with the divorce from his second wife, which apparently took two years to sort out. He then promptly married for the third time after knowing the woman only one week. According to Bruce she turned out to be an hysterical woman, whom he finally bludgeoned to death with a hammer, after about eighteen months of marriage. He had yearned for feminine company so much that he had once been convicted of administering a drug to a woman, for the purpose of having sex with her. (I did not realise it was illegal to take a woman out boozing.) For killing his wife he received life imprisonment, and would no doubt be happier in prison than out. Well if the news media called you 'doctor evil eyes' surely you too would feel happier inside?

Ron Moore aged twenty-one, had shot dead both his parents with a shot gun, which had been fired about six times. He lived on a farm in Mid Wales where his parents ran a removal business. He stood to gain 95,000 pounds from the sale of the estate. He never talked to me about his crime. He spent most of his stay in C ward, and often came around the other wards with the supper. He was an intelligent lad. A member of staff told me that Ron had tried to make out that a burglar had done the killings, and that he had worn a wet suit at the time of the incident, later throwing the shotgun into a lake. Evidently his parents disapproved of his girlfriend, whom he had made pregnant. He received two life sentences without recommendation, in case as the judge put it, "He later gives a reason for his actions."

James McBride aged forty, went for trial at Preston Crown Court, charged with the murder of an antique dealer. His brother Alec McBride, was still being sort by the police for his involvement in the killing. James had evidently told the police the same set of confusing stories he had told me. The police no doubt wondered, as I did, whether he was all right in the head. He was found guilty of murder by implication, and sentenced to life imprisonment. He accepted the verdict and sentence casually, with no thought of appeal. I could not help feel sorry for his wife and son. I am sure that if it had not been for his brother, who was reputed to have done the actual killing, life would have been much kinder towards him. Being a robbery involving the use of firearms in which the victim was shot several times at point blank range, it appeared likely that James would serve at least ten years. He was a much quieter man when he left Risley, than he had been upon his arrival.

The morning of Friday, July 12th, started with ructions in one of the stripped cells. The three stripped cells were adjacent to my ordinary cell, located on south wing. One of these housed an inmate who was on hunger strike. On this particular morning one of the stripped cell occupants refused to get dressed, in order to make an appearance in court. The staff entered his cell, whereupon man's inhumanity to man reared its ugly head once more. The inmate received a black eye, a doctor later declaring him unfit to make a court appearance. As I later went to pick up my breakfast from the servery, there was Mr.Island gleefully explaining to Mr.Stick, how he had 'restrained' the inmate. I could not help thinking that prison was an inhuman establishment, corrupting all who came into contact with it. Their was no place for Risley in a truly civilised society.

I had just gone to bed that evening when Mr.Pardon woke me up. Evidently I had to go back up to A ward for the night, in order to make room for an eighteen year old kid in A ward, who could not stop crying. Evidently he did not like the idea of sharing his bedroom with murderers, beasts, winos, misfits, loons and tramps. The surroundings obviously did not remind him of home. He missed his mam.

The following morning I went down to the ground floor, and asked to return to my cell, Mr.Flight pointed to the cell list displayed on the wall.

"Look at them all, full!" Mr.Flight stated.

So that was that. I tried to cheer myself up later, by having my first bath in two weeks. I had asked several times for a bath whilst downstairs, but had got nowhere. They had given me the worst ordinary cell, next to the stripped cells, with a view of the perimeter wall. I had come to the opinion that they had tried to put me off living on the ground floor. It was whilst in that cell that I wrote the poetry that appears here, accurately describing prison conditions and my own thoughts of the past and present.

After a bath and clean clothes, and having been allocated a bed at the far end of the ward, away from the television, I settled down to watch the 'Live Aid' concert from the Wembley Stadium, London, knowing full well that afterwards the usual stream of video vibes would soon get my back up. The starving millions in Ethiopia simply did not realise how well off they were without television and tinnitus.

July 1985 was the month in which the British Government showed its true colours by awarding substantial pay rises to senior members of the armed forces, civil service and judiciary, whilst handing out derisory pay rises to school teachers and nurses. The problem of the later coming to the fore in December 1987 with petitions to the prime minister. The government also abolished the minimum wage for the under twenty-one's. Prison overcrowding took a new twist when a former inmate broke into Acklington Prison, Northumberland, after being released from there three days previously. He was charged with intent to commit damage and sentenced to fifteen months jail. He had evidently gone back in order to reclaim some money he had 'earned' whilst inside. The hidden money could not be found. The prisons were overcrowded enough without this sort of thing going on. Things were also getting bad for the lads on the costa del crime in Spain, where the Spanish were introducing new laws to get rid of them.

In July, Floyd Churchill came into the ward. He was only the second coloured inmate I had seen in the hospital. He spent most of the time sleeping, which I assumed was due to drug therapy. I was later to change my opinion to withdrawal symptoms. After lunch we would have a nap until 1pm. On this particular day I decided instead to sit at my bed and read my magazines. It was not long before I realised that Floyd was not in his usual land of nod, but instead pacing up and down. Strange I thought, what's got into him. There was a strange odour in the ward which seemed vaguely familiar to me. I suddenly realised he was smoking pot, or hashish as he called it. The stupid idiot I thought. It is only a matter of time before the staff notice. He would sit on the side of his bed, swinging his legs like a child expecting a new treat, whilst rolling a joint.

Searches were often made for drugs, but during this period none were carried out. The staff never noticed. They were too busy reading the stage papers (prisoners newspapers), or the POA (Prison Officer's Association) magazine, or sleeping with their feet up in the office. As for Father Grown, one of the prison chaplains, he was more interested in watching the horse racing on TV than chatting to the inmates. Floyd was later sent downstairs, when he refused to take his medicine.

