Screw part two

We arrived back at Highdown on the 11th April ready to start the job as prison officers. But this time we would be wearing our uniforms, which did not fit and made us all itch (we later discovered that prison officers’ shirts were made by prisoners and that no expense was spared on the quality of the materials, in fact hardly any expense whatsoever). The only part of the uniform that most of us did not have on our return was the prison officer’s coat, so most of us had to wear our civilian coats to go into the prison. On this particular day the security team had decided to carry out one of their random searches of staff entering the prison. Security teams inside prisons seem to attract the very worst that we can recruit as prison officers. They tend to walk around the prison as if they own it and they look upon their fellow officers as though they were potential prisoners (which may actually be the case but only in about 1% of the prison officer staff team).

There was a rule that anyone working for the security department must have served at least one year as a prison officer. However, because Highdown was a new prison and had only been open for about 18 months, the security department was not able to have the pick of the best and most experienced staff. As the security job supposedly had a certain kudos attached to it and because it was virtually “con free” (work that rarely involves getting too close to a prisoner), it seemed to attract either the budding Rambos or the “con shy” (officers who are afraid of prisoners; yes there are some). On this particular morning, the security team had decided that they would not allow any officers to enter the prison wearing civilian coats, in line with Prison Service Order 138.50 sec 2.4 (I made the number up although, believe it or not, there is a rule that does actually state that we should not take our civilian coats into the prison).

I always wondered why this was such a problem, so I decided to ask the senior officer in charge of the search party what the issue was? The reply I got demonstrated that this was certainly not someone who had done well at any charm school: “Don’t question my order, just do it, sprog”. I realised then that I had no desire to become one of Highdown’s elite team in the security department if their senior officer was unable to explain such an important rule as this. The rational behind this rule was that, way back in the ‘good old days’, all prisoners used to wear prison issue clothes; brown ones for prisoners on remand and blue for convicted prisoners. Therefore the only people wearing civilian clothing in a prison would either be a visitor or a Governor (there is not much difference between governors and visitors, you don’t see either of them that often and neither of them have got as clue).

In those times, the rule made sense, as they would help to prevent prisoners escaping by wearing stolen clothing. Now, however, all prisoners can wear civilian clothes (except for E list prisoners, who have to wear distinctive coveralls with big yellow patches on them because they have attempted to escape and therefore have to be visibly identifiable and be escorted everywhere they go in the prison by a prison officer). Nowadays, there are also lots of civilian workers: probation officers, have continued with this rule is anyone’s guess and why it is applied to only prison officers remains a complete mystery. So, it is no wonder that the best answer I could have got was ‘just do it!’

From my very first day, though, I was getting my card marked as an awkward bugger who questions daft rules and does not comply with the security team motto of “ab absurdo” (from the absurd). Our next stop was to report to the training department to undergo a further one week’s induction before we could report to our allocated department. This week seemed to be even more frustrating than the training because we had all thought that, as soon as we got back to the prison, we would be starting work as real prison officers. The training department was very busy and already they were taking a new batch of recruits through their initial two-week induction before sending them off to the Prison Service College. As we were just newly returned from the college, we were asked to address the class with what they should expect at the college. One of the training staff thought that, as I appeared to have plenty to say for myself that I should finish off with a final address to the class.

He told me that I should tell them what a hard time they all would have but how rewarding the training would be, how much they would get from it, how it would turn them into real prison officers and give them skills they would draw on for the rest of their lives. In time honoured fashion, I decided that it would be best to tell the truth. I told them that the next 9 weeks would indeed by hard - they would be very long and boring and that most of the things that they will be taught will be rubbish and of little use to them in their life as a prison officer – or in any other life, for that matter. I also told them that they would have the opportunity to claim loads of money by way of expenses if they were a driver and were taking others with them in their cars. I also made sure they knew about the daily subs allowance and the fact that all their meals would be provided for. I finished by telling them that they would be staying in a three star hotel with a swimming pool and a sauna, a state of the art gymnasium and their own bar and passed on a number of tips for ensuring they got the most out of their hotel stay. The instructor, who had turned a rather worrying shade of red and looked fit to burst, managed to say through gritted teeth: “Thank you for that, Officer Kelly, I will see you later”. I had a funny feeling I knew exactly why he wanted to see me later so kept well out of his way.

Because the week’s induction was so boring, we spent most of our time drinking tea and chatting, little realising that these would turn out to be the main skills required of a prison officer for the majority of his time on duty. After our one-week induction programme, we were told to report to the department that we would be working with. I was assigned to Houseblock one, the induction Houseblock. : Like all other Houseblocks, Houseblock one is made up of three spurs, A, B and C. Each spur (in 1994) held about 50 prisoners and the cells were either a single cell for one prisoner or a double cell for two prisoners. These prisons were designed as the 'New Gallery' prison, based on the designs of several American prisons. They had workshops, a laundry, kitchen, gymnasium and chapel in a central location with houseblocks surrounding these amenities. Built on the site of a former mental hospital at Banstead, HMP Highdown serves the Crown Court at Guildford and Croydon as well as the surrounding Magistrates courts. They were designed this way to meet the recommendations of the Woolfe report, as it was believed that holding prisoners in overcrowded conditions not only makes them restless and angry, it is inhumane and can only result in major unrest.

