UTOPIAN DREAM

April 28th, 1986, was the second anniversary of my stay in Risley Remand Centre. I had still not received a reply to my petition to the Home Secretary. My MP had replied, stating in his letter that he had forwarded my correspondence to Lord of the Glens, in the Home Office.

The next day saw the funeral of the Duchess of Windsor, who fifty years earlier as an American divorcee, had caused the King of England to abdicate. The couple had spent most of their married life in exile in France, to be united in death at Windsor. That day was also the day the world learned of the melt down of a light water graphite moderated nuclear reactor at a place called Chernobyl, located mid way between Minsk and Kiev in Western Soviet Union. A radioactive cloud had drifted over Sweden, setting off alarms at a nuclear complex. Meanwhile the Soviet Government was silent on the incident, not wanting to upset the forthcoming May Day celebrations.

That day I received a reply to the letter I had recently sent to my solicitor. Mr.Roberts stated that there were no more statements outstanding, and implied that I had seen everything that had gone before the judge. I found that to be a very disturbing statement. He was unrepentant about not letting me keep my depositions when he brought some of them to Risley before my trial. As far as I could recall, I read my sister-in-law's statement, and perhaps those of my mate Bill and my landlady Mrs. Jones. If these other statements, which were far more important, did not exist as I had been led to believe, then it was not surprising that the judge failed to understand the causes of my mental illness and the motives of my in-laws. There was no way that I would have pleaded guilty had I known that these statements did not exist, or were not submitted to the court, or were inaccurate.

My solicitor had told me that his investigator had found a witness who worked in the garage opposite where the bus stop incident had taken place. He did not state during his visits to me, that a statement had been obtained, but implied that one would. As regards the incident at the day care centre, he stated at the time that permission was being sought from the local authority to obtain statements from the employees who witnessed the incident between me and my in-laws. At no time had he stated that these statements had been obtained. If it was not possible to obtain these statements then he should have told me. If he had those statements, then surely he would have submitted them to the judge and sent me a copy to see. I should have been given the opportunity to comment on the accuracy of those statements. Information could have been unintentionally left out of them, or they could simply have mistakenly referred to incidents not related to my case.

Things did not make sense. There was however a nagging aspect to all this. If the judge had not received many of the statements, then the Home Office would not have them either. Parole could be refused if the enormity of the crime was great. If the Home Office did not have a clear picture of the case, then it was no wonder that I had not been given parole. I could not help feeling that the legal profession was aloof, answerable to no one, and beyond the law. I decided to write to the Law Society, in the hope that I was wrong. I felt that as an accused person your wishes were ignored. As a convicted inmate, you are nothing. I was being treated not much better than my in-laws had treated me, whilst the Home Office appeared to be not much better than the DHSS. It appeared that life did not change no matter where you were. Even if my fears proved unfounded, the added stress caused was certainly inexcusable.

Meanwhile the POA had decided upon all out unspecified industrial action. My initial feeling was that they would be treated no differently than the unemployed, pensioners, civil servants in the DHSS and Department of Unemployment, and of course the coal miners. I found it hard to imagine what it would be like if troops were called in to run the prisons. Square bashing in the exercise yard, and assault courses over the perimeter wall no doubt. I had regarded the screws as overpaid and under worked. Over eighty per cent of them voted for industrial action, on condition that they would not be called upon to strike. They had no illusions. They knew that they were a vital profession, even though compared to most jobs they were unskilled. I could not see how they were going to win. I did not realise that they had an army of thousands of misfits, who would do their bidding at the drop of a hat. That day saw the rooftop protest at Gloucester Prison. Although it only lasted a day, it was a portent of things to come.

In the absence of news from the Soviet Union, British newspapers published stories of their having been two thousand people killed at Chernobyl, where there had once been four reactors generating one thousand megawatts. At least one, and possibly two reactors had melted down, whilst the Soviet Government was reported to be asking the west for advice, specifically on how to fight reactor fires.

In the UK, April saw the passing of the Disabled Persons Bill, whilst the European Court decreed that housewives were entitled to Invalid Care Allowance. The government then announced that long term disabled persons hospitals in the north west of England would close along with many elsewhere. Mr.Flight was annoyed by this announcement, as he knew that, those not cared for by relatives would probably end up in prison. Prescription charges went up to two pounds twenty pence. They had increased by a thousand percent since Mrs. GG came to power in 1979. That same month many solicitors in London complained that they could no longer take legal aid cases, as the rate was falling behind costs. For the poor in Great Britain, life was getting tougher.

On May Day I wrote to the Law Society. My welfare officer Pepsi, had found the address after much searching. In the letter to the Law Society I stated the circumstances of my trial, the fact that I was now divorced and my home sold, but that I was still waiting to be told the financial outcome. I also stated that a number of statements relating to my case were still missing, and that their absence could affect my transfer or parole. I also sent them a copy of the letter I sent to my solicitor on 18-4-86, and the reply I received from him. My letter concluded:

The questions in many of my letters have not been answered, whilst information enclosed in his letters has often been incomplete. Many times I have not been kept informed of developments. I can see no reason why my solicitor should be so reluctant to let me have my depositions, so I would like the matter cleared up as requested, and the financial implications of my divorce made clear to me, and all claims settled. I also request my solicitor to answer the three telephone calls my mother had made to his office recently, so that she may be allowed to collect my belongings from storage in Holyhead. I hope you can assist in the above matters. Please let me know of any legal fee involved, soonest.

The day I wrote that letter brought news of the disturbances that had taken place the night before. The night of April thirtieth was a night unprecedented in British penal history. As a result of the POA dispute with the Home Office, opportunistic dickheads, officially described as immature, in the Home Secretary's midnight speech in the House of Commons, decided to engage in violent protest in numerous prisons, remand centres, and youth custody centres (YCC). At least nineteen localities were affected to varying degree. At Northeye Prison, Bexhill, Sussex, forty per cent of this category C prison was destroyed, totalling thirteen buildings, whilst ten prisoners escaped. At Wymott Prison, Leyland, Lancashire, eight hundred inmates rioted, causing extensive arson. At Lewes Prison in Sussex, four warders were attacked, whilst thirty-four prisoners escaped from Erlestoke Youth Custody Centre, Devizes, Wiltshire. At Gartree Prison in Leicestershire, one inmate was stabbed to death, whilst at Harfield Prison in Bristol, one hundred and ten cells were wrecked, as police stormed the prison. Nine inmates climbed onto the roof of Norwich Prison in Norfolk, whilst at Albany Prison on the Isle of Wight, the governor was reported as having a bucket of excrement poured over his head. Other incidents were reported to have occurred at Newmarket Prison, Suffolk; Pentonville Prison; Swansea Prison; Strangeways Prison, Manchester; Northallerton YCC; Castington YCC, Northumberland; Pucklechurch Remand Centre; Deerbolt YCC, Durham; Leicester Prison; Ashford Remand Centre; and Stafford Prison.

The industrial dispute was based on an eleven hundred page report compiled by PA Management Services and a Home Office report aimed at the saving of sixty million pounds per annum, by reducing overtime through the rearrangement of work shifts. The POA were opposed to overtime reductions, and wanted more recruitment, and a fifteen per cent minimum pay rise. The basic pay for prison officers was one hundred and three pounds twenty-one pence, rising to one hundred and thirty five pounds thrity four pence after fifteen years service. Average pay in 1985 was two hundred and eighty eight pounds sixty-one pence per week, roughly fifteen thousand pounds per annum. At Brixton Prison it was noted that 103 out of 638 prison officers earned more than twenty thousand pounds per annum. Prison spending in 1986 was to be six hundred and thirty-nine million, three hundred million of which would be wages, with a provision for overtime of eighty-six million.

Immediately after the disturbances, the POA ordered its members to go back to normal working, probably realising that if all the prisons were destroyed the army would then keep all the inmates in military camps, effectively putting all of their members on the dole. Talks between the POA and the Home Office were to resume in a weeks time. It was to be the first defeat that Mrs. GG's regime was to encounter from the trade union movement. It showed that violent protest worked. I was over the moon!

On the day of the air show at Barton Aerodrome, AD found Mr.Flight sitting at his electronic boxes in the EEG room, listening to the air traffic controller. I wondered whether he was being paid to do so.

The next day AD was far from happy. The tea urn was brought over that evening on the trolley as usual, but AD and his assistant were preoccupied, so the staff set to, to serve the suppers for those inmates in the cells. Upon raising the lid of the tea urn, they were confronted with a foreign object floating on the surface. After removing the layers of wrapping, it turned out to contain an illicit uncooked beef steak. A long spoon retrieved another steak, which had sunk to the bottom. AD had apparently been bartering with the inmates in the kitchens. In exchange for the steaks he sent them cigarettes brought in by his wife. AD did not smoke. By the time AD and his partner had arrived on the scene, the steaks had disappeared. Worse still, the staff were saying nothing. One of AD's perks was now no more.