Soon after Floyd went down, Leprechaun Mule came up. It was obvious to all that he really belonged in a ground floor cell, but they were all full. One of Leprechaun's habits was to take a mouthful of water and spit it over the floor or lavatory seat. One day I spied him squeezing an orange, then wiping the juice over his locker top. A day or so later he covered the lavatory seats and basin taps with margarine. He was ordered to clean it up, which he did, using metal polish. The overpowering odour of the stuff made meditation in the loo impossible. One of the other inmates finally volunteered to clean up the mess. Like many inmates in Risley, Leprechaun was a dickhead. He pursued his habit at night in the noisiest way possible. His bed would squeak for ages. One night he changed his tune. My curiosity eventually got the better of me. I sat up in bed to witness a startling sight. There was Leprechaun, standing by his bed, shagging his locker. The odour from orange juice obviously having aphrodisiac effects. The locker was rattling like mad, adding a new dimension to the term 'knee trembler.

"Oi, get back into bed!" I shouted.

Like a good boy, he did just that. I was relieved when a week later he was transferred to the cells, after flooding the bathroom.

August 7th, 1985 arrived with Mr.Stick displaying an unexpected keenness to get the ward clean and tidy. All the beds were made the same way, even the empty ones. We were evidently expecting VIPs, but on this occasion they did not visit A ward.

During the previous month I had received numerous letters from my solicitor Mr.Roberts, asking for my permission to hand over the keys of my bungalow to the Xtra Building Society. I sent him the following reply:

I was never to receive all the depositions relating to my trial, or maybe the statements, like that from my wife, simply weren't taken. I had assumed that the reason was because the doctors thought that in seeing them I would commit suicide. As for getting them from somewhere else, it would have been possible for me to get only the transcript of my trial, but since little was said in court, there was no point in getting a copy. As stated before, I was never to get my book. Since my solicitor had control of all my funds, it would have been too much to expect someone else to buy it for me. I waited patiently for a reply to my letter. The reply was not what I expected:

On August 23rd I eventually received a two page reply, stating that a purchaser had been found for the bungalow. Evidently the buyer was prepared to pay nineteen thousand pounds provided the furniture, carpets and curtains were included. As for a copy of the divorce petition, it was not included in the letter, and I did not receive it until September 4th following a further request. As for the deposition, I was fobbed off as usual. The term 'out of sight, out of mind' seemed to fit most aptly. By August 23rd however, I had other things 'on my mind'.

I knew that my wife's divorce would be finalized on August 14th. Divorce was very much in the media at this time, following publication of the Booth Report. The only grounds for divorce in Great Britain were irretrievable breakdown, based on one of five factors, which had to be proved. These were adultery, unreasonable behaviour, desertion, separation for two years with the other partners consent, or five years separation without consent. Presumably, I thought, killing one's in-laws was considered unreasonable behaviour.

There were 98,000 divorces each year in the UK at this time, involving 160,000 children under the age of sixteen. There were children at risk in six out of every ten divorces, but fortunately mine was not one of them. The main causes of divorce were children, television and money. Since I handled all the financial matters, and we had two television sets, those problems did not arise. It was discovered in the USA that the best surviving marriages were where both partners work away and only meet at weekends. Only one in ten of those marriages ended in divorce.

Divorce was on the increase at this time due to financial restrictions, caused by low wages resulting from the recession and the large pool of unemployed. The changing role of women in society was also a major factor. The loss of male dominated skilled jobs, coupled with the growth of part-time employment for women, mainly in the service sector, resulted in women becoming the breadwinner, but often in a less well off family environment, being dependant on supplementary benefit or family income supplement. Women were realizing that they were better off without men. With lesbian lifestyles and one parent families receiving moral and financial backing from regional and central governments respectively, the way children were being brought up was changing dramatically, the psychological impact of which could only be guessed at. Without a stable traditional family background in society, a higher crime rate was inevitable.

There appeared to be few moves by government to stop the slide, much less the creation of a full employment society. At one time the main incentive for a man to have a job was the family, namely to support the mother, offspring and home. With the male hammered by divorce settlements and maintenance, the incentive for men to obtain employment and become a highly paid success disappear, with subsequent damage to the economy, particularly in high technology industries, where the skill's shortage becomes apparent first.

At this time the Labour Party and Trade Union Congress launched a document titled 'A New Partnership, A New Britain.' One million new jobs would be created in the first two years of government. Just what would happen to the other three million unemployed, assuming Mrs. GG's figures really were fiddled, was anybody's guess. Her labour laws would be scrapped, including the good bits. There would be no wage restrictions by government. Back to the old free for all, by the sound of it. It was the turning of the same old handle as far as the creation of jobs was concerned. 1930's solutions for 1980's problems, but in a glossy cover. It did not impress me any more than their pop party political broadcasts. This was not the USA. Razzmatazz rarely won votes in a serious minded, or was it glum minded Britain. Politicians should stick to hard facts if they want to get the message across and win votes. They should show the electorate that they are knowledgeable, competent and determined, and above all have policies which are realistic and will work. The 'loony party' was to make the same mistake at the next general election. It was they who kept the government in power, not the government's own policies.

About the only positive news at this time was Birmingham's application to host the 1992 Olympic Games. The use of the National Exhibition Centre and the building of a futuristic sports stadium there, made me wonder why the British Government could not adopt the same positive attitude, for sport and leisure, throughout the entire country. The government's approach to the running of the country was described at this time as remote, elitist and arrogant. This attitude was reflected in a government announcement on August the eighth. This stated that despite opening four new prisons recently at Wayland, Dartmore, Frankland and Wetherby, it was forced to open a disused RAF camp at Lindholme near Doncaster, as an emergency prison for one thousand inmates. The prison society had finally reared its ugly head for all to see.

