UTOPIAN DREAM

October 4th, 1985 was the last day of the Loony Party Conference at Bournemouth. Mr.Pillock had given the party a new image by his stand against the Militant Tendency, who could best be described as an anarchist group on the ultra left of the party whom many people considered to be no more than a bunch of fifth column scoucers. His stand against the National Union of Mineworkers (MUM) was however late in coming, merely underlining the importance politicians still gave to ideology over the interests of the nation as a whole. To be fair I did not think much of either of the two major parties in Great Britain, Mrs. GG's Conning Party in particular. I regarded myself as a free thinker, taking good ideas from wherever they could be found. I had only ever voted once, and until proportional representation comes along I shall remain disillusioned by Great Britain's 'democratic' system.

At the conference Mr.Pillock had certainly struck a chord with many ordinary people, judging by the large number of enquiries for membership the party received soon after. But I had seen enough of British politics to know better. When it comes to politics you have to cut down the blatant lies, brush aside the misleading remarks, and very often there is nothing left to read except that between the lines. The heated debates at the conference were not so much a sign of democracy in action, as much as a display of just how divided the party had been for so long. Views, opinions, policies, ideologies, all pulling in different directions, accomplishing precisely nothing. Unlike other political parties in the UK, the Loony Party had failed to clean up its image, and above all look professional. A political party should be one where all of its members share the same views and aspirations, otherwise there is no party to sing and dance about. Clearly the Loony Party at this time was no longer a political party in the true sense. It was without, a doubt the worst opposition party I could remember, at a time when the nation most needed an acceptable alternative. If the party could not operate effectively, then it was certain that it could not govern the nation effectively either, even with an outright majority in parliament. How could it, when it failed to vet efficiently its own prospective members? The conference did however have one advantage over that of the Conning Parties affairs. They were far more lively. Conning Party conferences were misleadingly civilised occasions, being filled with the affluent whose only interest was in keeping the super-tax threshold down, fawning opportunists seeking favours, and old dears, with their high interest accounts, saying ,"Oh, isn't her hair nice."

Mr.Pillock's attack upon the lemmings of Merseyside, and King Arthur, the NUM leader, just did not go far enough. He may have been a great orator, probably the best in parliament at that time, but his words were too little, too late. The year long strike at the National Coal Board's (NCB) deep coal mines, must have had the government's strategists falling over with incredulity, if not laughter. The reasons for the strike's failure were many and obvious, right from the beginning. For six months prior to the strike NUM leaders had maintained an overtime ban, thereby drastically reducing the savings necessary for protracted industrial action. The strike began after winter, with fuel demand remaining low for months. No national ballot was taken, resulting in the largest coal producing area, Nottinghamshire, remaining operational. Coal stocks remained high throughout the strike, as large quantities of coal were imported, owing to a refusal by dock workers to black imports. Road hauliers also refused to support the strike, moving coal normally transported by rail from coal mines and ports to power stations.

Only the railway workers supported the NUM, but even so it was not unanimous. For some reason large amounts of NUM funds were not put into numbered Swiss accounts, and therefore ended up in the hands of officials appointed by British courts. NUM officials refused to believe the Central Electricity Generating Board CEGB) and NCB figures for tonnes of coal in stock, and the numbers of striking miners returning to work. They also refused to appreciate the effectiveness of new trade union laws. Above all they failed to appreciate the resolve of Mrs. GG's regime, who were determined that another Tory government would not go the same way as Edward Heath's, whom the miners forced out of office during the last coal strike, which resulted in the three day working week. Since then electricity generation had diversified into more oil and nuclear power stations, many of which were mothballed or on reduced output during normal times. Larger coal fired power stations had been built next to the large modern pits which were not on strike, increasing generating capacity still further, whilst demand for electricity from heavy industry had fallen since the start of the recession in 1979. Caused by high interest rates.

It was clear to me that the large number of mistakes made by NUM officials was mainly because they let their ideological balls rule their brains. Neurotic communists facing the closure of perhaps half of the NCB's coal mines, approximately one hundred pips, do not make good strategists. 'Coal not Dole' was a good slogan, but no trade union has the right to intimidate management into running the company their way. That was the job of the shareholders, in this case the British Government, who had appointed Mr.McGregor as NCB chief. Where matters of national interest were at stake, trade unions should voice their protests to all political parties, and should even lobby parliament and adopt MP's to represent their views. The democratic way maybe slower, but the cost in social suffering must surely be less than that experienced by striking miners during this dispute.

The coal strike seriously damaged the image of the trade union movement as a whole, and the Loony Party. The damage to the British economy was enormous, costing billions of pounds. In short the strike achieved nothing, except eleven deaths, three of which were on picket duty. There was the killing of a taxi driver in South Wales, when a car he was driving a coal miner to work in, was hit by a beam dropped from a bridge. Two coal miners were later sent to prison for his manslaughter. A Scottish miner even nailed himself to the floor in his own home, out of despair during the strike. A whole lot of misery was created as coal miners who quit the strike early, found themselves later victimized by their colleagues, who stuck it out for a year. By refusing to transfer them to other pits, the NCB management had effectively split the union, giving rise to the Union of Democratic Mineworkers. Divide and conquer was made easier when King Arthur made himself el presidente for life, until that is government legislative reforms dictated otherwise. In January 1988 he was re-elected head of the NUM. Many years later he failed to be elected MP. High interest rates, under the fancy name of 'monetarism', was designed to generate mass unemployment, thereby undermining the trade union movement. Only a national strike could have brought this policy to an end. Today, 2006, it has been replaced by economic migrants, prepared to work for next to nothing. A national strike, in order to create a nation of equals, is long overdue. I'm quite certain that all of this aggro could have been avoided if HMG had offered guaranteed jobs to ex-miners, in the new green energy industries.

Trade union reform was long overdue. Had trade unions amalgamated into a 'solidarity' and adopted a Swedish type of constitution, then the system would have been too strong for any usurping political party to turn it into a democratic but weak kneed institution. The Trade Union Congress and the Loony Party had only themselves to blame. King Arthur's fanaticism during the strike was reminiscent of Pol Pot's Kampuchea, Without a doubt, 1985 was for the British trade union movement, year zero. The defeat of the NUM was masterminded by the government's main strategist, Nicholas Ridley, who in 1987/88 was to introduce to the citizens of England and Wales the dreaded poll tax, designed to supersede council rates.

October 6th saw the riots on the Broadwater Farm Estate, Tottenham, north London, in which a policeman was hacked to death, and well over a hundred people injured. A shotgun and pistol were fired at police, as petrol bombs reigned down on them. The riot had been planned, possibly a week in advance. There were reports that videos had been distributed around the estate designed to stir up racial hatred. The death of a West Indian woman from heart failure, during a police raid on her home, was all that was needed to spark the conflict off. The act of defiance amid the concrete maze of the estate was a blatant example of how a negative minded government can instil neurotic hatred and paranoia into so many people's minds. The Tory conference at Blackpool a few days later, seemed out of touch with reality, by comparison.

On Thursday, October 10th I had a new crown fitted, but it did not feel right when I clenched my teeth. I thought the feeling would go away. Eventually I got use to it, but on the occasions that I had fits and clenched my teeth, that tooth hurt a great deal. I should have told the dentist, though I doubted that he would take me seriously. My fears about that tooth were eventually to be proved well founded.

In further correspondence with my solicitor, I learned that my bungalow would at last be sold on or around November 11th. It would be sold for eighteen thousand pounds, the same as what I had paid for it five and a half years previously. The furniture, carpets and curtains would also be sold for an extra one thousand pounds, a quarter of what they had actually cost me. I worked out that after deducting outstanding mortgage, accrued interest on mortgage, estate agent's fees, solicitor's fees and advertising, I would be left with about eighteen hundred pounds, which was less than what the furniture had originally cost. Since I could not find anyone to store the furniture for me cheaply, I had been forced to sell the lot. I felt that I had no real friends, whilst the government obviously did not give a damn about storing prisoner's property. But this was far from the end of the story. Little did I realise just how long my personal problems were to drag on for. Tory MP,'on your bike' Tebbit, had called Great Britain, "the home ownership society." He obviously had not tried selling a home in my part of the country. The stress from living at Risley added to the stress from my never ending personal problems, only exaggerated and prolonged my mental condition.

There had of course always been a way out of the problem, and it was at this time that an inmate took up that option. On the evening of Friday, October the eleventh, I made one of my rare approaches to the television set. I sat next to AD and watched 'Bergerac', the detective soap opera set in the Channel Islands. AD became the tourist guide, pointing out to me all the sights he had been to on Jersey, particularly the banks and expensive shops in St Helier.

"It's rather like Zurich," AD explained.

He was no doubt thinking of the money rather than the architecture, or was it the call girls.