A spur holds prisoners who have jobs as Houseblock cleaners, hotplate workers or who do other work around the prison. Most of these prisoners are prisoners who know the system very well and know how to work it to their best advantage. Some of them have either served time before, or are starting out on a long sentence, and are trying to avoid the inevitable of being shipped out to a dispersal prison, where they would be expected to serve the main bulk of their sentence. This spur was usually quiet as most prisoners would just keep their heads down and get on with it.

B Spur housed some of the misfits and difficult prisoners from around the prison who had outstayed their welcome and had become very difficult to control. However, in spite of this, they were not yet qualified to be a “Seg Rat” (a prisoner who spends most of his time in the segregation unit because they will not comply with any of the rules and have become far too dangerous to keep on the houseblocks).

C Spur held the new reception prisoners who were awaiting the compulsory induction programme. The induction programme was designed to inform prisoners of what to expect during their first weeks in prison and to let them know how to access probation staff who assist them with issues such as how to secure their homes whilst in prison. We also show them the prison regime and how to make an ‘application’. Applications are how all prisoners apply for any request they may wish to make from asking for a toilet roll to requesting a change of cells. Applications are only taken at a set time during the day and missing the correct application time can cause no end of hassle and frustration for the prisoner. At induction, they also learn about what work they can apply for within the prison and the rates of pay that apply to each.

There are many jobs within the prison that a prisoner can apply for. The most common - and most sought after - jobs are the wing cleaners, orderlies and kitchen workers, which pay around £7 per week. Prisoners are expected to work for about four hours per day for this princely sum. You may wonder why any prisoner would want to scrub floors in a prison for £7 per week. There were also the “Wombles”. “Wombles” simply walk around the grounds of the prison and pick up the shed loads of rubbish, furniture, clothing and anything else the prisoners can throw out of their windows, these were prisoners who were supposed to have been security checked to insure that they could carry out the trusted role of a “Womble”, although most of them hardly ever did their jobs correctly and the only thing I ever saw them do was pass illicit items around the prison faster than any courier company could have and they probably would have given DHL a run for their money.

Being a prisoner in 1994 was a very boring experience; they were “banged up” for twenty hours a day, inside a cell of no more than 4 square yards, with only an electric light and, if they were lucky, a book to read. If someone outside loved them enough, then they might also have had a battery powered radio to listen to. One of the main principles of the prison system was to ensure that prisoners complied with the regime and rules and led useful lives whilst in prison. Convicted prisoners were only able to spend a set amount of £10 of their own money and £10 of earnings each week at the ‘canteen’ (the prison shop, which was available to prisoners once a week). Prisoners could spend up to £20 per week on phone cards for the BT phone on each Spur. If, on the other hand, a prisoner did not like the prison issue soap and shampoo they were given each week, their only option was to purchase these items from the ‘canteen’ so, given all the other things they needed to purchase, you can understand why securing the highest paying job they could was such an attractive option.

It was now time for me to the Houseblock Senior Officer who gave me my shift pattern and also told me that I would be working on C Spur. The wing was run by a Principal Officer (PO), four Senior Officers (SO) and 32 Prison Officers. It was their duty to ensure that the houseblock was kept safe and running 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, every single day of the year. One of the Senior Officers had a duty entitled ‘detail SO’ and it was their responsibility to ensure that all the shifts were sufficiently staffed to keep the houseblock going.

This was the first time that I had ever worked a shift system. It seemed to have plenty of plus points and very few minus points. I would get to have time off during the week when everyone else was at work and would be expected to work every other weekend, which ensured that, for one weekend in two, I would not have to endure being dragged around the shops. Shifts were spread over a 32 week period and were made up of the following shifts: an E or Early shift from 7am until 12:30pm; an M or Main shift from 7.30am to 5pm; an L or Late shift from 1.30pm to 9pm. Then there was the big, fat A shift – commonly known as the Arsehole shift because it was so long and tiring - from 7am until 9pm and night shifts from 8am to 8pm, which we were expected to do at least once per year.

I was given my shift pattern and told to go to the Houseblock Manager who wanted to welcome me to the unit. I was feeling quite impressed by the idea of being formally welcomed to the houseblock by its manager until some of the officers in the wing office informed me that the Houseblock Manager was gay and was always on the lookout for new talent. They went on to tell me that his previous job had been working as a gentleman’s tailor. With some degree of trepidation, I went to his office and, with great relief, found no one there. A passing officer told me that he had seen him in the detail office in the admin block so decided to use the loo first and compose myself somewhat before going back to his office to wait for his return.