The prison population had, between last September and the end of June, increased by 5,400 to 48,000. There were now 182 prison establishments in Great Britain. During the financial year 1983/1984 the average cost of keeping someone in Great Britain was two hundred and thirty-four pounds per week, or twelve thousand pounds per annum. That was over four times the cost of most people's dole money at that time. According to NACRO (National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders) in its report 'The Cost of Penal Measures' a community service order cost only five hundred and ten pounds per annum, a place in a probation hostel six thousand seven hundred and ninety seven pounds per annum, whilst to pay for it all, the amount of money the government raised in fines came to one hundred and twenty-three million in England and Wales, which of course was never enough.

Throughout the time I was to spend in prison, I was constantly reminded that prison does not deter repetitive offenders, no matter how awful the conditions of confinement may be. I came to realise that most repetitive offenders failed to differentiate between right and wrong because:

1. They were mentally incapable to the extent that they belonged in a mental institution.

2. Their parents did not bring them up to respect society and its laws.

3. The community in which they lived, seemingly abandoned by government, generated a criminal ethic, where crime and punishment were the accepted norm.

In such communities an education system was a non-starter.

The prison population in technically advanced countries, where governments fail to counter the social effects of industrial change, will increase considerably. The creation of an affluent elite to the detriment of everyone else of working age who are less fortunate, can only result in despair, resentment and crime, for a growing sector of society.

Advances in medical treatment enabled many people to live many years, who would otherwise have died soon after birth. Many of these would be unable to cope financially in a high tech society, inevitably leading to crime.

At one time the dregs of society were swept up to fight wars in defence of the nation's interests. Many of these soldiers would have been from the criminal fraternity, many of whom were attracted by the spirit of adventure, which in peacetime could rarely be found by legal means. The Great War no doubt mopped up large numbers within the criminal sector. In the Second World War, the effect was less so, since losses were lower owing to greater mechanization, which in turn required men of greater capability to take part.

The use of prisons as human dustbins, into which a government's social problems were shunted and forgotten, for the next government to deal with, inevitably produces no positive results. The more spare time a prisoner has, the more he spends listening to the tales of other inmates, hence the more he learns about crime, and the stronger his desire to emulate those criminal acts upon his release, since many criminals are highly recipient to suggestion.

The longer we stayed in the global economy, the keener the competition, through automation, and low wages. Hence crime would continue to rise.

As the technology incorporated within artificial intelligence advanced and government's apparent desire to govern waned, I could not help thinking that we were all witnessing the decline of the human race, which would inevitably be relegated to that of a sub branch of evolution, where it would decline and fade away, much like many North American Indian tribes did in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Would the human race be replaced by humanoid robots? In my view robots will eventually dominate the human race, or at the very least be considered essential, by the end of the twenty-first century, or may even supplant us as a consequence of nuclear world war. I do not believe that governments will be able to control robots any more than they can at present control their own citizens and existing technology. I look upon this as the next evolutionary goal, where robots will ultimately colonize the universe. Man does not have a God given right to pollute the universe with his own pathetic thoughts and actions. In a world dedicated to science there is no God, no justification to man's continued existence. The universe was not created, since it has always existed in one form or another. The existence of matter is not proof of God since the absence of matter is a scientific impossibility unless their is matter to compare it with. The vulnerability of the human race through its own inactions was something which many people would learn too late. The thought had occurred to me that one day a robot would pick up this text, read it and shake its head, thinking why didn't the human race take notice?

The human race listened, but pursued its primary function, namely that of ignoring reality, until it is staring them in the face, by which time it is too late to take positive action.

Meanwhile, back on the planet Earth.......

August 1985 left as it came, wet and windy. In a way the weather reflected how I felt. My life continued to go downhill. Dr.Shrunk put me on Tagamet pills to relieve my dyspepsia whilst treatment for my depression-anxiety state continued with daily doses of Prothiaden, which by now seemed to have no effect on me.

1985 was a bad year for plane crashes. On June 23rd, an Air India Boeing 747 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean south west of Ireland, killing all on board. Parts of the wreckage were later recovered, and although nothing conclusive was found, the cause was believed to have been a bomb explosion, similar to another which went off in Tokyo at the same time, planted by Sikh extremists in Canada. Over two years later a Sikh was arrested, having left Canada to work at the Jaguar car factory in Coventry, England.

On August 12th a Japanese Airline's Boeing 747 on commuter service between Tokyo and Osaka, sustained total hydraulic failure, when the incorrectly repaired rear pressure bulkhead failed causing air from the passenger compartment to escape via the vertical stabilizer, blowing off most of the fin and rudder. For thirty minutes the crew fought to control the aircraft, as it slowly descended whilst heading towards the mountains, where it eventually crashed. 520 people were killed, many as a result of shock, unconsciousness and the fire which followed. The use of American rescue helicopters equipped with night vision was turned down. The following morning Japanese rescuers arrived too late to save many from exposure. There were only four survivors for the belated rescuers to find. Passengers knowing that they would soon die, spent their last moments writing letters to their families and loved ones.

On August 22nd that black spectre came our way, on the runway at Manchester International Airport, just a few miles from the remand centre. It happened at 7am, whilst we were getting dressed and washed. The port side Pratt & Whitney jet engine on the Boeing 737 exploded during take off, rupturing the adjacent fuel tank, from where the fire spread to the rest of the plane. The pilot, thinking the explosion was a burst tyre, took the plane to the end of the runway before bringing it to a halt. Initially, passengers were told to remain in their seats, as the fire licked at the windows, unseen from the flight deck. Within five seconds the passenger compartment was engulfed in toxic fumes, as passengers clambered over each other and over seats in a desperate attempt to get out. Smoke hoods reserved for the crew were reported as unused. Reports also stated that the fire engines had run out of foam, whilst the fire hydrants were inoperative due to maintenance. The Federal Aviation Authority accused British Airways of running the engines at too high a temperature, a statement which was quickly retracted. Fifty-five passengers and crew were choked to death, many of the bodies burned beyond visual, recognition.