AD use to tell me a great deal about what was happening in the hospital, since he had the run of the place, serving tea and meals to the staff from seven in the morning to eight o'clock at night, as well as the inmate's suppers. One of the inmates that AD use to keep me informed about was a Nigerian called Floyd Bushman. He had stowed away on a ship to the UK, and it was to take many months before the Nigerian Government would accept his return. One look at him explained their reluctance. When A,D, went to Floyd's cell with the tea and sandwiches, there would stand Floyd, grinning away whilst licking the shit between his fingers. He would take the two slices of bread that AD gave him, pick up a slab of shit from the top of his locker, place it between the bread, and then joyfully eat it! The screw's face would turn green at the sight of this. Based on investigations by staff, AD said that such habits were a tribal custom. Floyd also collected his urine in a squash bottle, which he would then top up with water from the drinking fountain at meal times, before drinking it. I found AD's tales about Floyd very difficult to believe, but it all proved to be true.

I think it was Mr.Parrot who told me about a deportee whom immigration officials escorted back to Africa once. He was an army deserter, I believe. No sooner had this guy stepped off the plane, than soldiers took him behind a hanger, whereupon a shot rang out. The immigration officials evidently could not get out of the country fast enough. It was a pity we could not deport Mr.Dog I thought, as he was already playing his radio again at night, no doubt confident of POA invincibility. An even worse problem was Popeye, the old man with the pipe, who had been transferred from A ward. He continued his habit of lying on his side and smoking his foul pipe, about five times each night. It filled me with feelings of asphyxia each time the smoke drifted in my direction. There were five other inmates who would smoke in bed at all hours of the night, and with AD closing the windows, I found sleep almost impossible. It was inevitable that I would only be able to withstand such a stressful environment so long.

About eight hundred cells were damaged during the riots at this time. As a result of that the number of inmates in C ward rose to eighteen. Mr.Recluse came on duty for a month on May the sixth. As soon as he saw the overcrowding, and the resultant tense situation, a sudden feeling of nausea came over him. He reported sick, then went home. In the previous two days I had been feeling very tense with frequent fits. One of the inmates had been attacked by ET, who like Dan Sullivan, had been down in the cells. Dan had recently celebrated his twenty-first birthday in the ward, or was it in the cells? As a result of the fight, ET was put down in the cells with fourteen days loss of privileges. I wished that I could have had fourteen days in a cell I thought, as at that time my whole body felt like exploding. The noise, the overcrowding, the stuffiness, anything could provide the necessary spark, and it would be me who would get the blame if I was involved in more trouble. Even after five months without drug therapy, my head was still feeling the withdrawal symptoms, whilst the high pitched whistling noise in my inner ear dragged on for days, and eventually for life.

I had just sat down to read about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in New Scientist magazine, when exercise period was apparently called. As I walked towards the grill gate it became apparent to me that inmates were being searched as they left the ward. It was to be a ward search, not an exercise period. It was the first search in C ward since my arrival there five months previously. We were locked out of the ward as the search progressed. I sat on the servery tables, hoping that no one would take any notice of my writings, some of which I had written out two or three times, in the event of some of it being confiscated. Finally we returned to the disaster area. My large box containing books, magazines, letters, depositions, and my diary, had been dragged out from under the bed and placed upon it. A cursory glance told me that no one had disturbed its contents.

I think there were three reasons why my box had not been searched. Firstly, I had been in Risley a long time and the staff knew that I did not steal things, or keep contraband. Secondly, I think the staff did not want to turn my little world upside down for fear of aggravating my mental condition. Thirdly, the numerous items in the box, which probably weighed about twenty kilograms, was enough to deter most officers. The third reason probably proved to be the most important during the final months of my sentence. After remaking my bed I set out to help others make theirs, particularly those who were disabled. AD set out to make his bed, and in so doing so, what looked like a hair net came out from between the pillows, and a paper tissue from under his bed. "Oh, a wankie-hankie!" I remarked, goggle eyed.

AD tried not to feel embarrassed by my description of such an item. It was an accepted part of life in Risley, provided it was done quietly. AD had a herpes simplex rash on his cheek, onto which he regularly rubbed ointment. Whether it was an indication that he missed his wife, or a souvenir from his jet setting lifestyle, I was not sure. His wife travelled one hundred and ten miles to Risley twice a week, making a total of four hundred and forty miles. I could only conclude therefore that the rash had sexual connotations.

"Do you touch her up in the library?" I asked AD.

AD laughed and said, "I'm too old for such things."

I did not believe one word of it. There they were in the library, unsupervised. He must have fondled her boobies whilst giving her a kiss or two, if only to prove to her that he had not engaged in any hanky-panky of the homosexual kind. As for me, my preoccupation with such thoughts centred solely on the fact that there was little else to think about.

Meanwhile AD told me further revelations about Floyd, whom he called Voodoo. The previous evening Floyd started a fire in the middle of his cell. The staff rushed to the scene to find sheets blazing on the lino covered floor, whilst Floyd was busily engaged in breaking up his wooden locker, in order to fuel the fire. Being baked around the periphery of the fire were balls of shit, the size of chocolate balls. The staff gazed in amazement.

"Me make camp fire," explained Floyd, "It's cold."

By this time the linoleum was burning fiercely. The staff, restraining the urge to vomit, entered the cell with extinguishers, put out the fire, then dragged Floyd off to a stripped cell, where he was divested of his clothes. Now this proved very confusing to Floyd. He did not like wearing clothes, and had previously been constantly reminded to put on his clothes before going to the servery at mealtimes. Now he did not have to wear those uncomfortable items, whilst his meals were now brought to him. As far as he was concerned, he was now better off. He was as naked as a bushman, and loved it, Whenever AD looked through the glass viewing slit in the stripped cell door, Floyd would produce a broad grin and wave. He was in his element, naked, eating his balls of shit which he kept on the window sill, whilst drinking his urine and water mixture from his squash bottle. He certainly added a new dimension to the phrase 'the white man's burden.'

The ward was searched on May the eighth and again the next day. The staff appeared very keen, but whether they were searching for anything in particular I do not know. By coincidence I was searching for my tube of toothpaste, which I had inadvertently left in the wash room. I never found it, but I did find a packet of filter tipped cigarettes hidden behind the lavatory cistern. They had obviously been stolen by someone. I took them out to the dining area, where most of the lads were watching television.

"Whose cigarettes are these?" I asked as I held them up for all to see. No one said anything.

"Well there yours now," I said as I gave them to Mr.Porky, who was obviously struck dumb by my unexpected generosity.

That day Dan Sullivan and I complained about Mr.Dog's radio being too loud. I think Dan was in bed number one at this time, so he could hear it better than anyone. The next night we had Mr.Boy George on duty, with his ruddy pipe puffing away like the 'cannonball express.' It was not long before Popeye joined in, so I had to get out of bed and open his window.

"I'm not feeling well," he said, obviously not wanting the window open.

"If you're well enough to smoke, then you're well enough to have the window open," I remarked.

He had earlier vomited all over his bed, which was remade by Captain Ahab. I also opened the wash room window that night, after AD had closed it earlier, after I had opened it. Despite living in the countryside he detested fresh air. With mine and Popeye's window open, and the wash room window open, there was now a through draft to clear away the smoke, giving relief to my heavy chest. I had recently spoken to Mr.Gravy complaining about the cigarette and pipe smoke at night.

"There are no rules about it," he said "this is a prison not a hospital, and you're a prisoner not a patient."

He obviously did not want to know. In that respect he was no different from any other member of staff.

In the beginning of May I put in an application to petition the European Commission for Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. I was given an ordinary letter sheet to write on. In fact I was to eventually use three of them, twelve pages in all. Under standing order number five, I knew there was guidance information somewhere. I made enquiries which led me to a small office on the top floor between A and B wards. I knocked on the door. The office appeared deserted, until I looked to my far right. There behind a filing cabinet in the far corner, sat a principal officer reading a paperback novel. Bloody typical I thought. The P.0. telephoned the assistant governor, who merely stated that I could have as much writing paper as I liked. So much for the guidelines. Without them I did not know whether my efforts were to be a complete waste of time. A few days later I got the address of the European Commission from Pepsi. It took a long time to write out the letter which included the circumstances of my crime, imprisonment and the way my solicitor treated me over my depositions.