When I went into the staff toilets, an officer was already there using one of the traps. He was a small but well built man with grey hair and, after exchanging the normal pleasantries whilst conducting one’s business, the officer said: “So, you must be the new guy”. “Yes, I replied confidently, “and I’m due to see the Houseblock Manager”. The officer then began: “Oh well, you’d better watch….” but wanting to appear in the know, I cut in saying: “Oh, don’t bother warning me, the lads in the wing office have already told me that he’s a predatory gay. I’m not homophobic, but I tell you what, if I drop my wallet in his office, I’m going to kick it all the way back to my car before I bend down to pick it up”. I exchanged a knowing glance and a wry grin with my new found officer colleague and we both finished off our business.

I then made my way to the Houseblock Manager’s office, only to find that the short, stocky, grey haired officer was following me. He opened the door, proceeded to put pips on his epilates and, then, turning to face me, he invited me to come into his office and sit down.

I was now in a sweat and had turned a very deep shade of red as I realised the full extent of the predicament I was now in. As it turned out, and very fortunately for me indeed, Mike was an extremely nice man who had served over 25 years in the service and who was now due to retire in six months. He asked me if I had been given the story about his previous job and told me that, because he had not worked in the armed services before becoming a prison officer but had instead worked in a department store, he was always given the title of gentleman’s tailor. Over the years, the story had become even more embellished and he felt his retirement was coming at just the right time for everyone’s sake.

He welcomed me to the houseblock and said that I clearly had a good sense of humour which he was pleased to see because he regarded it as one of the main skills required of a good officer, along with life skills and a hefty dose of common sense. He also warned me that my joke about the wallet could be used against me if it was heard by the new breed of self righteous governors that the service was starting to employ. Whilst he recognised that most of the gay men he knew would take the joke in the good heart that it was intended, he told me to be careful because there would be plenty of staff who would use any excuse to land a colleague in trouble if it made them look good and gained them brownie points. His advice was very sound and, sadly, I was to come across a number of officers who would do anything to promote themselves even if it was at the expense of their colleagues and, at times, at the expense of their safety. He then told me to get out and report to Senior Officer John Staples.

John turned out to be one of the most knowledgeable senior officers I have ever met and was prepared to do anything for the staff for which he was responsible. He was brave, funny and caring, yet he was the greatest bigot I have ever come across and the most dangerous man you could ever work for. Despite all this, however, he was one of the most enjoyable senior officers you could work with. His character was very hard to describe. Although he was the worse kind of bigot, he never thought he was doing any harm and was always mortified to find out that he had offended anyone. He was from mixed parentage himself and spoke several languages badly! He also talked and worked at top speed and regularly had complaints from his neighbours because he would get his ladders out and clean the windows of his house at 5am, before walking six miles to work. He could drink like a fish and thought that he could sing like Elvis. He was very knowledgeable about most Prison Service matters and was able to quote any of the rules, although he had trouble trying to follow any of them.

He bent over backwards to help anyone and always seemed to have great fun trying to invent new excuses for the orderly officer (whose job was to ensure sufficient staff were on duty) as to why a member of his team had to go home. On one occasion, Officer Dean had to go home before it got dark as the lights on his car were not working and he needed to get to the garage to get them fixed. On another occasion, Officer Kelly’s cat had had a nasty fall and needed to be taken to the vet.

These were all fine except, on more than one occasion, I would be working in the wing office to hear over the radio that a periodical test call would be undertaken to ensure that: 1. Everyone who has a radio is alive, 2. The signal is okay and 3. All is well in the prison. The test call would always start with Alpha 1,2,3,4 to Zulu 1,2,3,4 (the phonetic code of radio users).

On this particular evening, John had allowed more officers to benefit from a ‘flyer’ (an earlier than normal finish of their working shift) than he should have done and he ended up having to wear three radios (including his own, which had the call sign Alpha 1). I only realised this when the test call from the radio control room (their call sign was HT) went as follows:

HT... Alpha 1, Alpha 1, test call, over!

John…Hello HT, this is Alpha 2 your signal is good, over!

HT…Alpha 2, Alpha 2, test call, over!

John (in a high voice) Hello HT, this is Alpha 2 your signal is good, over!

HT…Alpha 3, Alpha 3, test call, over!

John (in a low deep voice) Hello HT, this is Alpha 2 your signal is good, over!

This led the control room to believe that we were fully staffed when in fact there was only me, John and a cigarette packet on the houseblock.

Although John was a very generous and knowledgeable man, I always considered him to be a danger to us all. I really do not think that he genuinely understood the risks that he was taking and the danger that he was placing himself and his colleagues in.

Most of my colleagues on Houseblock One were new with no more than one years’ service apiece unlike most other areas of the prison where you would find officers pretending they had been with the service for far more years than they had been. There was an equal mixture of ex-service personnel and civilians, which collectively provided a good diversity of skills. In addition, 25% of the officers working on Houseblock One were female. This was the first time I’d had a job working with women and I was unsure how I would react as I had assumed that, being a male prison, there were very limited duties that a female officer could perform.