In the following weeks there were articles in newspapers and magazines about this latest disaster. I read them avidly, like a junky needing a fix. Whilst others watched TV soaps full of violence, I read my air crash reports. I imagined what it must have been like for the passengers, sitting there as their feelings gradually told them that they were doomed. For some reason I simply could not take my mind off it. How could it have been allowed to happen? It was of course a matter of economics and international agreement. Smoke hoods for passengers, better fire and toxic resistant materials and modified fuels, all cost money which the airlines had to pass onto the customer. Two years later, smoke hoods for passengers had still not been made mandatory, whilst the authorities turned their attention to water mist extinguisher systems. Life really is a lottery.

Reading these reports placed a mental strain on me which grew in magnitude. Eventually I was to have fits at fifteen minute intervals, or less. They were small fits, unnoticeable by anyone else. On Saturday, August 24th, things got really bad. I had a double fit which immediately produced an intense headache. It was not like anything I had experienced before. It was very localized, originating from my right temple, extending upwards and outwards by five centimetres. It was a vice like pain, which continued for two days. During this period the right side of my tongue was swollen. I took paracetamol, but it had no effect on my 'headache.' Even after the pain died away, there was still a very faint presence, which I could induce by pressing my tongue on my lower jaw. As usual there was no doctor on duty over the weekend. On August 27th I saw Dr.Shrunk about it, in the ward's office. He felt under my chin, presumably for swelling, but there was none. After a few seconds he gave up.

"These things are sent by God to test us," Dr.Shrunk stated. And that was that. The medical profession had had its day.

I was far from reassured however. Since it was not a normal headache, I knew it had to be either a tumour or possibly a blocked or ruptured artery, which could lead to a stroke. After being on this cholesterol infested junk food for fifteen months, I was not surprised by the possibility of it being a blocked artery, but since it happened during a double fit, then the chances were that an artery had ruptured. Such a leak could produce a distended artery resulting in total blockage of blood, culminating in a brain lesion and paralysis or death. At this time I was totally ignorant of these details, but I did know that the problem would not go away. To reduce the risk of having a stroke, it is necessary for a person to reduce sources of stress, whilst also exercising and eating a wholesome diet. All of these things were denied me. Each day we were almost force fed with piles of spuds and refined bread. Going outside for exercise in the cold damp August weather, only brought on my dyspepsia. As for relieving stress. I could not even find the inclination to have a wank.

Amongst the sensible TV programmes that I was not allowed to see at this time was a series about economics and another on spaceflight. The thought occurred to me that if I lived long enough I would no doubt see the repeats, a few years later. The only good programme that the lads watched at this time was the cricket. It was good because it was quiet. The TV movies were crap, whilst the comedy programmes I found pathetic. The television programme's Benny Hill and Crimewatch were very popular with the lads.

Talking to Mr.flight about my pain in the head, he said, "It's simply nature's way of telling you to take it easy."

This I tried to do from then on, always mindful that my next 'headache' could be permanent. Months later I read an article in a newspaper which mentioned mini strokes. This it seems, is what I had.

In the bed next to mine was Brian Llewellyn, aged nineteen. He was an attractive dark haired lad who had stabbed to death a queer. I told him all about Jock, who had committed a similar act, receiving life imprisonment. Brian on the other hand, only thought that he would get from two to five years. Brian was not of particularly high intelligence, judging by his letter writing. He once even tried to get me to make his bed. His appearance was more than enough to turn on any gay person. His moustache failed to hide his red rosy cheeks, which gave him a cherub like appearance. He did not appear to think highly of puffs, but I informed him that the law thought different.

"It doesn't matter how much AIDS they spread around. They're all entitled to protection under British law even after death, and if the judge happens to be partial, then you stand no chance of getting anything less than life," I said to him.

Even the governments chief advisers on AIDS had recently told the public not to panic, AIDS would not become a notifiable disease, even if they did drop like flies in the Home Office and Foreign Office. AIDS looked like becoming a means of reducing civil service overmanning, or as retribution for the Falklands apathy, which led to war.

Brian, whom the lads nicknamed Myra, was not cheered up by my predictions. It gradually dawned on him that escape was the only way out. Whilst making a remand appearance in Bangor, Brian did a runner from the police station. Another inmate from A ward, called Mark Jones, was present at the time. Mark was deaf, so he was not in on the escape plan. It was an opportunistic escape, as the door had been left open whilst the screws were signing over the prisoners, at the other end of the room. Brian saw his chance and ran out the door. Unfortunately, Mark saw him go.

"Hey, Brian!" Mark shouted without thinking.

Well, that alerted the guards, who quickly chased after him. Brian intended to enter the rear entrance of Woolworth's store, then exit through the front. He later told me that he then intended to race down the High Street to the Oxfam shop, where he would tell the shop assistants that he needed some working clothes for a job he had just been offered, and would they please take the ones he was wearing in exchange. It was a good plan as far as it went, but he did not even get as far as the store. The guards grabbed him, one of them punching him in the stomach.

"Not here in public. Wait till we're back at the station," said one guard to the other.

Back at the station, he was treated decently. It was possibly the last taste of freedom he would experience for a long time.