On May the tenth, most of the ward's occupants watched the F.A. Cup Final on television. The Liverpudlians beat the Scoucers three goals to one. The next day our cherry tarts were decorated with a choice of red or blue cream. That week I received a postcard from a friend on Anglesey, and another from my mother in Spain, whilst my ex-girlfriend Jill was at the Expo 86 exhibition in Vancouver, Canada. Everyone seemed to be on the move except me, and the American space programme. On August 18th, 1986 a USAF Titan 34D carrying a KH11 reconnaissance satellite was lost during launch owing to liquid rocket motor failure. On April 18th, 1986 another Titan 34D carrying a Big Bird photo-reconnaissance satellite, blew up soon after lift off, destroying the launch pad at Vandenberg, California, when one of the two solid rocket boosters failed. The loss of a NASA Delta rocket carrying a NOAA weather satellite from Cape Canaveral, Florida on May 3rd,1986, seemed to reinforce the feeling of abject failure following the Challenger shuttle disaster in January. The loss of these three 'expendable' launch vehicles cost the US tax payer around three hundred million dollars, plus two hundred and fifty million dollars approximately, for the three satellites. HOTOL's chances of not going the same way as the ill fated TSR2, Blue Streak and Black Knight, looked very good. Whilst most inmates supported the reds or blues, I supported British Aerospace and Rolls Royce.

May the fourteenth will be remembered by me for two notable events, one of which I wished had never happened. During cleaning that morning it became apparent to me that two mops and a mop bucket were missing.

"Go and get the mops back from the servery," I said to Gobshite Git.

"I haven't got them, honest," he replied.

I walked out to the servery, and there behind the door I found no less than five mops and two mop buckets. Both mop buckets were full of dirty water, I picked up two mops and a mop bucket, and in a foul mood took them back to the ward's bathroom. The floor outside the bathroom was still wet, causing my feet to aquaplane and go out from under me. Needless to say, no sooner had I hit the deck, than the bucket of dirty water cascaded all over me. I bashed my left leg against the corner of the wall as I fell, creating an even fouler mood within me. Some of the lads mopped up the mess, as I went to the linen stores to change my clothes. After that incident, my aggressive feelings towards Gobshite Git and his brother Don, rumbled below the surface for days.

That afternoon during exercise period, Mr.Island escorted me to Dr.Shrink's office. Dr.Shrink had just received a letter from Department C3, I think he said, at the Home Office. They evidently wanted his opinion on my possible parole, with a reply sent to them by May 28th, a date which I thought had no significance. Dr.Shrink asked me whether I was likely to kill again. I told him that if someone had asked me that question the day before I killed my in-laws, I would have said no. I therefore did not think I could answer the question with any accuracy. I did tell him that I had no morbid thoughts, except for Gobshite Git that is, and felt that parole would do me more good than rotting away at Risley Remand Centre. I told him about the two hour long positive interview with my probation officer last April the eleventh. At this point Dr.Shrunk came into the office for a cigarette. He went on about me going to live with my parents. Dr.Shrink told him that I intended to go and live in Birmingham, where I had friends. He also told Dr.Shrunk that I was petitioning the European Court for Human Rights. Dr.Shrink had already remarked to me about this on a previous meeting.

On that occasion he said, "Go ahead, you wont get anywhere, but go ahead. I've already written to various places."

After Dr.Shrunk had left the room, Dr.Shrink informed me that he would recommend me for parole. The next day the recommendation was typed out.

I thought hard about why the letter had stated, by May 28th, and, as soon as possible. By now the Home Office not only had my petition, but also the letter I had sent to my MP, and no doubt copies of the two letters I had sent to the NCCL. As for the letter to the ECHR, they would probably get a copy of that too. By now I was hoping that I had become public irritant number one, whom the establishment could not get rid of fast enough, otherwise I could see myself writing out that petition to Queenie at Buck Place. I could see it in my minds eye as the prime minister made one of her weekly visits to the guilded throne:

"Now prime minister," thwack, as the golden sceptre raps the PM across the knuckles "Pay attention! Why have you not transferred this man by now. He tells me in his letter that the longer he's detained in that place, the stronger his urge to kill, and in particular a certain government minister. Yes, you!"

On May the fifteenth, Dan extended his noisy antics into the quiet period between lunch time and one o'clock. He had decided to play Connect Four with another inmate. The game consisted of a vertical plastic frame into which plastic discs of different colours were dropped. The person who got four discs of his own colour in a straight line, won the game. The game in my opinion, should have been called swish, plonk, clatter. The swish plonk being the sound the disc made as it entered the frame, the clatter being the discs falling out of the frame and onto the table top at the end of each game. Game followed game, as I and many other inmates tried to get some sleep. Life could not go on like this indefinitely, I thought.

That afternoon Dan moved out of bed number two, to a bed nearer mine. His brother Don was already in the bed next to mine. Life was beginning to feel very claustrophobic. Dan had moved because Pops Bradley, in bed number one, repeatedly shouted out loud in his sleep. He was a senile geriatric, slowly dying of cancer, but unfortunately he was not to die soon enough, as he kept most of us awake at night for days on end.

Things were bleak for the unemployed, whom I was shortly to join, or so I thought. The government's rigged unemployment figures now stood at 3,325,058, an all time high. Major redundancy announcements were taking place on a daily basis, Kodak 300, British Caledonian 1000, Northern Engineering Industries 790, Lucas CAV 500, Boots 700, British Coal 4,000, British Shipbuilders 3,500, British Rail 6,000, whilst British Airways would not be taking on 1500 temporary staff that year owing to the reduced tourist demand to fly to Great Britain, as a result of the F111 bombings of Libya from the UK. Industrial output was down one per cent over the previous three months, whilst wage rises were at seven and a half per cent, ahead of inflation at three per cent. For those with a job, life was good. For those who were unemployed, the government was seriously considering cutting their mortgage aid by half during the first six months on benefit. I saw it as a recipe for disaster, crime, revolution and chaos.

The government's tightening of the screw involved the recruitment of five hundred more DHSS fraud investigators, three thousand two hundred more police officers, and the employment of more civilians within the police force in order to put bobbies back onto the beat. There were already one hundred and fifty thousand police in the UK, costing two billion pounds each year. They were to be needed. Suicide from those recently released from mental hospitals, as a result of government policy, was becoming apparent. Suicides amongst the young were now giving cause for concern. In 1985 suicides in the fifteen to nineteen year age bracket officially stood at ninety boys and twenty girls. Child abuse, both violent and sexual, was also on the increase, as was violence against pets. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) reported that there were 21,112 convictions for animal cruelty following 64,670 complaints in 1985. This compares to 47,362 complaints during the previous year. The nation of animal lovers was apparently no more.

On May the seventeenth my mother and brother collected my personal belongings from Holyhead. Now, with no reason to go there, it meant that I would probably never see Karen and Fluff ever again.

Two days later I finally finished my letter to the ECHR. The letter was sealed in the presence of staff in the ground floor office, and the envelope marked private and confidential. I had asked for it to be sent by registered post, to be paid for out of my private cash. I was told that the letter would go first to the governor. That same day I was transferred to B ward, as I had complained of the noise and cigarette smoke.

Talking to Honey Monster during exercise period, he told me that although he was on a strict diet, he apparently showed no signs of losing weight. His size twenty shirt and size fourteen shoes, still fitted him tightly. The hospital weighing machine had evidently proved inadequate, as a means of measuring his progress, since his weight went off the scale. He was therefore taken to the kitchens to be weighed, so he said. He weighed in at over twenty-two stone. Apparently prison food was all right for some.

B ward stank upon my arrival, as inmates had the habit of leaving their cleaning buckets, cloth and scrubbing brush under their beds all day long. I got to work cleaning the wash room. I used five mop buckets full of water, and each time the water ended up just as dirty. Fortunately the only pipe smoker on the ward was transferred after my first day there.

Alec McBride, the brother of James 'Kung Fu' McBride, was married on my second day in the ward. On his stag night the lads had given him a cold bath. He told me that he was the first inmate from the hospital ever to get married whilst in custody. A life sentence I thought, to match the one he was expecting at his trial, like that of his brother. I was to find that although inmates in B ward were much younger than in the ward I had just left, it did not make sleep any easier. Unlike C ward, all the night lights in B ward worked perfectly. As a result the orange night lights merely encouraged inmates to stay awake reading, writing, talking, and in the case of Gunger 'Din,' playing chess.

I never met anyone in Risley who could play chess quietly, but Gunger Din certainly knew how to make it noisier than most. Each chess piece when its moment came, would bite the dust, or should I say hit the floor. He kept playing until well past midnight. I would lie there waiting for the next piece to fall. It was a nerve racking experience which many other inmates obviously shared with me, as the next morning Roy Godfrey and two other inmates confronted Mr.Bump over the matter. Moments later staff from the ground floor arrived, to escort Gunger Din down to the cells. Would he have gone down so quickly had he not been coloured?

On May the twenty-second the lad in the bed next to mine failed to get up in the morning. No one would wake him, whilst neither staff on duty that morning realised that he was in bed. At lunchtime Mr.Bump realised that there was one short at the meal tables. It was only then that he saw the inmate in bed, so he left him there. So much for the theory behind an observation ward. I was left wondering how many times it stated in the occurrence book that I was writing a diary.