Over the next few months I was to learn how very wrong I had been about the limited jobs that female officers could perform. Apart from strip searching male prisoners, female officers carry out every other task expected of a prison officer, including the Control and Restraint of very violent prisoners.

I also found that that most of our female officers had a lot of respect from the prisoners and, quite surprisingly, the prisoners would be very protective of some of them. This could be for all sorts of reasons: either, quite simply, they fancied them; or they felt protective towards them because, at this time, most prisoners still held the villain’s code that you do not hurt a woman, or you would be considered a ‘nonce’. Over the years, this very quickly changed, as did prisoners’ attitudes towards rapists.

An example of just how good the female officers are was one called Jenny. She was a black cockney girl who was very pretty, always dressed immaculately with a perfectly ironed blouse and prison officer skirt, which came down to her calves, with black tights and the kind of highly polished shoes that would make a guardsman proud. She took no shit from anyone, including us. When she was in a bad mood, because of the way she used her bike each month (monthly cycle), we knew that the only way of relieving the tension was to give her chocolate. But, because we would all be too scared to go anywhere near her, the bar of chocolate used to be delivered like a hand grenade being tossed in a room. She would declare us all to be bastards but once she had started to munch her way through the chocolate bar, she would manage a ‘thank you’. There was one occasion when she came into the office and was absolutely furious, shouting “bastards, dirty filthy bastards, they’re all fucking filthy bastards”. We were all very concerned and were poised ready to go and terminate the life of whoever had molested Jenny. “Who? What? Why?”, we asked. “Them,” she said, pointing out towards the prisoners on ’A Spur’, “they’re all fucking dirty filthy bastards”. “Yes Jenny, but why? What have they done to you?” we asked. “They’ve been hanging around at the stairs so that they can get a look up my skirt when I go up the stairs, the dirty filthy rotten bastards. I don’t know what they think they will find up there because all they will see is a black hole”. Jenny meant that they would not see anything as the skirt was black, her tights were black and the skirt had a black sewn in underskirt and they would not have been able to see even the merest glimpse of underwear, let alone anything else. However, the description of her black hole had us all roaring with laughter, which resulted in Jenny kicking the hell out of us, whilst declaring that we, too, were “rotten dirty filthy fucking bastards”.

Sadly, though, there were some female officers who gave their sex a bad name by openly flirting with prisoners, or whinging about whatever job they were told to do, or always seeking to secure a safe job away from prisoners. Male officers were equally as guilty of whinging and trying to secure con-shy jobs (a job with very little or no prisoner contact). However, the macho male officer brigade (of which there seemed to be quite a few) relished putting down the good efforts of female prison officers by using stories of the few piss poor ones to tarnish all female officers.

An officer could be selected for a range of duties on Houseblock One. He or she could be the Office Officer, for example, the person in charge of the wing office. It would be their duty to keep the roll (head count of prisoners on the wing) correct at all times, record it and ensure the safe movement of category “A” and “E List” prisoners (category “A” prisoners being considered the most risky prisoners due to their crimes such as murder and bank robbery) They would allocate cells to new prisoners coming onto the unit and ensure that those that have completed their induction programme were moved on to other houseblocks. The Office Officer would answer the phone and compile the audit trail of all work performed on the wing. They are also responsible for raising the alarm when an incident occurs on the wing and directing officers sent from other houseblocks to where the incident is so that they can assist their colleagues in dealing with the problem.

Another role was that of General Duties Officer (GD). The GDs were responsible for checking all the correspondence sent out and received by prisoners, ensuring that prisoners have not received any contraband, like a file in a cake etc. GD’s were responsible for overseeing the free flow of prisoners; this is when prisoners who have a job in the prison, or who are attending one of the many education courses, are sent off on the secured walkways that are linked to the other units and houseblocks around the prison. They were also responsible for ensuring that the Houseblock cleaners and hot-plate workers did their jobs properly as well as escorting the Cat ‘A’ and ‘E List’ prisoners around the prison.

A key role was that of induction officer. It was their duty to run the induction programme and ensure that all new prisoners had been given a full induction into what they can expect during their stay at one of Her Majesties elite hotels. During the 1990’s we used to receive about 90 prisoners per week so this was a pretty busy role.

Yet another responsibility was that of Spur Officer. Spur officers worked in pairs to control the spur they worked on. Each spur held about 50 prisoners and their movement on and off the spur was controlled by the spur officers. It was their duty to take applications from prisoners, deal with their enquiries and complaints, unlock them and then ‘bang them up’ at the correct time, ensuring the correct roll of the spur at all times. As you can imagine, the role of the Spur Officer is one of the most important and dangerous of all the jobs that can be performed in the prison and, to perform this role safely, you need a whole tool kit of different skills to ensure that you do your job well.

I was told to work with an Officer on C spur for my first day and, straight away, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and the butterflies started to get active in my stomach, as I knew that this would make or break me as a Prison Officer. I knew that prisoners would see that I was brand new and they would home in on me either to see how much they could get away with or intimidate me or just make fun of me.