Tuesday, September 10th, 1985. Woke up as usual. Mr.Stick switched on the television for the breakfast time news. Must be something important, I thought. A few minutes later the news of rioting in the streets of Handsworth-Lozells, Birmingham, was announced. It had happened just a couple of hundred metres from where I once lived in Wiggin Tower, Alma Way, Newtown. From the fifteenth floor my flat looked down on Lozells Road. The politicians were interviewed, including Mrs. GG, who put on her usual concerned PR expression and eloquent voice. All the usual clap trap came out. They blamed everyone but themselves. The causes, unemployment and reduced local government expenditure on inner city areas, due to central government rate capping, were dismissed. Two years later, central government was to take charge of inner city rejuvenation by offering paltry sums of money, amounting to little more than a propaganda exercise.

The causes of the riots in 1981 were still there for all to see. What did the government expect young people to do who had been unemployed, on meaningless work experience courses, or outdated job training schemes for six years or more? Whose family and friends were unemployed. Who often lived in dilapidated housing, being reminded of their loss of worth and dignity every two weeks when they signed on the dole, or were obliged to go begging to the DHSS every now and again for special needs. How could these oppressed people have any respect for government and the law, when the government would not even admit reality, living in its own make believe world, created by its own propaganda. They had nothing, not even real freedom, so they had nothing to loose by rioting. The neurosis of hate building up in this generation of unwanted, would one day become an unstoppable force, if the politicians failed in their duty to create a better society for all. Mrs. GG had failed to respond to the Scarman Report on the previous riots in July 1981.

Shortly after the riots in 1985, the newly appointed Home Secretary Douglas Hurd visited the scene, whereupon youths promptly stoned him in the street. He was lucky to get out alive in my opinion. In those riots two people died in a burning building. About fifty buildings were destroyed by fire, whilst burning barricades had temporarily created a no go area.

At this time it was announced that there would be celebrations in 1986 to commemorate the nine hundredth anniversary of the commissioning of the Doomsday Book by William the Conqueror, at his Christmas council in Gloucester in 1085. At a time of riots, all we needed was a reminder that we were a conquered people, to keep the peasants restless.

The World Health Organization announced that there were now 14,811 cases of AIDS in 43 countries, plus several million more people carrying the virus, and therefore capable of infecting others. By now I was wondering whether Brian was one of them. He became more and more extrovert as his trial got nearer. He still thought that he would get three years. I told him that villains usually got far longer sentences than first offenders.

"I'm not a villain," Brian said.

"Not a villain. You steel an old dears savings from her kitchen when you are supposed to be window cleaning for her. You break into a caravan and doss in it whilst working on the site, and you say you are not a villain?" I said.

"I told the police where the knife was, that I used. Surely that will be in my favour?" Brian asked.

"Well," I said jokingly,"It all depends on how many notches there were on the handle."

Believe it or not, he did not understand the joke. Beneath his normal exterior he had a simple mind, so simple that on occasions I thought he was having me on.

The queer Brian had killed, was a manager for an electronics company that made electricity meters. He had stabbed him repeatedly in a frenzied attack. He told me that he did not know why he had killed him. I suppose it was simply a way of relieving the tension in his mixed up life, or was it after an embarrassing act of buggery?

Whilst July and August were renown for air crashes, September was to be the month of the Mexican earthquake which devastated Mexico City, and child murders. Leoni Keeting was abducted from a caravan estate by a man, who later threw her into a lake. The bizarre murder of Stacey Kavanagh aged 4 and Tina Beechook aged 7, by her mentally ill mother Mirela Beechook in Rotherhithe, London, and the case of Barry Lewis aged 6, who went missing from Walworth, London, brought out feelings of anguish and hate from many people at that time.

"Let the police turn a blind eye. Hand him to us. We'll soon deal with him," said one woman being interviewed for television news.

"That's all right for her, but what about us," said a voice amongst the viewers in the ward.

At first I thought it was a child molester speaking, but I was wrong. The man speaking was Roger Harris, who with three other men had done just that, taken the law into their own hands. They had beaten up a tramp suspected of child molesting, then thrown him off a roof, as a result of which he died. For this, Roger was later sentenced to three years imprisonment. His accomplices got six, seven and ten years. So that is what happens when you no longer have any confidence in your local police force.

September was also the month in which Fermilab, the USA's superconducting particle accelerator centre, succeeding in colliding protons and anti-protons at a combined collision energy of sixteen hundred giga electron volts, a new world record, in the search for ever smaller sub atomic particles and an understanding of the basic sciences necessary for matter anti-matter propulsion systems in the interplanetary spacecraft of the twenty-first century. At the other end of the human spectrum of achievement, an equally startling revelation was announced on local television news. We were informed that there was a suspected AIDS victim in the hospital at Risley, a twenty-five year old heroin addict. How nice not to have been warned by the staff, I thought. We later saw our AIDS victim that day during exercise period. Although he was being kept in a cell for isolation reasons, he was allowed to mingle with us during exercise. Little did I realise at that time just how close we were to become.

The trial of the parents of little Heidi Koseda took place in late September. Her parents had simply imprisoned the child in a bedroom and let her starve to death. 1985 opened the door on the taboo subject of child abuse. Three other cases stood out at this time.

In March 1985, the case of four year old Jasmine Beckford hit the headlines. She had been ill-treated for months. She suffered from broken bones, burns and starvation. She ended her final weeks with her broken leg tied to some exercise weights, resulting in a corkscrew fracture. The stepfather Maurice Beckford received ten years imprisonment for manslaughter, and the mother got eighteen months for child cruelty. Both adults were of low intelligence and came from unstable family backgrounds.