Sunday, May 25th, 1986. Amongst the four hospital officers we had on duty in the ward at various times that day was Mr.Pluto. It was not necessary to look in order to realise that he had arrived, as he brought his own fanfare of noises. He would always waddle into the ward like a pregnant duck.

Looking at the television set he would say, "What have yea got this on for?"

He would then invariably change channels, in this case from golf at Wentworth to a Walt Disney cartoon. He obviously enjoyed being the centre of attention, and if that meant getting our back up then so be it. We sat there in silence, remembering what had happened to Rolf.

One day Mr.Pluto came into the ward and said, "What have yea got this puff thing on for?"

According to Rolf Mr.Pluto then changed channels from soccer to ice skating. Rolf immediately stood up and complained, whereupon he was sent down to the stripped cells. Unquestionably some members of staff were selfish, lacking in humour and heavy handed. In a prison environment these little Hitlers thrived.

The previous evening Mr.Pluto had bragged about his card playing abilities. Most of the lads could see that he was dealing off the bottom of the deck, so one told me, but they were too polite or too scared to say anything. There was no doubt that he topped the list of staff that I wanted removed from the prison service, if only for his unpredictability, with Mr.Bark a close second. On one occasion Mr.Pluto said something that invited an immediate joking response. Both I and another lad said the same thing, whereupon he came up to each of us and squeezed the skin on our chests inflicting considerable pain, until we apologised in a manner he found acceptable. He made it plain that only he cracked the jokes, whilst we laughed whether it was funny or not. I could not help thinking that he was heading for an early grave if he treated his family the same way. Certainly no member of staff liked him. In fact Mr.Pluto and Mr.Island hated one another's guts. I remember one occasion where Mr.Pluto asked Mr.Island to say please after he had requested something. I could not see an inmate having the nerve to say that.

I never did come to any firm conclusions about Mr.Island. He distanced himself from the inmates much of the time. He could get very angry, whilst at other moments he almost became part of us, but never for more than a few minutes. Mr.Flight was also a moody character, with neurotic tendencies created by the hospital environment. It was my opinion that he should have been moved to administration duties long ago. Just who was responsible for hiring, firing and transferring staff, I could not figure out. The system was probably very bureaucratic and unwieldy, for no one appeared to have effective management control. There was no esprit-de-corps amongst the staff. Sometimes I felt that they hated one another more than they hated the cons. Few of them seemed suited to a caring profession like the prison service. Absenteeism was rife. I came to the inevitable conclusion that the majority of the staff had spent too long in the hospital. Quite frankly, I think two years in a prison hospital at the start of one's career in the prison service was all an officer should do. If it was acceptable for probation officers then I could see no reason why it could not be accepted by the prison service.

May the twenty-sixth was a day of both good and bad news. The good news was that we had steak for lunch for the second time that year. The bad news was that Desperate Dan 'Gobshite Git' Sullivan, who had been serving more time in the stripped cells, was transferred to B ward. He occupied the bed at the foot of mine. Someone had a sick sense of humour I thought, putting him in the same ward as me. Mr.Bump who was on duty in the ward that week, did not like him either. It was just a matter of time before something happened to upset the status quo.

There were nineteen inmates in the ward, so it was not going to take much for people to explode. That day I changed my bed, as the wire mesh sagged too much, doing my back in. I was not feeling in a good mood that day, as there were two documentaries on space research to be shown on television, but with Dan hogging the TV, I knew I would never get the chance to see them. One was called 'After the Dream' about the ill fated British manned space programme, and the other was an Horizon presentation of the NASA Voyager 2 Uranus encounter. I spent the day sulking instead. What we needed was a comedian on the ward, I thought. I remembered an incident which had taken place on the ground floor one lunchtime. After collecting his meal from the servery, one of the inmates accidentally dropped it on the landing floor, whilst taking it back to his cell.

"You're in luck," quipped Mr.Porky to the inmate concerned, "Grab the chair from your cell, your dining out!"

May the twenty-ninth turned out to be the day after Dr.Shrunk handed over his authority to Dr.Shrink. On that date I was called down to Dr.Shrink's office. The new senior medical officer was a little peeved I think, as he had just received a letter from department C5, I think he said, at the Home Office. It concerned my letter to my member of parliament, asking why I had not been transferred. This letter had naturally been passed on to the Home Office who then compiled ten questions for Dr.Shrink to answer. I got the feeling that it was some kind of intelligence test for him, just to see whether he was on the ball. Dr.Shrink wanted to know whether I had any objection to my MP being told about my medical history. Since I had already told my MP about my symptoms and drug therapy, I had no objections. After leaving the meeting the thought, did occur to me that he might try to infer that I did not know what was going on around me, and that my complaints should not be taken seriously. On the other hand he may have called me down simply to remind himself of which inmate he was writing about, since I appeared to have become part of the woodwork. Just why the Home Office appeared to be placing the onus on Dr.Shrink, I simply could not figure out, since the answers that I wanted were presumably in the Home Office itself, the DHSS and the Welsh Office.

After two interviews in two weeks, I felt that things were looking up. The May 28th deadline in Dr.Shrink's previous letter was obviously connected with Dr.Shrunk's retirement date, though why I could not figure out, unless Dr.Shrunk was the main obstacle to my release? Maybe he did know about my career in the legal profession. That afternoon happenings continued at a rate of knots. Pepsi came to see me in the ward, to tell me that the Home Office had asked her to obtain a home circumstances report from my probation officer in Birmingham. The report was to be made ready for a meeting of the local review committee in August in connection with my next parole date, December twenty-sixth. This was, she said, purely routine, and not related to Dr.Shrink's recent parole recommendation. I was left with the feeling however, that the Home Office was not pleased with the revelations in my petition to them.

The first of June saw another cryogenic third stage failure of an Ariane 2 rocket, carrying an expensive INTELSAT satellite. The west's satellite launch capability was now virtually zero, and was to stay that way for many months. Meanwhile ESA's choice of future launch systems for the 1990's, falling between the French Ariane 5/Hermes spaceplane and the totally reusable British Aerospace HOTOL space shuttle, looked at least a year away.

For me, Monday, June the second arrived at half past four in the morning, with Mr.Dog playing his radio loudly, waking me up. Half an hour later he embarked on a loud telephone conversation. I did not sleep after that. Prior to breakfast, however, I was cheered up by the sight of Gobshite Git in pain. He had woken up with a swollen abscess. This, caused the left side of his face to swell up considerably. He saw the doctor, who prescribed some pills for him. As the dentist only came in on Tuesday and Thursday, Dan had little choice but to do as the doctor ordered.

"Just keep taking the ugly pills," remarked Mr.Gravy to Dan.

Despite Dan's misfortune, which brought silence to the ward, I still felt a seething hatred for Mr.Dog. I felt that only a petition to the Home Secretary would suffice. Were they to act upon it, I was quite certain that industrial relations would boil as in a cauldron. I decided to keep a low profile, now that things were looking up.

That day I received a letter from the European Commission for Human Rights. It was brief and to the point. My complaints evidently fell outside the scope of the convention, as I had feared. They could do nothing. I had wasted a considerable amount of time and effort. If I had managed to obtain the guidelines as requested, I could have saved myself a lot of trouble, Dr.Shrink had been right.

By Wednesday Dan's face looked really bad. For some reason the dentist had done nothing for him on the Tuesday. Dan's left cheek, mouth and eye lid were now all puffed up. For the first time since I had first met him I felt really sorry for him. He looked like an extra in a horror movie. All the doctor was prepared to do was prescribe more antibiotics for him.

That day was Derby Day, but horse racing turned out to be the last thing on my mind. At first light, the alcoholic in the bed next to mine, called Harry Short, got out of bed and started thudding along the yard with his walking sticks. Roy Godfrey was far from amused at being woken up at such an early hour. Roy was in my opinion neurotic, and by midday was still in a far from forgiving mood. After lunch, whilst Harry Short and I were having a nap, Roy and his mate Jake Strong sat at the table at the foot of my bed and played Connect Four. They were determined to make as much noise as possible, in order to annoy Harry.

"Shut up you lot, or you'll go downstairs," said Mr.Stone.

Taking little heed, they continued to play, the plastic discs going swish plonk as they fell into the slots, followed by a deafening clatter as they fell out of the vertical frame at the end of each game. Sleep was impossible. Finally I asked Roy to take the game and go and play it at the other end of the ward, near his own bed. He refused, saying that he was determined to make 'saucepan basher' suffer, because of the racket he made first thing that morning. Finally I could stand it no longer, as my mental illness got the better of me. I jumped out of bed, picked up the vertical frame, stormed up to the other end of the ward with it, then bashed it repeatedly against the window bars. The frame disintegrated, and out of the window it went. Observing from the office, Mr.Stone said nothing.