I was greeted by Rob, a ‘scouser’, who had worked at Highdown for a year. He was always looking for other officers to swap shifts with so that he could work very long shifts whilst in London and then have longer periods of time off back home in Liverpool with his family. He had put in for a transfer to a prison nearer home but he would not even be considered until he had passed the obligatory first year’s probation. And, even then, there could be a wait of up to two years until a place becomes vacant at a prison of your choice.

True to form, the first words Rob said to me were: “Ay up, our lad, what are you on next week? Watch out for these fuckers as they’ll try to pull one over on you. They do that, don’t they?” A prisoner came up to us and interrupted Rob saying: “Guv, (short for Governor) can I have…?” “No,” said Rob, “fuck off and play with your cell mate, I’m busy”. The prisoner then turned to me: “Guv, Guv, can I have...?” Rob then rounded on him and said: “Now, I saw him first, now fuck off and wait your turn”.

To this day, I am convinced that, because Rob was a scouser from one of the most violent, crime ridden areas of Liverpool, he suffered from an identity crisis and, at times, thought he was competing with the prisoners, instead of actually looking after them.

As I had expected, I did have lots of prisoners come up to me to test the water. I thought that the best way to play this would be to be straight and honest when asked how long I had been a prison officer. So, when asked, I replied assertively: “All day, mate!” Most of them couldn’t quite work that one out and reverted to asking for what I thought were mundane items like soap, toilet paper and application forms.

I then started to go and fetch the very long list of items the prisoners were requesting, slightly concerned that I was going to forget something or get their orders wrong. But, before I could make a move, Rob’s voice was in my ear: “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”. I told him of my quest and was greeted with: “These fuckers can wait until its application time, which is when they were opened up this morning at 8am. If they can’t get out of bed to make an application for all that crap, then they don’t need it, so tough shit. Besides that, if you fuck off from this spur, I’m left on my own and one of these cons might capture me and fuck me”. “He should be so lucky”, retorted the prisoners waiting in hope.

As I was quick to learn, there is a clear safety issue as to why there should always be two officers on the spur at any one time and it is simple and straightforward – so that they can watch each others’ backs and raise the alarm if they need to.

I then went to sit at the desk located on the ‘ones landing’ next to Rob and he carried on: “I told you these fuckers will pull one over on you because they do that, don’t they? Now, about these shifts that you said you would do for me”.

I knew straight away that I had embarked on a very steep learning curve and that it would be in my interests to learn the skills of a spur officer very quickly indeed if I wanted to survive.

By now, it was 8.30am and it was time to feed the prisoners their breakfast. The term ‘feed the prisoners’ was always being challenged by the new breed of ‘straight from university and wet behind the ears’ governors. They would tell us endlessly that to use the term ‘feed the prisoners’ was degrading and that we should say that we were serving them their meal. Well, I admit that my understanding of the English language may not be as good as some of these degree-waving new-breed governors but the process of feeding the prisoners entails us opening the spur gates, standing by them and controlling the amount of prisoners that go to collect their food from the hotplate. Six are allowed at the hotplate at any one time, with six being on their way down to the hotplate and a further six coming back from the hot plate. This regime is designed to keep the number of prisoners on the spur collecting their food at any given time to about eighteen. If there were to be an incident, either at the hotplate or on another houseblock (and nine out of ten times, there was), we could easily control these prisoners and get them back onto the spur so that sufficient numbers of staff could respond to the alarm. So, even with my limited knowledge of the English language, that is not, by any stretch of the imagination, serving the prisoners their meal – that is ‘feeding the prisoners’.

One of the most common incidents was that a prisoner would not like the food he was being given and would chuck his dolly out of his pram. This would always result in him being ‘bent up and taken down the choky’ (or as the fresh-out-of-college, oh so politically correct, governors would say: restrained using correct C&R techniques and removed to the segregation unit for theirs and others safety). Inevitably, that put an end to their feeding time and they would have no dinner at all.

At the hotplate itself, there will be the Principal Officer, a Senior Officer and the General Duties Officer who would be supervising the serving of food to ensure that all prisoners are able to be fed. Again, we were feeding the prisoners and not serving them their meal! As for the term being in any way degrading, our illustrious leaders see fit to overcrowd our prisons by cramming up to four prisoners in a cell that was designed to house only two. Now that’s what I call degrading. Then they see fit to hold them in prisons where they spend their time rotting in their cells because there are insufficient or even viable rehabilitation courses or training programmes to give them some chance of attempting to lead a better life upon their release. Now that’s what I call inhuman and pointless. But, according to our illustrious leaders, we should be much more concerned that the term ‘feeding the prisoners’ could cause offence and be seen to be degrading. An indication of priorities out of kilter with the real world, perhaps?