In July 1985, Malcolm Poole aged 28 and Susan Stock aged 22 went for trial at Liverpool Crown Court. They were charged with the murder of Christopher Stock aged four. The body had thirty bite marks, twenty pin point burns caused by electrocution, forty bruises and a double haemorrhage. Poole and Stock were both found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Also at this time, the trial of Claudette Henry aged 21 and Andrew Neil aged 20 took place at the Old Bailey, London. They were charged with the murder of Tyra Henry aged twenty-one months. The baby had been in the care of Lambeth Social Services. The body had fifty-seven bite marks and bruising consistent with being thrown against a wall. Andrew Neil was sentenced to life imprisonment. It was later revealed that he had attacked his own son in an earlier incident, resulting in permanent damage and the child being taken into care.

Child abuse cases highlighted what was basically wrong with British society at this time. The government was throwing the mentally handicapped out of institutions, with the help of drug therapy, technically called chemotherapy. There was therefore nothing to stop these inadequates living together in the presence of children. There was no law which obliged a couple, married or not, to pass an examination of competence before they be allowed to look after youngsters. In order to allow a marriage like mine to take place, I believed that only the combined result of the exams should be considered, plus a social services report on compatibility and support from relatives.

Society had changed greatly since the Second World War, putting children seriously at risk. There was now lack of interest by relatives, who in a mobile society often lived many miles away, preventing them from giving the care and advice that young couples with children needed. The changing role of women, leaving the husband to look after the children whilst the mother works, could be a source of resentment in some men. Neighbours were often unaware of what was going on amongst the family next door, owing to the seclusion that high rise flats provided. The mobile society had led to impersonalized communities, where people took little interest in others. Information technology in the form of television and the personal hi-fi, had resulted in even less face to face communication between human beings, leading to an even greater introverted society forming a basis for neurosis.

The creation of a crime orientated society which locks itself away from others, producing a cell mentality, also leads to reduced social intercourse and lack of awareness. Stress within the family grouping increases as the adults become unemployed, forcing them to stay at home all day, in close proximity to children who are often noisy. This problem is even greater in cheap housing, consisting of small rooms without a garden. The government's inability to come to terms with the evolving social structure by creating a marriage competence exam backed up by community policing, would only lead to further cases of child abuse and more crime in general.

Society must decide to what degree a free society should remain free. In the case of child abuse, the social problems which led to these tragedies was rarely played upon. Ways of preventing it from happening again, certainly were not. By and large the general public were kept in ignorance, whilst the politicians and top ranking civil servants looked the other way rather than admit that their own failings were the root causes of this social decay and a soaring crime rate. It could only be described as criminal deceit in the furtherance of ideology and greed. When these people eventually write their biographies, they will not mention the misery and deaths that their personally conceived policies had caused. The fact is that they are the real cold blooded killers, who at the very least belong behind bars. They knew it would never happen, since the British Government was immune from prosecution.

The British government continued to issue statistics, something which it was good at. They revealed for instance that two thousand people were jailed for drugs offences in 1984, half of whom were foreigners. Also that year there were 563 known killings. The most common method of despatch was a pointed weapon, strangulation second, whilst kicking came third. The Home Office publication 'Criminal Statistics for England & Wales 1984' also stated that there was an overall increase in crime of four per cent, broken down as follows:

On September 28th, 1985 came the Brixton riots, in the wake of those in Handsworth. It was also on that date that I shattered one of the crowns on a front tooth. It was an occurrence long overdue. The way I had clenched my teeth for over three years made it easy for me to understand why it had happened. Other people will remember September 28th as the day the Irishman Barry McGwigan successfully defended his boxing title in Belfast.

The following Monday I was interviewed by a member of the board of visitors, who was apparently part of the parole review board, or local review committee (LRC) to give it its correct title. The LRC was composed of the deputy governor, a member of the board of visitors, a hospital officer, a welfare or probation officer and a doctor. The doctor's recommendations in cases like mine, usually carried the most weight. It was usual for the LRC to meet about fourteen weeks before the parole date. One member of the board would interview the inmate and write a report which would then be studied along with the inmate's statement. The committee's recommendations were then sent to the Home Office, where the ultimate decision was made.

In my particular case, the points the LRC and Home Office had to consider were laid down in the parole booklet, which was based on the Criminal Justice Act 1967, as follows:

a) Seriousness of offence; As a general rule the more serious the offence the longer the actual time spent in prison will be, and shorter the period of parole. I did not realise then but I was later told that in cases like mine parole was usually not allowed.

b) Previous offences; Apart from traffic violations, I had no previous convictions. As a child, I and a group of lads had been fined for damaging some bales of stray, even though I had not personally caused any damage.

c) Social enquiry report; This was based on a number of factors:
Medical; I still suffered from depression and anxiety. I still had fits and it was unlikely that these fits would end prior to my earliest date of release. Granting parole and becoming a hospital outpatient appeared to be the best way of beating the illness.

Employment; Although I was a draughtsman I knew there were few opportunities in this field any more. I was also worried that my illness would get worse, if I took a job which I later found to be too stressful. After TOPS courses, an apprenticeship and a correspondence course in work study, I was in no mood to seek employment, I had a strong aversion to rejoining the rat race.

Family background; I was very much a loner, and perfectly capable of coping without family support. Any support my relatives could give me, would be outweighed by the distance we were to live apart.

Drink; I had never suffered from alcoholism, and considered nine pints of lager per week to be normal.

d) Imprisonment; Prison behaviour; I had conformed to the prison system and had not given any real trouble.
Training courses; There were none available at Risley. Owing to my illness, drug therapy and the sickening environment there, I doubted whether I could have achieved much even if facilities had been made available.
Attitude to criminal history; I was and always will be deeply concerned about the aspects of my crime.
Future plans; I intended returning to Birmingham, where life on the dole would be easier than on Anglesey or Northamptonshire.

e) Likelihood of repetition of crime; The chances of me ending up with so many problems, and of being entrapped again, I regarded as extremely remote. My mental illness had if anything got worse, as a result of which there was a nagging fear that having killed twice, killing again would come more easily. I could not predict the future any more than the doctors could.

f) Plans by welfare officer and probation officer, regarding accommodation and employment; I had not heard from my probation officer in Birmingham, so I knew of no such plans.

g) Acceptance of supervision on parole; I had stated in my statement to the local review committee, that I was prepared to be an outpatient at a hospital. I had of course agreed to co-operate with my probation officer, who would be seeing me weekly whilst I was on parole.