Any second now he will tell me to pack my gear I thought, so I walked back to my bed and started packing, I then went to the office and asked Mr.Stone to send me downstairs. A phone call revealed that there were no cells vacant on the ground floor, and that I would have to wait an hour for an allocation. Sitting there next to the office door, I wondered whether it might be better to go on hunger strike until I was in Park Lane, rather than endure this environment any longer. Five years of abuse from my in-laws had driven me around the bend. I wondered what another year in Risley would do to me. Was it worth being tolerant all the time I wondered. All I wanted was a quiet life. I felt warn out and depressed.

Jake Strong came over and sat next to me.

"It's my fault," he said, "There's no need for you to go downstairs just to spite me, I'll tell him what happened. You go and put your gear away."

I did not feel like having a conversation, let alone an argument, as I felt so warn out. Like a sulking schoolboy, I picked up my gear and returned to my bed. A certain future is preferable to an uncertain one downstairs. How much longer could I hold out, I wondered. My tinnitus was a great annoyance. It never seemed to stay away for long. Even after six months, the effect of my drug treatment was still apparent to me. What was the point in going on without Karen, I thought. Today it was Connect Four, whilst tomorrow it would be the goggle box or some other annoyance.

Harry 'Saucepan Basher' Short had killed his common law wife by hitting her on the head with an aluminium saucepan, during a row. They had met as friendly neighbours. Her husband had committed suicide by hanging, after which she sold her home for twenty-three thousand pounds, then moved into a flat next door to Harry. She was it seems, a very timid insecure woman, who once brought bottles of whisky to the drying out centre where Harry was staying for a short period. The blow from the saucepan had resulted in trauma, which after a few days in hospital resulted in thrombosis, causing heart failure. My mother and stepfather had argued greatly in recent years, culminating in my stepfather throwing kitchen utensils at my mother. I therefore passed on Harry's experience in a letter home.

I did not think much of Harry Short. He used crutches, but did not seem to really need them. A jock strap hung from the end of his bed. He did not like Mr.Flight, who had once refused to give him medication for something or other. I think Mr.Flight could see through his false ways. Harry craved for sympathy, but I felt none for him. As for Jake Strong, he was on remand for killing his father. Although no one realised it at the time, he was to become the luckiest inmate to pass through that hospital during my detention there.

On the sixth of June I received a reply to my petition to the Home Secretary. The Home Office had refused to admit that there was any mishandling of my parole application, stating that even if there was, other factors precluded me from getting parole. Those other factors were not stated. I felt despondent at receiving such news, but I carried on looking on the bright side of life.

The next day I received a letter from my probation officer, Cyril G Bezant. In his letter to me, he made it clear that I would probably have to accept hostel accommodation after my release. Anything was better than staying at Risley, I thought. I replied, stating that this was acceptable though disappointing.

After much delay, I finally received a reply to my two letters to the NCCL. The reply was not encouraging. They asked me to consider a transfer to Grendon Underwood Psychiatric Prison. I had assumed that the doctors had already tried, or considered it unsuitable for me. The NCCL also suggested that I write to my QC Lord Titch, as he could make representations to the Home Office. I was not impressed by the letter. I suppose I had expected too much. I felt very angry, displaying it the next day by refusing to eat Sunday lunch, which turned out to be chicken.

On the Monday I asked to see Dr.Shrink. I was later called down to his office where I asked to be transferred to A wing, where I would be allowed to work and go to the gymnasium. He told me that because of regulations it was not possible to let me out of the hospital. He then asked if it was possible to get me transferred to the Hornby Hotel, but that would mean having my case passed on to another doctor, and another welfare department. Not a good idea considering the nearness of my parole review, I thought. It was, he said, probable that my circumstances in the Hornby Hotel would be little better than at Risley. He also stated that he did not think the POA would tolerate me moving to A wing. The only thing he could offer was a ground floor cell, which I immediately accepted.

So there I was, in exactly the same cell as when I arrived two years and one and a half months before. The mattress was wet with urine. Dried urine covered the windows, whilst mucus and graffiti covered the walls. The radiator stop valve was closed, and since the knob had been removed from all the radiators, it was not possible to turn it on, there being only one knob inmates were allowed to handle. Their own! On rainy evenings, which were quite frequent, it was too cold to sit and read, so I kept warm by cleaning the cell during the first couple of days. I also got two more blankets from the linen store, and a new mattress. Mattresses never lasted very long in the hospital. Their last days were usually spent in the stripped cells, where irate inmates tore them to pieces.

Life became more serene after a couple of days, if that's the right word for such lunatic surroundings. I was definitely feeling more calm here than upstairs. Peace of mind was what I wanted, and was determined to have. You could keep your Sport Aid, world cup from Mexico, police raiding the peace convoy near Stonehenge, race riots in South Africa, and the ever falling Dow Jones Index. I was quite happy alone with my thoughts, and my magazines.

Unlucky Friday, June the thirteenth, did not go down well for a couple of reasons. Mr.Parrot was on duty that morning, squirting his tubes of corrosive cleanser all over the floors. I tried to wipe it up from my cell floor using a cloth, rather than have to endure the unbearable smell all day. Unfortunately I got the phenol based fluid on my hands, causing them to burn fiercely. I had to wash them three times with soap and water, before the pain vanished completely. My hand was like a wrinkled prune afterwards. I was not amused.

Friday the thirteenth was also the day that Honey Monster came to trial. He had already told me that a few months before, the Sunday newspaper News of the World had published a story about him, which he had found far from amusing. He would not tell me what the story was about, but today the cat came out of the bag. He certainly had plenty to hide, and be ashamed of. Yes there was sex and dead bodies galore, but not the way I had imagined. The news media called him 'the gay undertaker.' It was definitely not the sort of thing an inmate would want to boast about in prison. So now we knew why he had slept away from other inmates. His career in the death despatch department, as I like to call the funeral business, was evidently full of disasters. He and his boyfriend had arranged a funeral for a gypsy, only to have the body fall out of the coffin and into the grave. The shocked mourners became angry as Honey Monster panicked, and locked himself in the hearse. He evidently also stole flowers from nearby graves, whilst on one occasion the coffin was too large for the hole in the funeral plot.

The two Rolls Royces he had hired in the UK and taken to Spain to sell, were reclaimed by someone from the hire company, who followed Honey Monster and his accomplice down there. He had sold a second hand Mercedes ambulance as new to a private hospital, whilst he made even more money by selling a bogus ambulance company to someone for eleven thousand pounds. Apart from the bureau-de-change job, his most spectacular con occurred when he went to get a 'loan' from the bank, whilst representing a non-existent air ambulance company. His boyfriend paged him whilst he was with the bank manager. On the telephone, with the bank manager present, his boyfriend stated that an Arab prince required an air ambulance immediately. It would evidently receive a fighter escort over the Red Sea. Needless to say the bank manager was impressed.

The judge called him clever. He was certainly audacious, but to me he was of low intelligence, and lived in a Walter Mitty world. He was sentenced to five years imprisonment, and his boyfriend to two years probation. The most frightening aspect was that he was able to con people so easily. People who should have known better, for he was so young. I shuddered to think how many people there were like him in politics.

Just when AD got a change of assistant, I cannot remember. Certainly he needed one badly, judging by the behaviour of his prostitute killing assistant, Gordon Blake. He was a typical misfit. He came into the ward one day with a linen sheet wrapped around him like a baby's nappy, and little else. On another occasion he entered the ward wearing a linen sheet poncho style, on the front of which he had drawn a large black crucifix. He imitated the prison padre. It was more pathetic than amusing, as was his crime. He had procured a prostitute outside the Anglican cathedral, paying her ten pounds for the night. They went back to her flat. In the morning he felt dissatisfied, and had the cheek to ask for his money back, so he said. Finally he killed her, by either strangulation, stabbing, beating or drowning in the bath. I cannot remember which. Knowing him, probably all four. It did not take the police long to work out who had done it, as his finger prints were found on a tea cup. He became a fugitive from justice, living in a garden allotment shed at night, vacating the place at first light. The owner evidently thought that a tramp was living there. Because of this the news media called him the cabbage patch killer. He was not amused by the title, but it did accurately reflect his goofy personality.

After Gordon Blake was transferred, Jeff Jordan became AD's assistant. He was an intelligent good looking bloke. Like AD he was a car dealer, married to a school teacher or headmistress. He made the mistake of having an affair with a temptress. Whilst making love to her, she asked him to kill her husband, the reward being her body and a few thousand pounds. Like a fool he agreed, killing the guy with a shotgun I think, but broke down under police interrogation. His mistress had evidently decided to plead guilty to murder, whilst Jeff wanted to plead guilty to manslaughter, on the grounds of erotomania. Well, judging by the position he was in when asked, I would say that that was understandable.

At some time whilst I was in the ground floor cells, Pepsi left Risley for good.

As AD said to me, "She's got a bun in the oven."