Mr.Lofty was on duty that night. He let us watch the whole of 'Bergerac' which finished at 10-20pm. Mr.Lofty was a quiet sort of bloke, who was considerate enough to replace the white office light with an orange one, so as not to keep us awake. We were also blessed with the absence of his cooking smells that night. At some point during the night I woke up. It was still dark, the floodlights streaming through the windows as usual. There were no lights on in the ward's office, not even the orange one, Only one of the three orange ceiling lights were on, as they had a habit of burning out after a few weeks, or after a couple of knocks with the broom handle. All appeared deceptively peaceful. The horror which was to unfold downstairs seemed to belong elsewhere.

I got out of bed late that morning. For some reason I still felt tired, being the last to have a shave. After making my bed I returned to the wash room to clean the basins. Mark Jones then arrived on the scene in an agitated state. He stood on the other side of the locked grill gate. Being deaf he used staccato speech and sign language to communicate with me. Being tired and not familiar with his method of thought transference, I was not at first very receptive, but I could tell that he was trying to tell me something of great importance. I stopped cleaning and concentrated my lethargic mind on the problem. Mark had been out working on our servery. He had learned from one of the inmates working on the ground floor servery, that a prisoner had topped himself in one of the ordinary ground floor cells. In sign language, Mark showed me how the gruesome act had been carried out. Evidently the young inmate had torn up a bed sheet or towel, and made a hangman's noose out of it. He had then set his bed up on end. Placing the noose around his neck, he had tied the other end to the top of the bed frame whilst standing on the window sill. He had broke his neck whilst leaping to oblivion. Mark did a good impression of the condemned, with his head to one side, tongue hanging out, and his right hand clutching the towel above his head. There was blood on a towel apparently. Mark also told me that an ambulance had just come and gone. After cleaning the hand basins, I thought I would check out the story with Mr.Ansells, who was on duty in our ward.

I walked over to the office doorway, Mr.Ansells was sitting at the office desk.

"Mark tells me that someone's hanged himself downstairs, is that right?" I asked.

"Well it might be, I come on at 7am, and the staff don't open up until about 7-15am. I don't see how you can as there's nothing to hang yourself from," replied Mr.Ansells.

I then walked over to tell the lads in the ward the news. A few minutes later the telephone rang. It was someone from the ground floor office asking how many inmates there were in the ward. At this point in time I was standing a metre from the office door, which was open. Mr.Ansells did a quick count of the inmates in the ward before resuming the telephone conversation.

"Did you have an incident last night ?,,,,,Who was that then?,,,.Well the rumours rife in the ward,,,,Harrison, which ones he?,,,,,A young lad,,,So he's definitely dead?" Mr.Ansells asked over the phone.

I heard everything, nodding to the other lads to indicate it was true. Mr.Ansells then came out of the office.

"Yes, it is true," he said to me.

Three policemen were later seen entering the hospital. The ground floor was made out of bounds to the inmates. Rumour had it that the body was still hanging there. Measurements and photographs of the cell, together with statements from staff were being taken. The time of death would be determined, no doubt by inserting a thermometer up the rectum of the deceased. This would be important in the event of foul play. The time of death had to be ascertained, in order to determine whether a member of staff had been negligent, since they are required to make periodic checks of each cell during the night, as well as the day. Rumour had it that Mr.Pluto had been on duty that night, and had gone home at 7am, before the body had been found. The body was not discovered by a member of staff. It was normal procedure for an inmate working on the ground floor servery to place plastic cutlery at each cell hatch prior to breakfast. It was whilst performing this task that the inmate concerned got the shock of his life, at the sight of a fellow prisoner, who was not prepared to hang around for porridge, except in death.

The prison grapevine stated that Harrison had been tall for his age, and had been in Risley three weeks. He had recently tried to kill himself on the YP's wing, as a result of which he was transferred to the hospital. The body, encased in a body bag and placed on a stretcher, was carried out of the hospital and driven away in a white van at about 11am. The inmates then settled down to television, chess and scrabble, otherwise known as squabble. In no time everything was back to normal. There was no grieving for the departed. We lived in a hard world where those feelings were kept very much to one's self, assuming you had them at all. I did not. Like most inmates I was too consumed with my own problems, although the incident probably had some subconscious effect on me, just like every other incident there.

I was always on the lookout for depressed inmates in the ward, probably because the sight of seeing someone more depressed than myself cheered me up no end. Only the other evening I had noticed Roger West and Andrew Jenson sitting together mournfully. I went over to them, to cheer them up. Roger was a cabinet maker by trade, but had once been a champion at darts. His wife left, him and went to live with his brother, a fish farmer in Wales. He went to see her, as a result of which his brother had to intercede when Roger tried to strangle her. He was banned from making further visits. After months of separation and mental anguish, he visited his wife again, who this time was all alone in the house. He slipped in through the back door when she came out to hang up the washing. According to Roger he talked to her calmly in the kitchen. His wife then informed him that she was pregnant. His mind snapped, strangling her with his bare hands. After having a drink he then telephoned his son and mother-in-law to tell them what he had done, as a result of which they had little sympathy for him. He was depressed at times, and worried by the possible outcome of his trial.

Andrew Jenson always appeared depressed, probably more so than any other inmate. He was a lorry driver by profession, working for the local authority. He had kicked to death the drunken brother of his girlfriend during a fight outside a house where a party was taking place. Like most fights, the cause was minuscule compared to the outcome. It had not been his intention to go to the party, as he was in his working gear which included boots with steel toe caps. I could well understand why he was so depressed for a moments loss of self control was to lead to years of confinement. At the time I felt suspicious of the fact that he was wearing steel toe capped boots, until I realised that just five minutes before my in-laws last visit, I had also been wearing some. Like me, neither Roger nor Andrew had a criminal record. There we sat together, living examples of the three most common methods of dispatch, knifing, strangulation and kicking. We all shared the same feelings of shock and disbelief that it could have happened to us.

One of the most unlikeliest killers was a justice of the peace, Gordon Strange. The first time I saw him was during exercise period. His face was round with vacant staring eyes which were sunken into their sockets, presenting the feeling that their was no intelligent life within. In fact that was true, for he was suffering from senile dementia. As he shuffled around the exercise yard his arms hung from the shoulders, his hands trembling. It was common for such sufferers to become abusive or violent apparently. His crippled mind did not like the idea of his elderly wife having to look after him, so he beat her to death with his walking stick. According to AD, Gordon gave the lads in C ward a hard time, as he naturally regarded himself as a cut above the rest. He was certainly a pathetic figure. It was difficult to see how he could find the energy to even hurt a fly let alone kill a human being. Dr.Shrunk looked upon him sympathetically, as AD said they were old friends. Gordon did not go for trial, being transferred somewhere more suitable under a section of the mental health act.

On another occasion we had an ex-prison officer sharing A ward with us. He kept himself to himself. I naturally thought that he was just depressed. Mr.Flight told me that the inmate was a bent screw only after he had been transferred. Had the lads known, then I am certain there would have been trouble.

On October 14th the prison telegraph announced that lanky Melvin Harper had broken a window in his ground floor cell yesterday. Naked, he was then placed in a stripped cell. The following morning when the cell was opened, there was Melvin, his body covered from head to toe in shit, the only reliable way of ensuring that the staff did not lay a finger on him.

It was at this time that Brian LLewelyn began hawking his depositions around the ward, hoping for encouraging remarks. I read his depositions, all one hundred and twenty pages of it. It made very interesting reading, and an eye opener into the sordid world of male homosexuality. As far as I could judge he had stabbed his boyfriend sixty-seven times, including fifteen in the neck, once in the loin, once in the anus and three in the posterior. I could well understand why Brian had panicked at the sight of so much blood, and to think that he slept in the bed next to mine. Fortunately for me Brian was moved to a bed next to the office, as soon as the staff realised what they were dealing with.

Brian's tragic life, recounted here, should act as a warning to other immature young men and boys, not to talk to strangers. As a child, Brian lived in a village with his parents. His father was an ex-policeman, who was later badly disabled in an industrial accident. His parents did not know how serious his failings were at school, as he threw away his school reports rather than let them see them. He did not pass any exams at school, perhaps because he went to a normal school. To earn pocket money he would do window cleaning and work on a market stall. After leaving school he told me that he started working in the market full time, often taking deposits for goods he would fail to provide. After Brian had pocketed numerous deposits, his partner informed Brian's father. Brian's sister warned him that his father knew what had been going on, so he decided to run away from home rather than face a beating.

Brian somehow got a maintenance job on a caravan site, which paid forty pounds per week. He lived in one of the caravans, which he had broken into. Brian was not an honest fellow. He had already stolen money whilst window cleaning, and now he decided on a little fraud. He got money from caravan owners to wax their caravans, so he said, then left the site before doing the work. He walked about fifteen miles to a town, avoiding the main roads for fear that his parents would pick him up. That evening whilst window shopping he met Mr.Black, a forty-five year old company executive, and one time choir boy. Brian was eighteen years of age and still innocent.