Once we had finished feeding the prisoners, the morning free flow to education had begun with prisoners leaving the spur to go off along the secure walkway to their appropriate destination. I proceeded to search the prisoners in the fashion that I had been taught at the prison service college only to realise that I was causing some concern to both staff and prisoners. Staff were concerned that, because the regime timetable was so tight, there would not be enough time in the day to search each prisoner correctly. The prisoners were concerned because my searching was so thorough that I was highly likely to find something they would prefer me not to find. But fresh from the prison service college, I carried on searching them in the manner that I had just been taught.

After the free flow had finished, our duties were to ‘bang up’ the ‘new’ and the ‘work shy’, prisoners who were either new and waiting for the induction programme or those who had not found a job and were waiting to be moved to another part of the prison to free up space for the ever growing waiting list of volunteers on the outside who wanted to come into the prison.

We class them as ‘volunteers’ because, to earn a place in prison, 95% of prisoners had committed a crime that would warrant a prison sentence of their own free will. The other 5% had either been fitted up by a misguided policeman (who could not find his bum without a search warrant) or they had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Every prisoner who enters prison most go through an induction programme into prison life and the prison regime, so that they are aware of where everything is and how to access it. They are given a talk on the ‘do and don’ts’ of the prison rules, shown a video about the dangers of AIDS in prison and the most likely ways of catching hepatitis from their cell mates. In the early days of life at High Down, they were even given a guided tour of the prison so they could see the workshops, education centre, gymnasium and chapel. In those days it felt like an introduction to a holiday camp and the tour of the prison serving as a way of ascertaining whether the facilities were to the prisoner’s liking or not. The only thing I was missing was my tour umbrella as I was conducting the guided tour.

The term ‘workshops’ conjures up a rather heart-warming image of prisoners sewing mail bags in happy and pleasant surroundings for the good of the community in which they live. Nothing could be further from the truth, however. In the early days of High Down, these were more like education units where prisoners could learn a trade that would be useful to them on their release. But this was felt to be too expensive and it was decided they would be used as workshops where prisoners could carry out a host of mindless tasks like: placing a piece of bubble wrap in the bottom of a plastic container that would be used by a supermarket to place fruit in; or assembling headphone sponges onto mini headphone sets destined for the entertainment of airline passengers. We had one prisoner who took great delight in sticking his finger up his bum and then wiping it onto the earpiece. But don’t let that put you off enjoying the in-flight entertainment on your next flight as, the chances of ending up with this particular con’s handy work would be as high as the chances of winning on one of their in flight game cards – even if the results are never quite as rewarding as the prisoners pay.

The education unit is purpose built with nine classrooms in which prisoners can attend classes to learn English, Maths, Art & Crafts, Pottery, Spanish, Computer Studies and Cookery. Teachers in the education unit were provided by NESCOT (North East Surrey College of Technology). The unit was below the prison library on the ground floor and it was the duty of two prison officers to ensure that the sixty or so prisoners who attended these classes behaved themselves and did not either rob, rape or kill the teachers or make ladders, knives or anything else in the arts and crafts classes that they could use to either attack a prison officer or attempt an escape from the prison. There was a particularly scary moment in the cookery class when I was on duty. The cookery teacher had a habit of treating the prisoners as children and was constantly shouting at them to behave. For most of them this did seem to work as mentally they were very much like children and responded well to this type of control. However, one prisoner took great exception to this and proceeded to shout back at the teacher, offering to cut her throat with the 10 inch chef’s knife he had in his hand at the time.

The teacher seemed oblivious to the danger she was in and squared up to the prisoner, continuing to shout at him and telling him that if he persisted in behaving like a child, then she would continue to treat him as such. I decided it was time to hit the alarm button and began to try and calm the prisoner down. At which point, the teacher rounded on me and started to shout at me for having the audacity to interrupt her. Somehow the prisoner and I were suddenly in the same boat and, realising the humiliation we both felt, he was more sympathetic to my request that he hand the knife to me, pleading with me only: “For God’s sake, deal with her, Guv.” The prisoner was duly escorted back to his cell and, although he faced an adjudication the next day, he was not given any extra days on his sentence as he was already serving life for the murder of three people. To this day, the teacher has no idea of how close she came to being his fourth victim.

Plastic bowls, plates and cups are given to the prisoners, because of the cost is cheap and they can not be used as weapons, however back in the 90’s we allowed prisoners who were serving long sentences to be able to have their own selection of china crockery sent in, so that they did not have to eat off plastic plates. On more than one occasion I have seen prisoners use these as weapons in a fight and I recall an officer who was working on houseblock four was supervising the medication queue; when a long serving prisoner who was concerned that he might miss his gymnasium class joined the queue whilst holding his floral china bowl full of rice crispies and milk, which he had just collected from the hotplate servery.

The officer informed the prisoner that he is not allowed to wait in the medication queue with his breakfast and that he would have to take the breakfast to his cell and then return for any medication. The prisoner protested stating that the PEI’s were her to collect him for his gym session and that he would waste too much time going back to his cell with the breakfast and simply wanted to grab his medication and then he was going to put the medication and his breakfast in his cell whilst he then goes to the gym.