On the day she left, I clearly remember her standing at my cell door, looking at me all misty eyed. She obviously wanted to take me with her. I kept my intense feelings under control as she said, goodbye. Given the opportunity and the tools, I would have screwed her to my cell floor with rawlbolts, for fucking up my parole. I was far from misty eyed.

June 1986 saw a woman by the name of Jackie Drake, who looked after her senile mother, win her right through the European Court of Justice to receive Invalid Care Allowance. Previous to this ruling, female relatives of the disabled were not allowed to receive it since the government felt that women stay at home to do housework anyway. It cost about one hundred and seventy pounds to keep someone in a residential home, whereas invalid care allowance cost only twenty-three pounds per week.

The cost of caring was also highlighted at this time by the revelation that each person in the UK now produced on average a National Health Service drugs bill of thirty pounds per annum. Within two years, by far the most expensive patient was to be the AIDS victim receiving AZT drug therapy, which although it did not cure the illness, it did stop its advance. Administered after the four year latent period (period between infection and the appearance of serious symptoms), such treatment over a year was to cost more than open heart surgery. It had been predicted that by 1991 AIDS will have killed one hundred and seventy-nine thousand people in the USA alone, whilst over a quarter of a million would be going through the latent stage. By then it would have become one of the USA's top ten killers, costing eight billion dollars per annum. No doubt when all the hysteria is over, someone will create a comedy soap opera about it, and call it the AIDS Team?

Whilst solicitors in London were complaining of the low legal aid rates, it was revealed that legal aid for offenders was costing the taxpayer four hundred million pounds per annum, including one hundred million pounds for advice, two hundred and sixty million pounds for legal assistance, thirty-five million pounds on administration and seven million pounds for committal and remand hearings.

On a more positive note, Richard Branson won the Blue Riband for crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a power boat, but rightfully, was not allowed to keep the trophy. Less publicized but of far more concern, especially for those of us who were not allowed to move out of the way of the radioactive clouds, was the news that Chernobyl was beginning to generate nuclear power once again. The reactor fire last April had evidently been caused by an unauthorised test of the reactor after fail-safe systems had been switched off. At least thirty-one people died with three hundred seriously ill. One hundred and thirty-five thousand people had been evacuated, whilst possibly six thousand people would die in Europe from the after effects in the decades ahead. Despite American medical assistance, bone marrow transplants were found to be useless. The full horror of dealing with the after effects of a nuclear war, was now apparent for all to see. Although few people realised it at the time, Chernobyl was to be the catalyst which would bring down the iron curtain across Europe and end the cold war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

Another person to die at that time was a twenty-six year old female inmate in Risley. She came from North Wales. According to Dr.Shrink at the inquest, she died from a sudden onset of pneumonia. Sudden or not, Risley was no place to die in.

I was surprised to see Captain Ahab in the closed ward one day. He had been made a category A prisoner, with a screw to guard him, not that he could run fast with his legs. He told me that he had just had his mug shot taken, but he did not know why he had been made cat. A. I told him that the doctors were only trying to break him down into revealing more. He was kept on the ward for a few days, then transferred to the wings. I will never forget the way he looked as he peered out between the bars in his cell door. He looked lost, as much a victim as the woman he was supposed to have killed. A few months later at his trial, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of twenty years. On the outside he had been a man who could not look after himself properly, nor establish long term, intimate human relationships. No doubt in a long term prison he would find the caring society he failed to find on the outside.

By the end of June, Richard 'naughty nonce' Eastwood was brought to trial, found guilty and sentenced to three years imprisonment.

On July third an overtime ban was imposed by female prison officers at Risley, following a ban on certain overtime by the governor the previous April. The warders complained that they were ten officers below strength, and also complained that the female wing, designed to contain ninety inmates, now had one hundred and forty-two, resulting in unacceptable overcrowding.

At about this time an unforgettable inmate came to stay in the closed ward. He was called Big Baby. He had had it soft so far, having spent the previous months drying out in a hospital. He came from Anglesey, where he was caught growing four hundred cannabis plants in his garden. He also dabbled in heroin and LSD. He must have weighed at least twenty stone (127kg), and yet he was anything but a hard man. His withdrawal symptoms were still apparent, for only here would he be denied Mogadon (nitrazepam). His conversations with Mr.Porky were, from other inmates' point of view, excellent entertainment not to be missed, as we waited by the grill gate to collect our meals. Big Baby would then put on an act in the hope of getting some drug to ease his craving. It was a conversation between a Welshman who believed in the therapeutic qualities of illicit drugs, and another Welshman who believed that all junkies should be exterminated.

"Oh, Mr.Porky, Mr.Porky!" He would exclaim in a sorrowful voice, clutching his head with both hands.

"Take your medicine like a man, You're not having anything," said Mr.Porky,

"But Mr.Porky, Mr.Porky!" Cried Big Baby.

"Listen! You've seen the doctor, the priest, the welfare, and the assistant governor, and that's yea lot!" Stated Mr.Porky firmly.

"But Mr.Porky, Mr.Porky!" Pleaded Big Baby again.

"You've got everyone running around for yea, except me. You're nothing but a big baby. I've got no sympathy for yea, no sympathy what-so-ever!" Exclaimed Mr.Porky sternly.

"Oh, Mr.Porky, Mr.Porky, you're a hard man," replied Big Baby reluctantly.

Big Baby once told me that he had read about my case in the local newspaper, and thought it rather tragic. He had apparently achieved more than I had in that respect, for when I asked a friend to send me the newspaper cuttings, he sent them to my mother instead. I never saw them.

July fourteenth saw the Commonwealth Games boycott, and massive falls in share prices on Wall Street and the City of London. The cost of a barrel of oil had fallen to nine dollars, whilst the pound fell two and a half cents against the dollar. Much of the wild fluctuations were blamed on computer software (programme trading as it was called), but there were also other reasons. One week later a story purporting to originate from Queen Elizabeth II described the present British government as uncaring, confrontational, and socially derisive. The next day saw the royal wedding of HRH Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, later to be known as the Duke and Duchess of York.

Also at this time, the House of Commons Social Services Committee issued the report 'Prison Medical Service', which described the 'filth' in prison hospitals. Personally, I never believe in using a five letter word, where a four letter one is more accurate. That same day a man from rent-a-bug, came around the hospital, spraying insecticide into all corners of the landing. The next morning I counted at least sixty dead cockroaches on the landing, which I dully swept up. I wondered whether it had killed the cricket hiding inside the hollow steel door frames. That same day I sent a letter to the court of protection in London, asking for details of my ex-wife's financial claims upon our property, etc.

The trial of Pugwash Barnes was concluded at this time. He was a haulage contractor who sawed off the barrels of a shotgun, ambushing his wife and lover, after driving a car to the scene of the crime. He blasted his wife's head to smithereens as she pleaded with him, after he had caused horrendous injuries to her lover sitting in the driver's seat. He was found guilty of manslaughter, and sentenced to seven years imprisonment. I thought he was very lucky. Months later I found out that he was appealing against the sentence. I found it hard to believe, but then again, many inmates thought that I had got off lightly, whereas I have never even considered myself guilty in the true sense of the phrase 'he has committed evil, therefore he is evil'. Had Pugwash a criminal record for serious offences, or caused his wife to leave him after beating her, then he would probably have gone down for life, which made me wonder what the grounds were for manslaughter. Not provocation, not diminished responsibility, but simply because he had been a good boy in the past, and would no doubt contribute to society in the future.

Talking to Pugwash later, about his appeal, made me wonder whether he could comprehend the enormity of his crime, or whether he was still mentally ill, assuming that he had been. Strongly self motivated people tended to regard their wives as part of their financial empire. They take them for granted. The sense of failure that they feel, when their wives leave them, causes the husband to destroy them rather than let anyone else 'own' them. Whilst many husbands will reluctantly accept the breakup of a marriage, a man with high ideals and strong motivation will find that very difficult.

One morning AD came to my cell with some newspapers as usual. He showed me the front page of his local newspaper from Mid Wales, on which was the photograph of a young horsey woman.

"I've shagged her," he said gleefully, obviously trying to get me frustrated.

He succeeded!

July twenty-fifth saw Queen Elizabeth II bestow a knighthood on Bob Geldhoff for his Live Aid appeal. Meanwhile, a British Government report placed in the parliamentary library one day before the recess, revealed that in 1983 there were 8,8 million people living in poverty, one in every seven, whilst in 1979 there were 5,9 million. Also revealed at this time was the fact that out of one hundred and seventy thousand new vacancies around the country, only two thousand were for men, and that nine out of ten new jobs were part time. Overcome by the impossibility of finding established work, an extra one hundred and fifteen thousand people became self employed in 1985. White van man, as he was later known, had arrived.