Brian was standing outside a closed chippy at 9pm on the fateful day that Mr.Black approached him. According to Brian he had no money and had not eaten for three days. Mr.Black gave him five pounds, and then took him to a Chinese takeaway. Mr.Black paid for the meals and the bus fare back to Mr.Black's home, about five miles away. Brian was invited to the man's home in order to eat his meal there. Mr.Black lived in a modern terraced house which formed part of a marina complex. The kitchen and living room were upstairs with the bedroom and study downstairs. Mr.Black offered to put Brian up for the night. Brian accepted, as his own plans consisted of no more than sleeping rough at the railway station back in town. Mr.Black made up a spare bed next to his.

"Do you wear pyjamas," Mr.Black asked.

"No," replied Brian.

"How kinky," Mr.Black remarked.

It was then that the penny dropped. Brian made for the front door.

"I'm sorry if I make you feel unwelcome. You can sleep on the settee if you like," said Mr.Black.

"I want some fresh air anyway," said Brian.

Mr.Black left the front door ajar as Brian went outside for a walk. It was dark and he was unfamiliar with the surroundings. He walked around for ages, his conscience and his pride no doubt troubling him. He returned to the house at about three o'clock. During the remainder of that night Brian slept on the settee. At 6am Mr.Black entered the living room. The day previously Brian had told him that he had come into town to buy his mother a birthday present, but had lost the money. That morning he told Mr.Black the truth, that he had run away from home. He hoped that Mr.Black would telephone the police, thereby reuniting him with his family. Mr.Black had other ideas.

Catching the 7-30am bus to work, our gay executive left Brian in the house as he had agreed to stay there, at least temporarily. Mr.Black returned at 5pm, making tea for both of them. They sat next to one another as Mr.Black put his hand on Brian's knee, and started touching him.

"I'm not that way," said Brian firmly.

"That's OK by me," said Mr.Black, who then stopped his advances.

Later a young lad aged about fifteen came around to see Mr.Black. This then was the start of a torrid relationship, which apart from two short periods, was to last eighteen months.

Upon entry into Risley Remand Centre, Brian was very reluctant to admit that he was homosexual, but the evidence suggested otherwise. Apparently the police had developed a keen interest in Mr.Black as far back as mid 1984, when he was prosecuted for the sexual assault of a boy in his home.

"He was fined two hundred pounds and given a suspended prison sentence," said Brian.

In that year Brian had apparently telephoned the police in his home town, asking them to tell his parents that he was all right. His parents had meanwhile moved home. The police traced the phone call and brought Brian in for questioning. According to Brian they accused him of a series of robberies, thirty burglaries to be exact, but what they really wanted was information about Mr.Black. At this time in August 1984, Brian made a detailed confession about his homosexual antics to the police, after the police promised to let him go after he had made it.

According to this statement, which Brian admitted to me was true, the incident where Mr.Black and Brian were on adjacent chairs, had a very different outcome.

"Do you know what homosexuals do?" Mr.Black asked, as he put his hand on Brian's leg.

Mr.Black then knelt in front of Brian, and unzipped the flies of Brian's jeans. He took out Brian's penis and tossed him off with his hand, then with his mouth. Brian admitted to me that he would also masturbate Mr.Black.

Brian engaged in homosexual acts with Mr.Black in exchange for money. Mr.Black paid Brian about sixty pounds per week, in addition to the unemployment benefit he was receiving. Their relationship became very stormy as Brian's demands for money became insatiable. Brian's lover would pay him in cash, by cheque, or on occasion even gave him his cash card. Brian eventually acquired a flat in a nearby town, making regular visits from there to Mr.Black's home. According to neighbours, these visits often ended in rows.

Mr.Black became afraid of Brian. During one separation he fitted security locks to the doors of his home, in order to keep Brian out. Meanwhile, visits from local schoolboys to Mr.Black's home continued. A few weeks later, neighbours were surprised however when Mr.Black and Brian were seen hand in hand once again.

Meanwhile, Brian had made friends with a rogue called Eric. According to Brian they were engaged in robbing betting shops in the Liverpool area. On one occasion they followed the cleaner into the premises, tied her up, putting a pillow under her head after promising that they would give her some money if she co-operated.

"You wont forget to give me some?" Asked the cleaner, as the two villains were leaving the premises. They put sixty pound in her handbag, then left carrying about three thousand pounds. According to Brian, the newspapers stated that nine thousand pounds had been stolen. It looked as if the insurance company came off worse.

I could not make up my mind whether to believe this story or not. Brian did not seem to possess enough intelligence to do either. As his defence advisor, I had serious doubts as to what he was telling me, was the truth. Even worse, did he know what the truth was? It could be that he made up the story simply to divert my attention from his sordid gay lifestyle.

Three weeks prior to the killing he met a young woman, whom he described to me as an alcoholic barmaid. He evidently doted over her, spending a great deal of money on her. In addition to his usual sources of income, he used his gay lover's identity to buy items on hire purchase, which he would immediately sell off, "at a shop down the road." He said that he bought half a dozen items that way, in order to finance a dirty weekend with his girlfriend. It was only a matter of time before Mr.Black would receive the HP demands.

Things were coming to a head in more ways than one. Secretly, Mr.Black had sold his home, but had not moved out yet. On the day of the killing, Brian arrived at Mr.Black's home in a taxi. There were two possible scenarios for what happened next. Originally Brian stated that he had killed his male lover because of Mr.Black's constant demands for sex. On this day Brian had refused to toss him off, but he was pestered more and more until finally his self control failed him. Brian stated that Mr.Black had given him a pill just before the killing, which affected his judgement. He also stated that the knife came from the study, which was next to the ground floor hallway, where the near naked body was found. Maybe his ongoing relationship with his alcoholic barmaid caused him to question the lifestyle he was then leading.

In the second version of events, Brian stated to me that he went upstairs to get the knife from the kitchen, and that he had planned to kill his lover in order to steal the video recorder and television. Personally I find both versions hard to believe. I believe that it was nothing less than a queers killing, and that Brian killed Mr.Black when he realised that he was about to be jilted. The beautiful body was deliberately mutilated in order to deny all future lust. The facts seem to speak for themselves.

The pathologist's report consisting of nine pages of text, was very thorough. Anal, hallway and electro-thermal deep body temperature were given, as well as the weights of the brain, lungs, heart, liver, spleen and kidneys. Samples of head and pubic hair were taken, as were nail clippings, blood and urine samples, also penal and anal smears. Cholesterol stones were found in the gall bladder, and evidence of past tuberculosis in the lungs was noted. There were many shallow stab wounds, possibly indicating either an intention to inflict pain only, or indicative of the killer being in a near state of collapse. Other wounds emitted no blood, indicating that he was probably already dead. In the foreskin and glands of the non-circumcised penis, semen was found. The anus appeared normal, apart from faeces that had exuded from a stab wound. Mr.Black had apparently been trying to raise help or escape, as his body was found near the front door and telephone. Semen found on the anal swabs taken from the deceased, indicated that a recent act of buggery had taken place. The origin of the semen could not be determined. On the bed was a handkerchief stained with blood and semen. The blood was of the same grouping as the deceased, whilst the semen was of the same grouping as the accused.

There were about forty forensic pathologists in the UK who were required to investigate around fourteen hundred deaths each year. Each pathologist received a retainer of one thousand five hundred and ninety pounds, plus two hundred and fifty-six pounds for each case. Would you remove the vital organs from a decomposing corpse for that sum?

On the Sunday afternoon that the killing took place, a female agricultural student next door, heard a commotion which she described as four or five groans, which she interpreted as an adult male indulging in some pleasurable sexual act. A fat lot of use she would have been as my neighbour, I thought.

Upon reading all the evidence and taking verbal admissions into account, I came to the inevitable conclusion that Brian was batting on a very sticky wicket indeed. Brian was charged with murder. Since murder implied premeditation, and since the murder weapon came from the study where the knife was used as a letter opener, premeditation would be difficult to prove. On the other hand Brian showed no remorse nor guilt. In fact he displayed euphoria, being a symptom of anxiety, and guilt. I therefore gave Brian two pieces of advice.

"When you are interviewed by the doctors, for God's sake show remorse. Tell them that you are sorry for what you did, and the shame you feel for having let down your relatives and friends. Secondly, when you go into the witness box, for Christ's sake don't tell them that he deserved to die, or the judge and jury will think that you have got some kind of death wish. In which case you really will stay in prison for life. If the prosecution asks you whether he deserved to die, you say, 'that is for God to judge, as one day he will judge me."

I looked at Brian's dumb face and thought, 'he's going to cock it up and then tell everyone that it's my fault, why did I get involved?'

There was however one thing in Brian's favour. The deceased was a queer who had corrupted little boys. I knew that villains got longer sentences. I was therefore hoping that killing a villain would get Brian a shorter one, but his mental state worried me. Deep down I felt that he needed a medical order and shipping off to Park Lane where the opportunities existed whereby he could pull his socks up, and learn to cope in the big bad world outside. I did not believe that Brian was mentally ill, just mentally inadequate. I knew by the number of readmissions to Risley that prison was no answer. Brian was definitely worth saving. It was my belief that if he went through the prison system, then upon his release he still would not be able to cope, even with his understanding parents, photographs of whom he kept by his bed. Brian's case however was far from closed.