The officer was insistent and explained to the prisoner that the rules are very clear about collecting medication and that it did not allow for someone to be balancing a bowl of rice crispies whilst queuing up to collect medication, the officer explained to the prisoner that he will allow the prisoner to go to the front of the queue to collect his medication once he has taken his breakfast back to his cell and that he will ask the PEI to wait a few moments longer. The prisoner did not like this compromise so he smashed the china bowl across the face of the officer. The alarm was raised and the prisoner was very quickly restrained and taken to the segregation unit. The officer had to go straight to hospital and received 30 stitches to the wound on his face, what bothered the officer more was that he was getting married the next day and he wanted to look his best for the wedding photos.

The prisoner received 28 days added to his sentence, which he had removed when he applied 4 years latter for added days to be cancelled, as he had been a good prisoner for the last three years of his sentence. The officer received £500 from the CICA (Criminal Injuries Compensation) which would not of even have paid for the wedding photos to be altered.

New prisoners serving their first prison sentence were usually very quiet and confused by the strange world they now found themselves in. They were also the ones who were likely to smell the most because they were too scared to use the showers. They would ask lots of questions and would sometimes be given a bum steer from other prisoners or would have all their tobacco conned out of them by prisoners who preyed on the new intake. It was our job to try and calm them down and give them some lessons in hanging onto their belongings because there were a lot of thieves and con men in prison.

The most argumentative prisoners were those who had served a short sentence before and had returned to prison, only this time with attitude. They were the most likely to get into fights with staff and end up wrapped up for a visit to the Block (or in prison parlance, restrained using correct Control and Restraint methods and removed to the segregation unit). They would consider themselves to be gangsters and have the attitude to match. More often than not, though, they would only succeed in annoying the real gangsters and end up with a condition called ‘tuna on the brain’. Prisoners were very adept at naming things along the lines of ‘it does what it says on the tin’. So, ‘tuna on the brain’ involved placing a tin of tuna in a sock, waiting until the victim’s back was turned, then swinging the home made cosh and smashing it over the victim’s head, rendering the prisoner either unconscious, bleeding profusely or both.

Then there were the ‘wannabe lifers’ who were serving a sentence of more than six years and who were of the opinion that, because they would not be eligible for parole until they had served two thirds of their sentence, they could behave as they wished towards staff. They too would adopt this hard man image because they knew that they were destined for what is known as a dispersal prison where real life lifers would be serving their time. As a ‘wannabe lifer’, they pretend not to care about anyone or anything in the hope of getting themselves a reputation before hitting the dispersal prison, hoping in some perverse way that this would give them some kind of kudos with the real life lifers. They would try and perfect what they believed to be the ‘lifer walk’, which involved walking down the landings with their head tilted to one side and their shoulders raised as if they had two rolls of carpets under their arms.

There were, of course, the more mature and experienced prisoners, who would simply get on with ‘doing their time’. They would keep themselves to themselves and would usually only associate with their own kind. They would steer well clear of trouble as this would have an affect on any parole board they may be applying for. We would only have these prisoners at High Down if they were staying over whilst being transferred to another prison or if they had been sent to us for accumulated visits. This is where prisoners who are held in many of our far flung gaols are unable to receive visits from their loved ones, therefore they will save up there entitlement of one visit per fortnight to have what is known as accumulated visits at a local prison like ours. I think you have said this before so perhaps don’t need to explain again?

When High Down first opened in 1992, a request was made to have some long serving prisoners sent to High Down to help new prisoners and staff bed in. However, some of these prisoners turned out to be those that were a real pain in the arse to the prisons that sent them and they were glad of the opportunity to get rid of them. So, by the time I had joined High Down, all that was left from this initial intake were the bad and the mad.

Some of these prisoners were housed on houseblock one so I got to know a few of them during my first few weeks as a prison officer. One character, known as Shirley, was about 20 stones of muscle, with a shaven head and had a very fetching ‘mars bar’ (scar) down his cheek. If ever a Victorian custom drama film should be made that involves a scene of a convict escaping from Dartmoor, Shirley would fit the bill. He was a very quiet man and had very few associates, although he was always on the lookout for new talent, as he was quite partial to Latin looking men.

He also had an extreme dislike of ‘Bacons’ (sex offenders) and if he came across a new intake sex offender, who had refused to ‘go on the numbers’ (under Prison Rule 43, prisoners can be held separately from the main stream of other prisoners because their offence is likely to endanger their lives), he would choose his moment carefully before delivering the good news to the prisoner in the form of a PP9 battery placed in a sock then smashed over the prisoner’s head.

The governors always assumed that we were telling the prisoners who the bacons were. However, we housed two reception orderlies (two prisoners who worked all day and evening in the reception area) on the houseblock and they would get to know everything there is to know about a new intake. They would then either pass on the info through associates they knew who were going through the reception area or would let someone like Shirley know as soon as they returned from their shift. The end result being that any sex offender who was stupid enough to refuse the rule usually ended up being cared for either by our healthcare centre or outside in hospital. What our governors did not realise is that we did not need the extra work that would be created by such an incident and we would do everything we could to convince the bacon to take the rule.