At this time I was unaware of the parole procedures. Little did I realise that virtually everyone else at Risley including the staff, was in the same boat. I waited in ignorance for my parole date, Boxing Day, to arrive. It was to prove a very long wait indeed.

The second of October will be remembered by some as the day Princess Anne visited Liverpool, one day after the Toxteth riots. It will be remembered by others as the date the film actor Rock Hudson kicked the bucket, from AIDS. For me and others in the ward, it was the date an inmate called Comedian Strong punched the shit out of a small fellow called Rusty Brown. Rusty was new to the ward. We were reliably informed by a hospital officer that he was being held on remand for rape.

That night I found it very difficult to get back to sleep, as most of the inmates in the ward were taunting Rusty in an attempt to get him to admit the truth. Instead of ignoring them. Rusty launched a verbal attack on all fronts. It went on for ages, the night watchman doing nothing to stop it. I felt like getting up and punching everyone who had their mouth open. In prison a beast is at the bottom of the shit heap, someone that other prisoners expend their frustration and hate on. With me I could not give a damn. All I wanted was a good night's sleep. Conditions in prison were bad enough without making them worse, simply to satisfy some prison officer's sadistic tastes. At 11-50pm precisely Comedian performed the finale. Climbing out of bed, he ambled over to the offending mite, and rained blow after blow at him. The night watchman immediately pushed the alarm button on the wall, a few seconds after which the ground floor night staff arrived on the scene. Rusty was taken away to a ground floor cell. Comedian told the staff that Rusty had attacked him. He even had a black eye to prove it, whilst plenty of inmates were prepared to back him up.

Comedian was a pathetic looking character. Although the same age as myself, thirty-six, he looked ten years older. He never wore socks, whilst his shallow cheeks made him look like an AIDS victim. He had long fingers, the fingernails of which had been bitten to the flesh. His dark straight hair had a tendency to stick out in all directions immediately after getting out of bed in the morning. His dark close cropped moustache, which came down to the chin, made him look like a hundred and one identikit faces. He was always the last to get out of bed and have a wash, which often annoyed me as I usually wanted to tidy up the wash room before breakfast. He told me that at home he did the housework and cooking, as his wife slept until 2pm. Evidently he would constantly tell her off about it.

"I'm always tired because you're always demanding so much sex," she would reply.

At that, time neither was getting their oats, his wife being in Styal Prison, just a few miles away. They certainly must have made an odd couple. What their home must have looked like, I shudder to think. I was glad that he was never my neighbour. Comedian would constantly come out with a string of pathetic jokes. He would also 'sing', in particular 'A boy called Sue' by Johnny Cash, as if we really needed reminding of violence and prison. His best number was the radio commentary for the last four fences of the 1969 Cheltenham Gold Cup, in which the race horse Arckle won. The first time I heard it, I really did think that it was a radio programme.

The next day I visited the prison dentist for the first time. He took impressions for a new crown, which would be fitted at a later date. I was satisfied with the treatment,,,,initially.

That day as the American space shuttle Atlantis made its maiden flight, it was announced at the Labour Party Conference that the newly published unemployment figures had also sky rocketed by almost 106,000 to 3,346,000, an all time record. Based on the original method of counting the unemployed, which the government had altered on numerous occasions, the true figure was close to four million, whilst the Department of Unemployment stated that the actual unemployment figure was likely to be double the official one. On that same day the Citizen's Advice Bureau (CAB), who had 937 offices throughout the UK, announced that in the past year they had answered 5.8 million enquiries. For the first time there were more than one million enquiries about social security. The CAB, which was financed by local authorities, was concerned that the disbanding of metropolitan councils would inevitably lead to the closure of many CAB offices.

At this time I got to talking to AD, one of the few really intelligent guys on A ward. He was awaiting trial on a conspiracy charge relating to defrauding his own company. By the standards of the clientele in Risley, he had definitely made it, except for a slight hiccup with the bizzes, which he thought would soon be smoothed over. AD looked like the great train robber Ronnie Biggs, without the tan. AD and his partner had set up a car import business. They took deposits for cars, a few of which were actually delivered. Very few as it turned out. These cars were to be bought on the continent, being cheaper than in the UK, then converted to right hand drive. The trouble was that the car kits didn't exist. To increase business they engaged salesmen all over the UK, paid on a commission basis. In three months they had collected over half a million pounds in deposits. According to AD the money went to his partner's head, who evidently started boasting that he was going to rip everyone off. The police followed AD and his partner for days, as the result of a tip off. When the police discovered that AD's partner had booked flights to Brussels, Zurich then on to Alicante, otherwise known as the Costa del Crime, the net was closed.

AD was apprehended in a bank, whilst carrying out normal company transactions. He disowned his partner, as he considered that he had tried to walk out on him. The truth of the matter was that they were both con men. Their intention was to milk the car import company through a consultancy company based on the Isle of Man, which AD and his partner were sole owners. The consultancy fees would eventually bankrupt the car import company, which would then be wound up legally. The profits from the consultancy company were then transferred to an offshore company account in the Channel Islands. Although the fraud squad, otherwise know as the commercial branch, knew about the fifty thousand pound or so in this account, they could not touch it, as AD and his partner had committed no offence on the Isle of Man, nor in the Channel Islands. I think AD told me that about two hundred thousand pounds was recovered by the police, but that most of the remainder simply disappeared.