The next day I was called down to the ground floor office, where Mr.Willie was on duty. There was a parcel on the desk.

"Take your hands out of your pockets," he said just as I was about to do so.

"What's in the parcel?" Mr.Willie asked, no doubt thinking that I was blessed with extra sensory perception.

I detected a feeling of nervousness. Maybe he was squaring up to the possibility of contraband. As for his question, I felt like saying it was an inflatable woman. I never did find out whether sex toys were banned from British prisons, although homosexuality certainly is. The parcel contained an educational book from my mother titled 'The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Space Technology' by K.W.Gatland. It was a birthday present. My mother had sent me a similar titled book on 'Space Exploration' by R.S.Lewis a year previously. As for my repeated attempts to get my solicitor to send me 'Jane's Spaceflight Directory,' I was presented with only failure, with no reason given. I presumed that this was because my bank and building society accounts had been frozen as the result of my wife's claim for a divorce settlement. I desperately needed intelligent books to read. There were hundreds of books on fiction in the hospital, but they all appeared mediocre compared to the real action going on around me. It appeared that I had read all of the non fiction on space that the education officer could get. With all of the lunacy going on around me, I so desperately needed books and magazines that would remind me of that elusive sane world outside.

One day a black Ford Capri type car was attacked by an irate inmate, who smashed in the windows. The car, parked on one side of the square outside the administration block, belonged to none other than the governor, so AD said.

Screws and a doggy were now guarding the car. Why? Since all inmates were accompanied, maybe the governor did not trust his own staff not to strip it.

By early October 1985 we had twenty-two inmates in the ward. It was now full to capacity. Maybe the sudden rise in the prison population at this time of year was a result of climatic influences, or the thought of decent food and a happy atmosphere during Christmas. Christmas was definitely better in prison than on the dole, as far as I was concerned. The heating was on full blast, as if in celebration of the recent demise of OPEC's oil pricing system. Work on the wing roofs was going on at a rate of knots. Contractors had been working on them for the past two months, ripping off the old leaking fibre board, replacing it with new boards and roofing felt. Tiles were not used, as these could have been used as missiles by roof top demonstrators. The alternating cold weather during exercise periods and the stifling heat in the ward, brought back my dyspepsia.

That month 'The Report of the Committee on the Prison Disciplinary System' was published. This recommended a maximum sentence of ten years for prison mutiny. It was perhaps remarkable foresight in the event of what was to happen seven months later. Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police in London had been granted eight million pounds in order to recruit three hundred more policemen. Almost a quarter of a million pounds had also been allocated for new equipment, including holsters, ammunition, electronic target systems and body armour. The government was obviously preparing itself for a further breakdown in society, both in and out of prison.

Meanwhile, the sad news was received at Risley of the death of the father of the Spanish woman found strangled in Liverpool Docks a few months previously. He had apparently died from a broken heart, having endured his third heart attack since her murder. We waited for the trial of Kevin Wood to commence.

On November third, Little Horror goaded Roland Rat and Helicopter Pilot into having a fight in the wash room. This resulted in Roland Rat having an epileptic fit, the fourth inmate I had seen have one at Risley. This created enough noise for the night watchman to get off his backside and investigate. Roland Rat was lying on the wash room floor thrashing out with his legs. He was eventually put to bed. Both participants lost seven days privileges, and were taken down to the cells the next day. That same day I received my mortgage conveyance to sign, at long last. I got Roger West to witness it for me.

Little Horror learned nothing from the trouble he had caused in the wash room. He was another inmate who treated life as a joke. He told me that he had so far assaulted in his life no less than fifteen people, some complete strangers. The police knew only of five assaults apparently. He had a habit of picking some simple minded inmate to unhook the wire mesh on someone's bed, causing the unsuspecting inmate to fall through the bed frame as soon as he sat on the mattress. I did my best to stop it at least once. Little Horror was facing a charge of assault, and it would doubtless be only a matter of time before he committed his first murder. British prisons were no deterrent, nor a place of correction.

That same day Rolf Seers, a personnel manager by profession, came up to me and showed me a document he had just received through the post. It was a court injunction ordering him not to go within two hundred metres of his wife's home. The injunction would last six months, and could then be renewed. Rolf told me that he had assaulted his wife after his marriage had broken up.

The truth was that like so many other inmates, he was too embarrassed or ashamed to tell people what he had done. When the truth came out at his trial, illuminating the kinky side to British marriage. I still maintained that I liked the guy.

The ward never seemed to be short of pathetic inmates. One of these was Swoop Lester. He occupied his leisure time by going around the ward picking up dog ends. I believe he was a schizophrenic who really belonged downstairs, but the hospital was full. One day he really had the mickey taken out of him. On this occasion Brian Llewellyn joined in the fun, goaded on by all the other misfits in the ward. Brian went up to Swoop holding a small object in one hand and a cone of paper in the other.

"Here," said Brian, "see if you can make this small object fall off your forehead into this cone of paper, which I want you to tuck into the top of your trousers."

Swoop decided to have a go. Unfortunately for him, Brian had other ideas about how the game should be played. As Swoop was balancing the object on his forehead, Brian took the opportunity to pour water from a large mug, down the cone tucked inside Swoop's trousers. Fortunately for Brian, Swoop was too doped up to become aggressive. The incident reflected the small minded immature attitude of many inmates in that hospital.

On November 8th we learned that Bob Wells had been found guilty of the murder of a woman in the grounds of Rainhill Hospital. The judge recommended that he serve not less than twenty years in prison. He had been in institutions all his life and had attacked many people. Quite frankly, no sentence could compensate for the misery he had inflicted on others. His case was a classic example of the failure of the prison and mental health systems, and in particular the failure of government and society to face up to the issue.

Based on the part of the prison system that I saw, I came to the conclusion that the cause of many crimes was medical in nature. Although few inmates could be considered as candidates for euthanasia, I did feel that for inmates who had received long prison sentences, this option should be made available to them, in addition to persons who cannot or soon will not be able to look after themselves, or whose quality of life is or soon will be greatly reduced. Other inmates on lesser sentences, fell into a different category. The government through the medical profession spent an awful lot of money saving life that nature would or should have aborted. These people were often unable to cope in an society. They therefore deserved to live in sheltered communities where their problems could be understood and coped with, but in an uncaring society I regarded that option as standing no chance of being fulfilled. The long term answer to many criminal cases lay in the area of brain transplants, that is, the implantation of adult or foetal cells into certain areas of the human brain, resulting in the brain repairing itself. The social-economic impact of such a medical advance would be enormous, but the government funding for such research appeared to be minuscule compared to that spent on defence.

Every now and again I felt that Swoop was an excellent candidate for euthanasia. Each evening he would go into the toilets and spew his ring up, after smoking himself sick on all the discarded cigarette ends he had swooped up during the day. One evening I went into the dimly lit toilets and having sat on the seat, I then realised that my legs felt strange. Evidently Swoop had spewed up over the lavatory seat, I was far from pleased. Fortunately, soon after that incident, Swoop was put back downstairs.

That same day Alex Blythe came to A ward. He was thirty-nine years of age but looked at least twenty years older. He was a big man with a weather beaten face, which included a ragged beard. His flies would always be undone, whilst his trousers would hang on his hips exposing the top of his backside. He slept in a bed at the foot of mine. He was in the hospital for medical reports, not that it took long for anyone to see that he was mentally ill. The depressing thing was that he knew that he was sick. Given the opportunity he would make all kinds of wild statements, which he repeated regularly. Here is one explaining why black people are black, and white people are white:

"On the sun helium was discovered before it was on Earth. Being an inert gas and combustion, it travels down through the atmosphere of Earth by the 'refreaction' of light. As soon as it enters the Earth's gravitational forces, it becomes nuclear molecular automation, and is known as to man personnel subtracted colour from light. Now this causes friction and essentricity (like electricity in the brain). Now as we know, white is white and black is black. And that is why it gives him the colour, but in a white man's brain it is hydrogen electrolysis of water in the brain. Now when an eye is opened, not relative to magnetic substances, radiation is not formed. But when you look at the relative things that surround you, being not an optical illusion, radiation is transparent to the human eye. Now if photoelectric scopametry radiation will give pure oxygen in the atmosphere, enabling the body by the food it consumes by natural reservations. The body and the organs in it will react in a sense similar towards an animal. Yet at the same time water is a necessity to consume in the body, for the corpuscles, to expand and contract from the brain, for the phosphorus crystals sending messages up the spine to the brain."