Returning to Risley Remand Centre was Howler, the sound of whom I had learned to dread. Even worse than him was an inmate called Wot Boss. He never seemed to say anything else. It was impossible to have a conversation with him, let alone an intelligent one. At this time another parasuicide was brought in from the wings, to be kept in a stripped cell for close observation. In the cell next to mine was James McDonald, a drug user from Edinburgh. He was a welder, and had been working on a natural gas pipeline in Belgium. Returning to Scotland he got involved with his mates, on the heroin scene. He was later caught breaking into a chemist's shop in the Lake District. James was a nice chap, as well as intelligent. Like me, he had the run of the ward, for he was a very special inmate, the first of his kind at Risley. He probably knew that he had no more than seven years to live. You see, James had acquired immune deficiency syndrome, AIDS.

Like me, James used to spend his days reading, and so I would pass on my magazines to him when I had finished with them. I remember one day talking to him through the bars of his cell. He liked to leave his cell windows open causing a strong draught to blow into the hospital. Just as he spoke, some of his spittle landed on my face. On another occasion I woke up to find two insect bites on my chest. Could AIDS have been passed, I wondered. At that time I was so despondent that I simply did not care.

Roy Godfrey and his accomplice went for trial for the municipal park murder. Like his sister he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Somehow I doubted whether the facilities he found in a long term prison would match those at Styal. That day I received a letter from the court of protection. It stated that they could tell me nothing, and advised me to write to my wife's solicitor on the matter, which I did.

August 1st,1986 was not a normal day for me. To start with my closest friend at Risley had gone for trial at the QE2. That day, AD's day of reckoning had come, and I knew things would not be the same without him. Also on this particular day, I was to witness a rather nasty incident, the exact time of which I cannot be certain. It was usual to be woken by the cell light being switched on at a quarter to seven. Breakfast was at eight, with slop out at a quarter to nine, to coincide with the female office workers going to work. They walked past the cell windows at this time, and did not like the idea of being verbally assaulted by sex crazed inmates. I would commence cleaning at about nine-thirty, finishing at about ten-thirty to eleven o'clock, depending upon how many cells needed cleaning. Eleven o'clock was lunchtime.

So there I was, at about half past ten, sitting on the bog seat, having just relieved myself, when I suddenly heard a hubbub on the landing. Since the toilets only had doors about a metre high, it was easy for me to see what was taking place. The ward doors opened, and along the landing strode a group of five hospital officers, some of whom were obviously carrying something. A sixth hospital officer walked behind, Mr.Baldygig, who closed both landing doors then closed the flaps on each cell door so that none of the inmates could see what was going on. This was a regular procedure which I had seen many times. No one appeared to notice me. I quickly pulled up my trousers, and stepped out of the loo. I could then see clearly what was taking place. Four of the officers were each holding the limb of an inmate, who was being carried face down towards the stripped cells.

"He's deaf and dumb!" Exclaimed Mr.Willie, who was holding the inmate's right arm. This remark was directed at Mr.Bark, who was walking to the left of the inmate. He was engaged in hitting the inmate repeatedly in the back, with his fist or knuckle. The inmate concerned obviously could not cry out in pain. As with much else that went on at Risley, I was mentally sickened by what I saw. I walked over to the hand basins, as if to wash away the guilt of knowing. I did not want to see any more. I knew from past experience that the staff would not let me go near the stripped cell whilst they were there. On one such occasion Mr.Flight beckoned me away with his hands, whilst a new arrival was being attended to in the stripped cell.

I took a particularly long time to wash my hands that morning, the first day of August, When the bully boys had gone, I looked into that particular unfurnished room through the glass slit in the door. The inmate who had been unceremoniously carried in moments before, was now standing against the far wall, his right hand wiping away his tears. He was naked. I had heard stories from other inmates about screws beating up cons in the hospital, but until then I had remained sceptical. From that day onwards, I was not. I looked up at the card above the cell door, and made a note of his name and number. I later ascertained from another inmate, what had sparked off the incident.

The inmate concerned was known by the others as Dummy, since he could not speak nor apparently read and write. Also, he did not understand sign language too well, as became apparent when another dumb inmate tried to communicate with him after I had returned to the open ward. What sign language Dummy did use was not too difficult for a novice to understand. The novice in this case turned out to be Mr.Bark, who happened to be in the same open ward. Dummy took his index finger, tapped his temple with it a few times, then pointed it at Mr.Bark. Now anyone who saw Mr.Bark would probably consider that to be fair comment. Mr.Bark was not a man to mince words, what few he knew. Whether Dummy deserved to be put in the stripped cell was a matter of opinion. He was certainly no threat to anyone, although I never found out what he was in Risley for.

For a hospital officer to hit an inmate who was being held by four other officers, was at the very least a cowardly thing to do. To involve other officers was disgraceful. To do it at all was inexcusable. I have no doubt that what I saw went on all the time. The professional way in which it was carried out, led me to the conclusion that it was sanctioned by government itself. I could not help thinking that somewhere in the murky depths of the Home Office, there existed a training manual detailing atrocities that could be legitimately inflicted on prison inmates, in order to keep the lid tight on Britain's archaic penal institutions.

Later that day I learned that AD had received a 'gratuity' of three and a half years imprisonment, He was now no doubt working out roughly how much he would be worth, assuming he was only required to serve half of his sentence. He had evidently done a deal with the prosecution. A few months later I learned that he had been sent back to Shrewsbury Prison from an open prison, because they had not processed his parole application. Evidently the authorities could not get him out of prison fast enough. He was after all no threat to society, was he? I got the feeling that the establishment's softness towards fraudsters was simply because it was a crime they could see themselves doing. The fact that it forced debtors into suicide or even murder, not to mention undermining the nation's economy, putting untold numbers out of work, was neither here nor there. The crash at this time, of the Peter Cammeron Webb syndicate on the Lloyds Insurance Exchange, leaving debts of two hundred and thirty-five million pounds, was just another example of how fraud was not taken seriously enough. As for AD with his third of a million, I could see him in my mind, sailing out of St.Helier Harbour in his yacht, with a bird under each arm, neither of whom looked remotely like his wife. They are all drinking champagne, to which AD gives the toast.

"And here's to the 'free' enterprise economy," AD says smiling.

Yes I thought, I would sadly miss AD. Had he been anything else, we could have been great friends, but how can you be friends with a con man? You would not know whether that natural empathy of his was not really conning you, just like it had to all the other victims. You are no doubt wondering just what plans AD had for the future, or to be more to the point, where would he strike next? In Risley AD passed the time by learning Spanish. Somehow I could not see him learning the lingo for 'Psst! Hey senor, do yea wanna buy a used car, only one careful owner.' His experience with the car import business led him to the conclusion that opportunities existed in America. In other words, Americans are suckers beyond belief, so he said to me. So, if Wall Street collapses in the next few years, do not be surprised.

On August the fifth, Howler went into the stripped cell. Hopefully he would give his vocal chords a rest in there. In the next stripped cell was a psycho called Tom Tom. He had just been moved in for smashing the acrylic window in his ordinary cell, whilst also crapping on his mattress and cell floor.

Five days later we had a disturbance on the YP's wing. I did not get much sleep, as personal radios were squawking away outside my cell window that night. Finally the ring leader was put in the remaining stripped cell. Whilst in the stripped cell the senior staff tried to talk some sense into him, but I got the impression that he had caused disturbances before, and therefore was not very receptive. Like most of those in prison, he would probably only learn the hard way, by spending all of the best years of his life behind bars for one offence after another.

On August the fifteenth, Tom Tom was put back in an ordinary cell, but he made it plain that he did not like the situation.

"I want to go into the stripped cell!" Tom Tom kept shouting all day long.

Finally, that night silence reigned, but not for long.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

What the hells that, I thought. It must have been about two o'clock in the morning, taking a few seconds for my brain to wake up to the situation. The noise was obviously coming from Tom Tom's cell, but I could not understand how he was producing such a racket. The noise was so loud that I could feel it going right through me.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! And on and on it went.

The dozing night staff must have fallen off their chairs when it started. The noise sounded as if it was being produced by a huge drum. The entire prison must be awake by now, even the women's wing, I thought. How the hell is he doing it, I kept saying to myself. The booms reverberated down the landing. The night staff could not ignore this surely?

Eventually the patter of feet could be heard getting louder and louder. The two night staff stopped outside Tom Tom's cell.

"I want to go home!" Tom Tom shouted.

"I want to go home!" he yelled again.

"Yyeess," said Mr.Pluto very slowly and quietly, obviously using psychology to calm the inmate down.

"I wanna go home!" Tom Tom screamed.

"Yyeess," replied Mr.Pluto, again with no effect.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

I'll go home in his place if he keeps this up, I thought. Get me out of here.

The two night, staff shuffled off into the distance, leaving Tom Tom to make music. Now we were going to see some action, I thought. In truth, none of the inmates would see it, since the door flaps would be up. Mine was always up since I could not stand the normal racket, let a lone this. Eventually more footsteps could be heard, heavier and more numerous. This was the snatch squad. Mr.Pluto tried calming Tom Tom down again.