AD knew an awful lot about banks. He did not like British banks much, with time locks on their safes, making them open for only three short periods per day, and with only about three thousand pounds with each cashier, it made large cash withdrawals without prior arrangement very difficult. To circumvent this little difficulty, they transferred money to Belgium, on the pretext of buying cars. Making large cash withdrawals in Brussels evidently went without a hitch. From Brussels the Swiss border beckoned. AD praised the executive flights from Birmingham to Zurich, no doubt buoyed up by all the money he was carrying.

His knowledge of the workings of the gnomes of Zurich, I found very interesting. It might come in handy one day, I thought. The banks over there were more like offices, there being no counter. Outside the banks would be parked the usual Rolls and Mercedes. Admission was by prior appointment. To open an account, you really needed a minimum of twenty thousand pounds. It is necessary to open the account in Switzerland, as opening an account with a Swiss bank in the UK requires the Inland Revenue to be informed, and we don't want that do we? Numbered Swiss accounts came in various guises, with interest rates at around twenty percent. Contrary to what I read in a British newspaper, references were not required. Instead, AD's passport was photocopied. He was then issued with a secret, account number, which is confined to memory, or if you are like me, you write your PIN down in a secret place, the location of which you then forget, usually amongst a list of telephone numbers. A friend or nominee has to be appointed, who will be contacted ten years after the last withdrawal, in the event of death. Evidently AD's partner had given the name of his spouse, whom he had since deserted.

According to AD it was possible to pay in large amounts of money in pounds sterling, but have the money in your account, classed in any currency you wish. Since at this time the value of the dollar and the yen were rising, it would have paid AD to have his money banked in those currencies. To make a withdrawal the doorman checks your identity, before an office girl takes you to another room where passport and account number are again checked. From the walls hang oil paintings and television monitors displaying the latest currency rates and stock exchange indices. Whilst waiting you can sit down and read the Financial Times, etc. Finally an official specializing in your particular country, in this case good old Great Britain, comes out to greet you. You are then taken into another room where you are asked how much you would like to withdraw, and in which currency. There was no limit to withdrawals provided you had the money in your account. Incidentally, the transfer of large amounts of cash and gold across frontiers without declaration is normally illegal, not that it stopped AD.

AD particularly liked the hotels in Zurich. Each room had its own drinks locker, from which you helped yourself, and were later charged, hopefully not with drunkenness. Each room had a television with ample supply of pornographic videos, via cable TV at night. He also liked the call girls in the hotel bar, or to put it in his words 'out of work young models.' I asked him how much they charged. AD had apparently asked the same question.

"Don't worry, you can afford it," said one attractive escort sitting at the bar.

AD particularly liked the hotels in Dusseldorf, West Germany, though what he was doing in such a flesh pot he never told me. Naturally enough, during his business jaunts, he left his attractive wife at home in mid-Wales.

Evidently AD never kept large amounts of money in the UK. He was particularly disgusted by the shortage of safe deposit boxes in British banks. Evidently such facilities were only available in major cities, where there was inevitably a waiting list. Boxes in the Channel Islands were more easily available, whilst he particularly liked buying gold sovereigns there, which unlike on the mainland did not attract the dreaded VAT, although sales of more than five thousand pounds had to be notified to Customs & Excise, he said.

AD told me that he had once lived in a terraced house at Six Ways, Aston, opposite where I once lived. His brother lived in Yardley, Birmingham apparently. Since he was a con man I was not sure whether he was having me on or not. If it was not for this then I am certain we would have been friends for life. He remained on remand a very long time. He had originally been held on the wings, but was moved to the hospital for protection, as his partner swore to get him. On one occasion an inmate came over from the wings to see the dentist, but his real purpose was to do over AD. By this time AD had wangled his way into a job on the staff servery, where fortunately for AD he was with a member of staff when the 'contract killer' came around.

I could not help admiring AD for apparently beating the system. He knew that, whatever the outcome of his trial, the interest from his secret unit trust investment accounts would more than compensate for any jail term. In the bullish market of that time his interest would likely be around forty percent, with twenty-five per cent going in Swiss tax and commission. He was making money hand over fist, whilst many inmates in the ward did not even have two half pennies to rub together. Doubtless many of AD's customers would think differently of his exploits. I had little sympathy for them however. The only legal way to buy a car at foreign prices, was to go abroad personally and buy it. It was necessary to convert the car to British specifications, steering, dashboard, etc. on the continent, in order to get type approval from Customs & Excise upon entry into the UK. Without type approval, car insurance would be invalid, in which case you were driving on British roads illegally. The problem was in finding a garage that could carry out the conversions. Not even AD's company could do that apparently.

On one occasion another car import company sent a woman to pose as a buyer, in order to find out about AD's operation. Although she followed him onto the continent, she failed as there was no source. That company later went bust owing something like two million pounds, for which no one was prosecuted. The German director turned up at the creditors meeting pleading insanity, one assumes. British car prices were high because the nationalised car industry was so inefficient. British Leyland alone announced losses of nine hundred million pounds for the year 1986/87. Other car manufacturers could see no point in undercutting B.L.'s prices. It was in the car manufacturer's interests to see to it that conversion kits were not made available to garages and fly by night operators on the continent. By now you may have worked out what AD had once done for a living. Yes that's right. With the initials AD (Arthur Daley) he could only have been a used car salesman. Would you buy a car from this man?

Hundreds did. At least one phoned him up asking when his car would be delivered. When AD said he didn't know, and that he could have his money back, the man offered to send him more. AD had laughed all the way to the bank.

Only the creation of a world technocracy, and the abolition of capitalism, including money, is going to put an end to most crime.