So now you know that it has got nothing whatsoever to do with skin pigmentation. Believe it or not I got Alex to recount this story slowly to me, and he even corrected my spelling mistakes and punctuation. He knew it off by heart, and would not accept any deviation. All I can say is that if that little lot deserves a Nobel prize, do not tell me, otherwise what little sanity I still have will be shattered. As far as I could tell Alex suffered from schizophrenia. He had at least two minds, one of which would be floating around the room somewhere looking lost. He said he was an orphan from Kenya. As far as I could tell he was just another king of the road. How would you like to share your bedroom with a smelly old tramp? A few days later another headbanger was put in the ward, only two beds away from mine. He was called Goldie Smith. He also had a destitute appearance. That evening as I sat reading my Flight, and Rolf sat reading his Times, Goldie and Alex engaged in a long but meaningless conversation. Goldie would be talking on one subject whilst Alex would be talking about another at the same time, whilst both would be agreeing with one another. I looked at Rolf, Rolf looked at Roger, who looked at me. We all thought the same. What had we done to deserve this?

'Get me out of here!'

The next day Mark Jones was transferred to the Hornby Hotel. Much to our surprise he had been found guilty of murder. He told me that he came from a violent family background. His father had apparently been in a mental hospital at one time, and had a history of wife beating. Mark was abused by his father before and after birth, hence his hearing and speech difficulties, and his dormant neurotic state of mind. Violence breeds violence. One evening whilst in a public house, an old man started taking the mickey out of him, because of his handicap. He left the pub and waited outside the man's home. When the old man arrived, Mark attacked him, venting the feeling of hatred that had boiled up inside him since the insult. The old man was kicked to death inside his own home. A few weeks before the trial, Mark had been interviewed by doctors from outside. They inferred that he would be found guilty of manslaughter. At the trial however, the prosecution refused to accept such a plea. Mark was sentenced to life imprisonment. Ultimately he would be released on life licence, whereupon he would have to appreciate that should he do anything wrong again, he would automatically be sent back to prison, probably for another year. Life for Mark from then on would be very tough.

November 13th, 1985 was budget day. There were fine words as usual in the House of Commons, but the amount of money to be used in rebuilding society was derisory. I could not recall another British Government that had used propaganda so effectively.

On the next day came the Miss World Contest. Mr.Lofty the night watchman, looked stunned as the majority of inmates decided that they wanted to watch Crimewatch instead. Crimewatch was the only educational programme that they liked viewing. You could learn a lot from the mistakes and successes of others. As far as most of them were concerned, this was their pathway to a successful career in crime.

That same day the Nevado Del Ruiz volcano erupted in Columbia, South America. The snow capped peak melted, sending a sea of mud down into the surrounding foothills. Twenty-three thousand people were believed to have been buried alive, whilst fifty thousand were made homeless. Santa Claus was also in the news that month. A little boy asked him for a toy gun, but Santa told him to get a real one and shoot Mrs. GG with it. I never believed in Santa Claus until then. There were arms reduction talks in Geneva between President Reagan and Premier Gorbachev. Certainly there was a more human approach from the Soviet side, but over the years of SALT talks I had come to the conclusion that no meaningful arms reduction would be achieved, simply because the governments of east and west did not know how to create employment and a peaceful world status, without a massive armaments industry. Would a space industry be an acceptable alternative?

Being a neurotic, my interest in the end of the world should be understandable. In my bungalow I had several books about the effects of nuclear war and how to survive it. Even if the USSR and USA reduced their stockpiles of nuclear weapons by ninety per cent, the balance of terror would still exist. After expending the two thousand or so warheads on either side, the war would still go on until the last ideological bomb had been dropped, and the last bullet and shell fired. As a result, world climatic change would bring about starvation on a massive scale, whilst global nuclear fallout and disease would decimate the remainder of mankind, in the northern hemisphere at least. I had about as much belief in the human race's future as I had in my own.

A government that allows its citizens to arm themselves to the teeth, whilst being fed movies from its own film industry glorifying violence, that deludes itself into thinking that it can build an impregnable system of defence against ballistic missiles and cruise missiles through the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) and Air Defence Initiative (ADI) at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars (some said one trillion dollars), when its government is already in debt, is not a government that inspires me with confidence in the future. The American government was making the same mistake that Hitler made over the V2 rocket. He thought that once the technology worked it would win the war. Likewise the American administration was blinded by the technology incorporated into 'star wars.' Star wars could be made ineffective through the use of anti-satellite weapons, faster accelerating missiles and greater numbers of decoys, etc. The system could even be circumvented with the use of small seabed crawling submarines equipped with nuclear torpedoes. Since most of NATO's cities and industrial complexes were near the coast, such a weapon systems would be undetectable and decisive. It could be built at a fraction of the cost of SDI and ADI. Such underwater vehicles already existed, on both sides of the iron curtain.

SDI on the other hand would involve state of the art laser and particle beam technology, plus optical computing methods and artificial intelligence. I could only see it working as a first strike weapon, assuming one day that it was powerful enough to penetrate the atmosphere, to damage ground targets. Operating at the speed of light, such a weapon's system was unlikely to make the world a safer place, quite the contrary. To be a defensive weapon in orbit, it would have to be in the right place at the right time. In which case hundreds of beam weapons and rail guns would have to be in numerous orbits. Since it cost one hundred million dollars to launch a military pay load by Titan 34D rocket, I failed to see where the money was going to come from. SDI if deployed, was likely to cost each American citizen four thousand dollars. Given the choice, I would prefer to take the money and run. The only thing practical that was likely to come out of SDI, was a nuclear propulsion system for interplanetary and possibly interstellar spacecraft. As for ADI, this was based on very large and vulnerable ground based over the horizon radars, that would theoretically direct stealth fighters, equipped with passive infra-red sensors, onto enemy bombers and cruise missiles.

The more I read about such systems the less impressed I became. The phenomenal cost reinforced my belief that the abolition of frontiers and the establishment of world government, was likely to be the only real answer to the world's problems. Were this to happen, then hopefully the money presently spent on weapons would be put to much better use, and not simply used to buy votes through tax reductions. In the world of the computer and robotics, ideology was dying a quick death. The traditional working class was being displaced by automation, but robots did not buy cars in the west any more than they did in the east. Robots in a traditional society, created products, not wealth in the long term. Politicians were failing to realise that the ideologies upon which their economies were based were no longer valid. They were all being undermined by the technology their political systems nurtured. Government's of east and west were finding themselves in the same boat, instead of on opposite banks of the river.

A day or two later I woke up at 7am, after no doubt thinking about more of the world's problems, to find a small bird flying around the ward. For a moment I thought I had a screw loose. The bird eventually flew into the office, where Mr.Barraclough opened the window then flapped his arms in imitation. The bird took fright at this, darting out of the window, never to return.

Christmas was obviously getting near as the British actress Joan Collins switched on the Christmas lights in Oxford Street, London, somehow without electrocuting herself. You can tell I don't like soap operas can't you? One of the jokes Comedian would banter around, was about her.

"What is the difference between Joan Collins and Sooty?" Comedian kept asking everyone.

Modesty forbids me from writing the answer here. One of his comical sketches use to go something like this. In an Irish accent he would say to an inmate, in this case me:

"N.S. Allen, welfare state veteran, Home Office headache, lunatic extraordinaire, Tonight,..this is your life!,,,.And now we're taking you at great expense, to Risley Mental Hospital, where over two hundred personally known staff and enthusiastic inmates are waiting to greet you, and simply rave about you!"

We always needed comedians to brighten up our lives. One day Comedian moved on to opportunities new, but naturally enough his talents were demanded here, so a few months later back he came. Risley was home from home to many inmates.

During November a trainee hospital officer from Birmingham came to gain some experience at Risley. He interviewed me for a thesis he was required to write, as part of his training. He was concerned that I did not mix much with the rest of the inmates. Well, as I told him, most of the inmates were not on the same wavelength as myself. I told him about the unavailability of serious television programmes, the lights at night, the constant noise and lack of privacy. He did not think much of the hospital at Risley. The best prison hospital he had seen was at Wakefield. Presumably they practised euthanasia there, I thought. He gave me a medical check up in the surgery, next to the dispensary.

On the desk in the surgery was a card marked 'VD suspect.' I wished that I was sitting somewhere else. Results of the examination were as follows:

Respiration '16 (usually 12 breaths per minute), pulse 84 (average 70 to 75, less in athletes) indicating that I was definitely not a sporting type, blood pressure 110/70 (average 120/75 at age 20 rising to 135/85 at age 50), which was low for my age but not dangerous. I also had a urine test which indicated a high sugar content, because I liked lots of sugar on the rice pudding I had just eaten. Everything was therefore normal, apart from the obvious need for exercise. I would have preferred an ECG and NMR or PET scan of my brain, if only to relieve my anxiety. I told him about my EEG's and the headache I had endured three months before. He seemed concerned, but did not go beyond that.