"I wanna go home!" Tom Tom screamed.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Seemingly forever.

There was a lot of quiet talking between the members of staff as a strategy was worked out. Finally, the time to move in was at hand.

"Right lads!" shouted one, and in they rushed, two officers at once through the metre wide doorway.

The sounds of a scuffle could be heard, which receded towards the stripped cells, followed by compliments all round of a job well done. In truth the situation could have been avoided if the doctors had prescribed a few days drug therapy in order to stabilise his condition. Inmates like that were a threat to the temporary sanity of both inmates and staff, but the doctors usually did nothing. They tended to distance themselves from the problem, neither administering drug therapy nor informing hospital officers of pertinent matters related to an inmate's mental condition. The lack of treatment generated a feeling of distrust and disgust between inmates and staff, which ultimately led to violence.

That morning after slopping out, I went into Tom Tom's vacant cell to clean up the mess. It looked as if a bomb had hit it. There were splinters of wood everywhere, and another window was broken. In the far corner were his clothes, where he had apparently been pinned against the wall and stripped naked. In the middle of the cell floor lay the origin of all that noise the night before. His wooden locker lay on its side. The formic top and shelves had been removed. He had then laid it face down on the floor, and hit the plywood back repeatedly, probably with one of the boards. It had reverberated like a giant drum. In the stripped cell, there would only be one quiet instrument for him to play with.

The remainder of that night had not been quiet either, as the inmate in the cell next to mine kept calling out doggie, whilst whistling repeatedly at the guard dogs outside. The next day Howler, who had been occupying one of the cells on the front of the building, was moved to cell number eight at the back, for making lewd suggestions to female staff as they walked past his cell window. The place was definitely getting me down. My tinnitus raged on and on, whilst my mind was never far from the problems related to my eyesight. The floaters were ever present, whilst my inability to focus my eyes over long distances also got me down. Above my cell door there was a perforated steel plate which acted as a ventilation grill. The annoying thing was that I could see twice as many holes in that plate than there actually were. My tinnitus was probably caused by stress and continuous noise, particularly the constant slamming of steel doors, whilst my short sightedness was probably as a result of too much reading, plus the absence of long distances to focus on, due to constant confinement. Even when I looked out of the cell windows my eyes only-appeared to focus on the bars.

It was at this time that I came to the conclusion that I and the other inmates were not getting enough food. The curry on Friday consisted of exactly ten fork fulls. On some days I did not have enough energy to do the cleaning. Also, I could not escape noticing that Alec McBride and his assistant did not wash there hands after going to the toilet. They both worked on the ground floor servery. My stomach turned over each mealtime, seeing Alec handling the slices of meat with his nicotine stained fingers. Even the plastic cutlery they handed out to us had nicotine stains on it. The meals were bad enough without making it even more gruesome. At mealtimes the staff just stood there and ignored the situation. With that attitude, it was pointless complaining.

I have so far got nowhere with the Law Society, and by now I was feeling rather peeved. I wrote my fourth letter to them at the beginning of August:

Well that was that, I had really put my foot in it. August the eighteenth came, but the statements did not. Of course there was no way that I was going to go on hunger strike, for two reasons. Firstly, if I had gone on hunger strike I am quite certain the staff would have ordered the body bag in next to no time. It was not unknown for inmates of British prisons to die from self neglect, even in these times. Secondly, there was my diary. If I had been put in my stripped cell, I could well have been separated from my box, and the last thing that I wanted was for my diary to disappear. I was pretty certain that one member of staff knew about my diary, and probably the rest of them judging by the infuriating habit they now had of calling me by my Christian name. It would change nothing, I decided. My solicitor later wrote to me 'hoping I was well,' I felt like sticking a knife between his ribs whilst asking the same question. I now realised he was a shit bag! I felt pissed off, and very angry.

A couple of weeks before, I must have clenched my teeth harder than usual, as the gum around my front crown was now swollen, and showed no signs of going down. Mr.Flight looked at it, and pointed at the white spot at the middle of the swelling, indicating that the bodies immune system was at work. I nevertheless went to see the dentist about it. He was reluctant to remove the crown, even though its removal would facilitate healing, as it looked so good. Instead he radiographed the offending tooth. I was never called back to his surgery, so I assumed the situation was not serious. It was not until May the thirteenth, 1987, that the full seriousness became obvious. On that day the whole tooth sheered off, and was then repaired properly. The constant clenching of my teeth due to anxiety, had prolonged the swelling for nine months.

I would get fits at night when it became noisy, whilst at other times I would get spells of mild depression. The radiator was still not working, so it was cold in the cell even during the day, as there was no sun on this side of the building. The weather was very miserable. Where the paint had pealed away from the cell wall I counted only four layers of paint. Not many considering how long the hospital had been open. On some days I could hear the television playing in the open wards above me. On Friday evenings in particular, I could hear the late night movie being watched on television by the night staff in the ground floor office. In the mornings the lawn mowers would be revving away on the lawn outside my cell. There was no such thing as silence at Risley.

During exercise period I was surprised to see Mr.Pluto appear in a brown tweed shooting jacket, with matching spats and gaiters. I thought I was seeing things. Either I had been there too long, or he had. I reasoned that he must be taking the part of a gamekeeper in an amateur dramatic society play. I was later informed that he had taken up the sport of game shooting in the surrounding countryside. I often heard a shotgun going off, but he always seemed to avoid shooting himself. He was probably shooting every racing pigeon in sight, as I did not see any on the roof from then on. I could now well understand why Mr.Stick's son called him a pillock.

It was revealed at this time that there were 492 females plus 544 males listed as missing persons in the UK. In 1985 no less than seven and a half thousand people went missing, but that by the end of the year only 702 females and 966 males were still unaccounted for. The Salvation Army evidently compiled a national index of missing persons, usually finding seventy per cent of them. I could not see how you could simply go 'missing.' I wondered how many of them were murdered and never seen again. Also, ASH ( Action on Smoking and Health) were toying with the idea of suing a tobacco company in the USA over the effects of passive smoking. I had decided that should I develop lung cancer, I would sue every tobacco company I could lay my hands on. Also in the news, it was revealed that the largest bank in America, the Bank of America, had bad debts totalling five billion dollars. In the USA no less than one hundred and twenty banks had failed in 1985, with eighty banks so far in 1986. I simply could not wait to get my hands on my money, and spend it!

On August the fifteenth I wrote directly to my ex-wife's solicitor, as a last resort.

Five days later I received a reply from my ex-wife's solicitor. It stated that no financial claim was being made for money or property. It was a message long overdue, and a great relief to get the problem off my mind. Now I could look to the future. I wrote to my solicitor asking him to send my building society and giro bank books to my mother. In his reply he thought that I wanted my money placed in my mother's name, and sent me the necessary forms. I was not amused. Knowing my luck, my mother who was seventy, would have dropped down dead before I was released, then where would my money be? Eventually Mr.Roberts got the message ( I think he read my letters backwards) and did as originally instructed. At last I was free of him, though the idea of trying to get the rest of my statements through the recently established Solicitors Complaints Bureau in London, surfaced in my brain from time to time. The reason I did not was because I was mentally exhausted. Even the Robin Hood tree in Sherwood Forest was cracking up.

On August 23rd,1986, Tommy, who had been living off water for the last six days, ended his hunger strike. No one was surprised. In fact no one, including the inmates, could really give a damn. He had gone on hunger strike because he did not like the doctors report about him. At the beginning of the hunger strike the staff simply ignored it. After that failed to unnerve him, the doctor and some hospital officers then went into his cell to find out what was the matter. The doctor asked him why he was on hunger strike. A hospital officer then just laughed when Tommy gave his reason. It was psychological warfare, to create the impression that the reasons for the hunger strike were ridiculous. It was at that point that Tommy gave up.

August the twenty-fifth was the first and only time that I assaulted a fellow inmate. The inmate concerned resided in the cell adjacent to mine. Much to my annoyance, I could not only hear him breaking up his locker during the day, but at night he was doing Kung Fu kicks at the cell wall, thereby keeping me on edge. Immediately prior to meal time. I had it out with him on the landing.

"What are yea gonna do?" He asked defiantly.

"Just stop it," I said.

"What are yea gonna do?" He asked again.

At which point I slapped him across the face as hard as I could, then prayed that he would not attack me, nor report the matter to the staff. Fortunately he did neither. From then on there were no more Kung Fu kicks at that wall. To cheer me up that day, we had steak. Won't get another one until Christmas, I thought, in four months time.

I was running desperately short of reading material now that AD was no longer around to bring me my Guardian and Daily Telegraph, so I wrote out a list of book titles for the librarian, including authors and publishers. I gave the list, as advised by the staff, to the prison officer who delivered the newspapers each morning. That was the last I saw of it.

Bloody typical.