On November 27th Halley's Comet made its closest approach to Earth, but like millions of people around the world, I never saw it. The external floodlights, the overcast sky and the comet's small size made that impossible. I did not sleep well that night, as Popeye Dixon was smoking his damn pipe again. He would lie on his side in bed, and suck it all night. I often felt like ramming it down his throat. I persuaded him to leave his window ajar at night, but he still needed reminding occasionally. Popeye was an old withered man. What he was in for I did not know. Some of the lads interrogated him. He just said that he was in for assault, which in prison language usually meant a sex offence, but he would not elaborate.

AD cheered me up a bit the next morning, when he gave me the latest news on his application for bail. Evidently the commercial branch of the police were prepared to let him have bail, provided he could find three people who would each provide a surety of one hundred thousand pounds. Well that killed that little path to freedom. Evidently the police knew his real worth. Even worse than this was an interview he had with the commercial branch, in the presence of his solicitor. The police officers presented AD with a piece of paper on which were a number of questions relating to his wheeler dealing on the continent, particularly in Brussels and Zurich. Evidently they had traced his movements from the traveller's cheques he had cashed at these places, since after use they had been returned to the place where they had been issued, stamped with the date and name of the bank where they had been cashed. Further investigation had revealed what other transactions had taken place at those locations at that particular time. They were now aware of quite a number of cash withdrawals. After each date, amount withdrawn and bank involved, came the question, “and where is that money now?" AD said nothing to the police, thereby leaving the questions unanswered, and his mind troubled, for until then he thought that he had covered his tracks well.

"Its all right for you. All you had to do was tell the truth, but for me it's a tangled web we weave, as we are trying to deceive," said AD to me.

On December 2nd Roger West was sentenced to six years imprisonment for the manual strangulation of his wife. He had pleaded guilty to manslaughter. At the same time, another inmate in the hospital got three years for doing the same thing to his wife, after she left him at home to look after their child, whilst she went out with a series of lovers.

Roger was far from pleased with the sentence. He had been married over twenty years and naturally felt betrayed and humiliated, when his wife went to live with his brother.

"I'll have the bastard!" Roger said to me, referring to his brother.

He even spoke about taking out a contract on his life. Maybe his son was right when he made this comment concerning the period immediately preceding the killing, when his father was apparently suffering from chronic depression.

He said, "The family would have been better off if he (Roger) had succeeded in killing himself."

Evidently no witnesses had given evidence at the trial. The judge did not even want to listen to the doctors, according to Roger. The crux of the matter, as mentioned in at least one psychiatric report was, did he fail to resist his impulses because he could not, or because he would not. It was a question I had even asked myself. Perhaps only a lie detector (polygraph) or truth drugs could find that out, but I never came across anyone at Risley who was invited to do that.

Roger was particularly annoyed that the only picture of him and his wife that he had received in jail, was that torn out of a newspaper the day after the trial. A few days later Dr.Shrunk spoke to Roger in the ward's office. As a result of that meeting Roger finally went on medication, something which he should have done when offered it by his own GP, before the killing. It was that earlier decision which no doubt cost him a longer sentence. I will always remember Roger for one thing, on the windowsill next to his bed, he had a novel, which I think was titled 'My Brother's Wife.'

Killers are often just ordinary people. It does not matter how hard working or honest you may be, the card of death can be drawn most unexpectedly. Your brother may steel your wife, your partner may steel your business, someone may pick a fight with you at a party whilst your elated, your sub conscious may simply lash out in an act of self preservation, or you may strike out after experiencing intense feelings of disgust or revulsion. In many cases it is not the bastards who are on trial, but the victims. The law plods on in its remorseless way, ignoring much common sense. The accused becomes trapped in a web of solicitors, barristers, QCs, police, prison officers, welfare officers, etc. It becomes overpowering, resulting in a strong feeling of helplessness and dejection.

Brian Llewellyn was eventually interviewed by his defence psychiatrist. I had told Brian to ask the doctor to give him an intelligence test, but he forgot. I had recently read a medical report compiled by Dr.Shrunk which stated that Brian was of normal intelligence. Brian certainly looked normal, much like a male model, but he certainly did not talk effeminate. As for his intelligence, it was definitely below normal. I would often ask him questions which he would apparently fail to understand.

"What was your mental state at the time of the killings?" I asked.

"What do you mean, mental state?" Brian said.

"Where were you educated?" I then asked.

"What do you mean, where was I educated?" Brian replied.

"What school did you go to?" I asked impatiently.

"Oh, County School," answered Brian.

Where my mother-in-law had worked, I thought.

"I see you had the same GP as my wife," I commented.

"What do you mean, GP?" Brian asked.

"General practitioner,,,.Doctor!" I replied, feeling very exasperated.

How on Earth could you describe Brian as being of normal intelligence, I wondered. Concerned that the doctors had got it wrong, I had written a letter two weeks previously, for Brian to copy and send to his solicitor. It read as follows:

I showed the letter to Brian who began copying it out. After about three lines he started writing anything that came into his head, in an unintelligible scrawl. I think that just about summed up Brian. Bone idle! All through his life he had probably sought the soft option. Out of school he found that there was no soft alternative. He stood alone, but looking after himself did not appeal to him, so he did the next best thing. Brian found a substitute father, who in exchange for money and love, required Brian to screw in shit.

As far as I know Brian never had an EEG nor brain scan, and had no history of known mental illness. Just supposing that Brian's mental handicap in some way altered his sense of values, as well as his capabilities. If people like Brian continue to be written off simply as criminals, then how can the problem be identified and treated, with hopefully preventive measures to follow? Whatever the treatment for the criminal mind in the future, it will come too late for Brian and others thrown into societies human dustbins.

By now life in A ward was getting pretty unbearable. Alex, the schizoid tramp in the next bed, had a habit of eating no less than two heaped plates of food at each lunch and dinner time. He ate like a pig and stank worse than one. He would be farting every five minutes during the afternoon and evening. It was very hot in the ward, as the other inmates did not like opening their windows. I could not stand the smell emitting from Alex. Eventually, my tolerance wore thin. I asked Mr.Parrot if I could go back downstairs. The only cell available was a stripped cell, which I accepted.

The cell, number 012 on the north wing, was refreshingly cooler than A ward. That evening I tried to sleep on the bare foam mattress lying on the floor, but a squeaking noise, which I assumed to be a door hinge moving back and forth, kept me awake. After the inmates in the adjacent cells had quietened down, I noticed that the squeaking continued. It was apparently being caused by a cricket out hunting for cockroaches. The noise was coming from under my cell door. It continued throughout the night. I did not sleep much as I had refused to take my Prothiaden. I slept in fifteen minute stints. Each time I opened my eyes the orange night light in my cell would illuminate the cockroaches crawling across the cell floor towards me. Many times that night I picked up my shoe and beat them to death with it. I killed at least twenty insects that first night, but for some reason there were remarkably few corpses lying around the following morning. I felt very bitter with the system. I had heard nothing yet regarding my parole application, neither had I heard anything from my solicitor confirming that the bungalow sale had gone through and that all of my personal effects were in storage. I refused to eat breakfast, neither did I drink anything. I still wished that I could get transferred to Park Lane. I was sick of living in a world of shit!

During the morning I had headaches, which I put down to not having a pillow to rest my head on. Months later I noticed that other inmates solved this problem by bending the mattress against the wall. The mattress was then too short for your feet, but that did not matter so much. Meanwhile I was a novice at stripped cell survival, and had much to learn. At lunchtime I somehow managed to eat a chicken leg, and later a sardine sandwich. The shity smell in the stripped cell was inducing a feeling of nausea. In the afternoon I finally fell asleep, but awoke with a splitting headache. That evening I met my adversary, a large cream coloured insect at least twice the size of a large black cockroach. It was similar in shape to a grass hopper, but its hind legs were horizontal and not vertical. I presumed it to be a cricket. It had come out from under the bottom of the hollow steel door frame, making a reconnaissance for dead cockroaches. I stood motionless near the cell door with my right foot raised. The insect approached. It was high noon, him or me. My heart beat fast as I tried to stop my body shaking. The insect finally stopped advancing. It had come within twenty-five millimetres of the toe of my shoe. We remained motionless for ages. It was obvious that it could smell a rat. Finally my patience wore thin, I lunged forward with my right foot, Stomp! Stomp! Stomp! I felt certain of victory, but I had seriously underestimated the enemy. As my foot pounded the floor I was amazed to find that the little bastard could travel quicker in reverse than my foot could travel forward. It escaped back to its lair under the door frame. During that night I killed at least ten more cockroaches, but my main adversary would creep out Viet Cong fashion whilst I was nodding off, and steal the corpses. Again, I got little sleep that second night. My head felt painfully heavy against the foam mattress.

The next morning, Monday, a male coloured doctor visited me in my cell during his rounds. A few minutes later I was transferred to a better cell, number 003. The lower bar on the bed frame I noticed was unusually bent. I thought no more of it. About an hour or so later the same coloured doctor interviewed me in his office. Evidently the doctors were required to fill in a form for each stripped cell occupant. I told him about the stress in not having received a parole decision, nor about a possible transfer. He said he would make enquiries. He later told me that the authorities at Park Lane had refused to have me, but he refused to give me the reason. It would appear that I was no good at interviews, be it for a job or a place in a funny farm. I felt a total failure.

During the next two days I cleaned cell 003 over and over again. On Tuesday a man came around with a death spray, up and down the landing, no doubt after that cricket. On Wednesday morning whilst cleaning, I was annoyingly transferred to C ward. I had put so much effort into cleaning that cell that I wanted to stay. A few minutes later I met AD.

"003 was the cell that Harrison hanged himself in," said AD with a smile on his face, "I didn't want to tell yea until you were out of it."

So that was why the bar was bent, I thought.

At this time a number of cases were brought to trial. Smirk James was detained according to her majesty's pleasure, for killing a twelve year old female baby-sitter, whilst attempting to satisfy his sexual curiosity I believe. I think he came from Ireland, though he did not speak with an Irish accent. We often met in the exercise yard. To me he always appeared to be like a cheeky little schoolboy, with a smirk constantly on his face. He fell into that class of inmate who believed that if the police could not prove it, then it never happened that way. He showed no remorse. To him, life was a big joke.

Kevin Wood was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of the Spanish woman in Liverpool Docks, though I hardly think it was much consolation to her mother, who had also lost her husband.

Rolf had been sent down to the cells from A ward. Before I went up to C ward he told me that he had been brought downstairs for observation, as he was depressed. He showed me a letter from his solicitor, which stated that his defence psychiatrist thought that he belonged in a hospital, whilst Dr.Shrunk had stated that he did not and was simply criminal. Rolf told me that incredibly neither doctor had actually interviewed him, but had relied on the reports of others. When he was finally interviewed by Dr.Shrunk, Rolf was found to be terribly depressed, something which he had done his best to conceal whilst on the ward. Indeed most men tended to hide their depression from others, their feelings probably only coming to light at interviews.

C ward was as quiet as the grave upon my arrival. Mr.Island was on duty, as Mr.Parrot brought me up. It had been Mr.Parrot who suggested that I go into C ward where the physically sick were kept, making it the quietest ward in the hospital. I had a bed adjacent to AD's, who had been transferred from A ward, as it was more convenient for him here, whilst working on the staff servery located outside C ward. I continued to refuse medication, the nagging thought being that my mini stroke had been caused by the stuff somehow. It was also several days before my appetite was restored. That first night however, I still found it difficult to sleep.

No sooner had I dropped off than I was woken by a squelch, squelch, squelch noise. AD was snoring softly, but the little runt on the far side, called King Dick, was obviously masturbating furiously. It went on for literally hours. How sick can you get, I thought. For some reason I did not tell him to stop tommy tanking. I had gone through so much recently that the will simply was not strong enough. This disgusting noise reminded me of the case of a young woman called Josephine Clarke, whose case had recently gone before the courts. Her common law husband pursued perverted sexual practices, and had apparently once killed a child. A mother of two children, she regarded herself as little more than a sex slave. After getting her to tie him to the bed, she poured inflammable fluid over him, then set him alight. For killing him she was sentenced to three years imprisonment. I sincerely hoped that everything went well for her in the future, and God help those women who were tempted to live with a guy like that. The highlight of the day was when AD brought into the ward a sandwich from the staff servery.

"Look at this," AD said.

Like a fool I complied. Suddenly he raised the top slice of bread to reveal the gaping mouth and staring eyes of a fish's head. Bloody hell, I thought. I hope we're not getting that for tea. It was very amusing and got everyone laughing, including Mr.Island.

At evening dinner there was another surprise, at least for King Dick. Someone had complained about the nocturnal activities of the previous night, causing Mr.Island to approach the dining table, and King Dick in particular.

"Take this, it's an anti-wanking pill," ordered Mr.Island, holding before him a very large tablet.

King Dick just stared at it, horrified.

"Either you take this or I'll have to give everyone else a pill, to make them sleep tonight," explained Mr.Island, obviously enjoying his role.

The pill was reluctantly swallowed in silence. It was like a scene from the last supper, with King Dick taking a solemn gulp. He crawled into his bed that night in silence, looking very worried, probably wondering whether it would still be hanging there in working order when he awoke. At about five o'clock however, I was woken up by more squelching noise, I banged on his locker with my fist.

"Oi, behave yourself!" I shouted.

Squelch, squelch, squelch, and then silence. Up until then I had been envious of well endowed men, but quite frankly I could not imagine any decent, woman wanting to live with that. There were many dickheads in Risley who could not leave it alone. It was an obsession which ruled their lives night and day. The doctors seemed to do nothing to help the inmates get over the problem, in way of drug therapy. Small 'socks' were available on the ground floor for inmates to shoot their load into, but whether that was their main purpose, I do not know. Some inmates use to rub their wicks raw, Boxing gloves were not provided. Incidentally, the anti-wanking pill was really an oral laxative. If only he knew.

Thursday; December 12th, 1985 was the day when 258 American servicemen were killed as their aircraft, an ill maintained DC8 airliner, tried but failed to take off from Gander, Newfoundland. They comprised a peacekeeping force from Sinai, returning home for Christmas. On that same day the Reagan administration signed into law the Gramm Rudmann Hollings Budget Balancing Bill, designed to wipe out the USA's two hundred billion dollar trade deficit by 1991. This act was later to be declared unconstitutional, but it was not to die a quiet death. By mid 1987 the USA not only became the world's largest debtor nation, but had a national debit of over one thousand billion dollars. Military expenditure was to continue unabated, as the threat to world recession and hence world peace became even greater.

The next day, not many miles away from Risley, Thorn Cross Youth Custody Centre was opened at Appleton Thorn, near Warrington. It cost eight point nine million pounds and had places for 480 inmates aged from 15 to 21 years. Having no perimeter wall, the centre was for non violent offenders. Each inmate would have his own private room and own key. Inmates would be educated in industrial cleaning, car mechanics, computers, horticulture, art or catering. I was envious.

It was at this time that I made my acquaintance with Honey Monster. He was a tall, twenty-one stone, bearded con man of twenty-three years of age. He was in the hospital, he said, because he had a dickey heart. He told me numerous stories about himself, that he had millions of pounds stashed away in a Swiss bank account and in three other countries, and had two homes in the UK plus a villa on the Costa del Sol. He came from the south of England, the Surrey stockbroker belt, I believe. He told me many stories about himself. It was only after writing down six pages of these tales that I began to have doubts about his truthfulness. In his stories he had run a private ambulance service, including an air ambulance which offered the opportunity to smuggle drugs into the country and gold bars out. He said that he had links with the Mafia, and had been a bouncer in a London night club.

After listening to all of his tales I wondered how on Earth a man of only twenty-three years could have accomplished so much. Parts of his story were later to have a ring of truth about them. His life finally led him to Spain, where he intended to join other British expatriates of crime. His luck however, ran out one day when he had a heart attack. After being in Spain for two weeks, the Spanish authorities decided to send him back to the UK for medical treatment. All this time he was in a coma. When he came out of it he found himself handcuffed to an NHS bed. He said that he was receiving drug therapy for angina, and was awaiting the implantation of an intelligent, pacemaker.

The above paragraph was just a small part of the load of tripe he waffled on about. Honey Monster had plenty of depositions but there was only one that he was prepared to let anyone read. The rest he said he was too ashamed of. The statement which I read, I was later to realise was the true height of his career. This chapter of his career went as follows. He found out that at a certain bureau de change in London, there was only one woman on duty in the evening. One evening he telephoned her, informing her that he was a police officer, and that he had recently discovered that a gang of villains were about to rob the place.

"I will be sending one of my men around to assist you," Honey Monster said.

A few minutes later Honey Monster himself, turned up in civilian clothes, posing as a detective. He showed her his identity card, which he had made out of a bus pass and letraset, I think he said. The woman later agreed that it looked nothing like the warrant cards she had seen real policemen carry, but nevertheless she let him in behind the counter. I think it was his lovable smile that did it. Upon entry, Honey Monster then insisted that the money that was in the safe should be removed and taken to the local police station for safe keeping. The woman agreed (no doubt because our police are so friendly). Having opened the safe, Honey Monster then filled a shopping bag with the goodies.

"What about the money in the tills?" Asked the woman.

"Oh, leave that, It'll look good when the gang burst in," he replied

"Tell you what, perhaps you should give me a peck on the cheek as I leave. That way any of the gang watching will think I'm your boyfriend."

Honey Monster then strode off down the road with his 'shopping,' never to return. By this time Honey Monster was on bail awaiting trial for his embarrassing escapades, Being of heavy build and a con man, it did not take the police long to work out who was responsible, and the call went out.

"Get him!"

By the way, In the shopping bag was twenty thousand pounds of lovely money, just waiting to be spent.

After King Dick left C ward, bed six became occupied by a pipe smoker. He was almost as bad as the night watchman, Mr.Boy George, but at least he did not smoke it at night. Being near Christmas, the staff were busily choking their lungs with cigar smoke. In an attempt to avoid being a passive smoker I would open my window, thence rapidly lose body heat to the point of shivering. It seemed a choice between breathing in noxious fumes of nitrogen oxide, ammonia, carbon monoxide and a host of other carcinogenic gases, or take the risk of contracting dyspepsia again, or worse, hypothermia. As things turned out, the draft blowing between the ill fitting window frames, made it unnecessary for them to be opened on windy days, making the ward bearable most of the time, and like brass monkeys on others.

Honey monster told me that you could take a smoker's lung at an autopsy, squeeze it and the tar would literally ooze out. Now that would really make an excellent no smoking advertisement on television, preferably shown at breakfast time. Having to breath in this haze, filled me with an intense desire to gas every member of the government, for putting me here and leaving me here. As for Honey Monster, his lurid tales of dead bodies, and his cherub like smiling face, made me think that there must be a place for him as a television narrator, for video nasties at children's hour.

Christmas required the purchase and posting of Christmas cards. I was the sort of person who would send cards to those I considered to be my friends, no matter whether they sent me one or not, but if there is one thing that I hated it was receiving a card and not being able to return the compliment. It was only possible to buy things from the canteen on a Sunday morning. The previous Christmas I had little trouble in getting Christmas cards I seem to recall. This Christmas was to be different. On Sunday, December 8th I was feeling so bad after coming out of the stripped cell, that I simply forgot to ask for cards. I therefore waited until the following Sunday. On the fifteen of December I went to the canteen and was told by a screw that I had to make an application to the governor before I would be allowed to buy ten Christmas cards from my private cash, my one pound twenty-five pence per week pay not being sufficient. Later Mr.Stick told me to be sure and ask for stamps at the same time, as evidently one of the lads had been caught out that way.

That evening I put in my application to Mr.Pardon. There was no application book in the office, so he had to write it down on a piece of paper, which he later handed in at the main office on the ground floor. The governor or assistant governor apparently approved the application the next day, but it went no further. When the canteen staff came around midday Wednesday with the basket of goodies, there were no stamps and no birthday cards for me. I complained to Mr.Island who confirmed that the application had been approved, but that I would now have to wait until the following Sunday, the twenty-second of December. It did not leave much time to deliver them I thought. On the following Sunday the canteen staff denied all knowledge of the order, so for the first time in years I did not send any Christmas cards to anyone.

I had been what is known as screwed up by the screws. There were many minor rules which could screw you up. Inmates were not allowed to have photographs of themselves for instance, even when the photograph included your spouse. This was presumably to prevent inmates from making their own identity cards, although I never saw one. Convicted inmates were not allowed to have their own stamps, presumably someone thought you might bribe a member of staff with them. Just why an inmate had to apply to the governor in order to spend private cash on Christmas cards or radio batteries I simply could not figure out. Presumably it was a means of checking that the money did not go adrift. Looking back on this incident, it maybe that there simply was not enough money in my private account at this time and that the staff were trying to withhold that fact from me. All I knew was that my mother had sent me thirty pounds soon after my arrival at Risley Remand Centre, and that I had spent less than half of it. I did however receive seven Christmas cards from relatives and friends that Christmas.

On Friday, December 20th the Liverpool drugs baron Tommy Commerford was sentenced to fourteen years imprisonment for conspiring to smuggle drugs and possessing heroin. When it came to drug smugglers and drug pushers I shared Mr.Porky's views on the subject. They were purveyors of death and misery on a huge scale, and as such should have been put to death by lethal injection. A society will not get rid of the problem any other way. A misfit may not understand imprisonment, but the death penalty he certainly will. I was later to meet another drug smuggler who was to underline the fact that imprisonment could never deter.

It was rumoured that Tommy Commerford had made over one million pounds from his drug dealings. That same day the government published legislation enabling the courts to order sequestration of the proceeds of illicit drug dealing, from villains and associates. Such legislation would not affect criminals involved in corruption, fraud, robbery, prostitution, burglary, blackmail, extortion, muggings, etc. Nor even the writing of biographies in crime. Neither would the bill affect investments placed in the UK from abroad by villains and organized crime syndicates, as the government felt that the legislation had to be brought in in stages, starting with drugs. Apparently the government could not rely upon MP's to approve a bill which covered all crimes of gain. This feeling was underlined the same week, when MPs refused to make their investment declarations compulsory.

There were now over fifty inmates in British prisons with AIDS. Most would die within seven years, if a cure was not found. A twelve bed isolation unit was being built at Brixton Prison, a remand centre for South East England, where sixty percent of AIDS victims were found.

On Christmas eve we received our statutory Christmas boxes. We had the usual choice of sweets or tobacco. In my paper bag was a mars bar, butterscotch (rum flavoured), polo mints, bounty, polo fruits, kit-kat and murray mints. For supper we had coffee and sausage rolls for a change.

The Christmas menu was as follows;

On Christmas day, for breakfast we had a bowl of grapefruit and mandarin orange slices with cherries. Also one thin sausage, one large bacon rasher, plus beans on toast washed down with tea.

For lunch we had tomato soup, a thin slice of turkey with stuffing, roast potato, mashed potato, sliced carrots, runner beans and gravy. For sweet we had Christmas pudding with white custard. Afters consisted of coffee with cheese specials.

At evening dinner we each had a slice of cold ham and luncheon meat with an egg in the middle, lettuce, brown bread and tomato. For sweet we had cream and jelly, followed by a penguin bar and Christmas cake with coffee.

For supper we had cocoa and mince pie.

On boxing day, for breakfast we had spaghetti on toast, one thin sausage, plus one bacon rasher with brown bread. We also had two Weetabix with milk, washed down with a mug of tea.

For lunch we had mushroom soup, a rather fatty pork chop, roast potato, diced carrots and marrow with processed peas. Sweet consisted of rhubarb crumble containing very little rhubarb as usual, plus coffee.

For evening dinner we had a slice of corn beef, one slice of luncheon meat, one pickled onion, sliced bread, one orange, one apple, a mug of tea and a packet of crisps.

For supper we had tea and minced pies.

Apart from the fatty pork chop the meals were all right. It made me wonder why it was, that apart from three days each year, inmates were obliged to eat ugh!

That evening we sat down to watch the movie 'Who Dares Wins' on the goggle box. It was a film that I had not seen before, and as luck had it, I was not to see it without interruption. During the film I sat near the office door with my back to Honey Monster, who was sitting near his bed, number one. Eventually I became aware that something was going on behind me. Turning around I saw Honey Monster sitting in his chair. He was doubled up with pain. The night watchman was called out of his office to attend. The exploits of the SAS abseiling down ropes, stun grenades exploding and automatic weapons firing, continued. The next time I turned around, Honey Monster had obviously fallen victim. He lay on his side on the floor, with his head near my chair. I could not decide which was more interesting to watch.

The staff were called up from downstairs, one then six of them. An ambulance was requested and a minuteman resuscitator was brought in. By now Honey Monster was gurgling rather than breathing. At the start of his ordeal he told the night watchman that he had taken his usual drug half an hour before. The oxygen was administered as the staff looked anxiously out of the window, obviously hoping to see the ambulance arrive. Meanwhile the terrorist's plans to unleash terror got into gear, just as the ambulance arrived for Honey Monster. It took five prison officers to lift the carcass into a small wheel chair and strap him in. He was then wheeled away, leaving us in the hands of the terrorists.

Soon after resuming my seat I realised that Honey Monster had recently received a letter from his doctor, for the medical staff, explaining his heart condition. I mentioned this to the night watchman, who then asked me to find it. I found the letter and a prison officer then took it downstairs to the ambulance men. Hopefully I thought, my good deed would save Honey Monster's life, although I suspected that he really did not care much about living as he refused to go on a special diet, whilst that day he had eaten AD's pork chop as well as his own. AD did not want it as he thought it was off. The pork chops were at least half fat, and obviously came from a prison pig eating prison slops. Such pork by law, was not allowed to be sold commercially for human consumption. Prison inmates were obviously not human. As for Honey-Monster, he burned the candle at both ends. It was obvious that he had not long to live if he continued on his present diet. Being kept in Risley was a death sentence anyway, as there was little that anyone there could do for him.

Well, that was what I wrote in my diary. Tear jerking isn't it? Like everyone else, I had been conned. Honey Monster was quickly returned from hospital after they could find nothing wrong with him. He had conned the medical profession just as easily as he had conned me, but you can only keep it up for so long, and in prison there is usually plenty of time in which to determine the truth.

After Honey Monster's departure to hospital, we all sat down to watch the terrorists shoot their way into the US ambassador's residence. It was all good clean fiction. The next day anarchists attacked the El Al offices in Rome and Vienna with small arms and hand grenades. Quite a number of people were killed. It was no joke.