Most of these long-termer’s were very easy to get along with and you could easily slip into a false sense of security with them, assuming that they really liked you, which would make some officers believe that they had some sort of standing amongst their peers. There was one particular British prisoner, a very violent man who was on remand for the murder of a prison officer in Greece. The murder had happened during an escape he was involved in from a Greek prison whilst serving time for other offences. According to him, the van transporting them to another prison was stopped by an armed gang of friends of two other prisoners in the van and, during the break out, a Greek prison officer had been killed.

The Greek authorities were therefore very keen to receive our prisoner back into their custody. However, he was very reluctant to improve his suntan in Greece as he believed that, as soon as he was back in their hands, he would meet with a very unfortunate accident, which would result in his loved ones cashing in on his life assurance. I have no doubt that, if he were to be returned to Greece, there would be a very real chance that he would either meet with a very unfortunate accident or be shot whilst trying to escape. This is why he was classed as a very dangerous category ‘A’ prisoner because, in order to stay in this country and therefore remain alive, he would do anything to seriously hurt or kill one of us prison officers, thus ensuring that the British authorities would insist that he serve his sentence with us first.

He had actually made this threat when he was questioned by our police and it amazed me how friendly one particular female prison officer became towards him. Helen had served about 18 months in the service and was from north of the border. She believed that, as she had served such a long time as a prison officer and had such a vast wealth of experience behind her, she knew all there was to know about life in all its guises. It seemed to have escaped her attention that she was extremely lazy and always unable to give constructive advice as she was so convinced that she knew everything she had no need to actually learn the job. She had a total belief that the prisoner was innocent and that we should be mounting a campaign to ensure his safety and freedom. She also did not believe that he would be a danger to any of us and would spend too much time in his cell. It was hardly surprising that this led to a host of rumours about her sexual habits and liaisons with even prisoners becoming convinced that she was shagging him.

I was astounded that she was never marched straight from the gaol and kicked out of the job and I wondered how our over zealous security department could be oblivious to her behaviour which was fast becoming common knowledge throughout the prison, not just on our houseblock. It was not until some months later that we discovered that she was providing our security department with all kinds of information, not about the prisoners but about us, the prison officers, most of which was a load of old crap. However, I suppose the security department believed that it was worth keeping her on a leash on the houseblock as at least they would gather what they thought was useful information from the ‘hooded claw’.

Eventually the prisoner was moved back to Greece and, I believe, was shot whilst trying to escape from their custody. Perhaps as predictable, Helen ended up pregnant. She transferred to another prison and I am sure that, with her wealth of self taught knowledge, she will be thinking that she is doing very well in her own little way, still utterly oblivious to the mayhem she is unleashing around her.

There was another Senior Officer by the name of Brian Walker who had been in the job for over 20 years and had served in the regular army as a Grenadier Guardsman. He was also the Branch Chairman of the Prison Officers Association (POA) at High Down. As a senior officer he was crap and was always shouting at his staff and causing problems, yet as Union rep he was one of the best and would never allow our management to place us in danger. Once he was out of uniform, he was also one of the most approachable people you could wish to meet. However, he was a crap SO and, on more than one occasion, he would undermine our authority with the prisoners by overturning our decisions on issues the prisoners had brought to our attention. This meant that prisoners would simply ask to see SO Walker whenever we knocked them back on a request. So, in order to teach Brian a lesson, we allowed all the prisoners who made a request to see him wait outside his office. The queue ended up at about 50 prisoners long and had the desired result. Brian asked us what the fuck we were up to.

He did get the message, however, and never undermined us again. Brian retired from the job at the age of 55 and, sadly, one year later he died from a heat attack. He had a full prison service funeral, which was very well attended and showed the level of respect he had commanded within the service by people who knew him well.

It was then that I discovered that there is a very high mortality rate amongst prison officers once they retire. It is estimated that the average life expectancy of a prison officer who has served over 20 years is about 18 months after retirement. No wonder we have such a good retirement pension, as there are not many of us who get to claim it for very long.

The reason behind this high rate is simply down to the stress that we have to put up with day in and day out. There are not many jobs in which you would be expected to fight off a prisoner at least twice a week. In those early days, I resolved that my plan would be to not allow the stress to get to me and, thereby ensure that I left the job in good health, able to enjoy my pension for many years to come.

Being a new prison, we were constantly getting new staff join us and eventually we ended up with some very good officers on House Block One, who were to become some of the best people I have ever worked with. There were times that I would go home with a pain in my ribs, not because of an attack from a prisoner but because we would be laughing so much during the day. There was one prison officer who had joined the houseblock who was a very fit person and was always spending all his spare time in the gymnasium, he was asked by one of our senior officers what he did before he joined the prison service and the officer replied that he was a “Life Guard”, so the senior officer enquired if he had to sit on a horse outside Buckingham Palace, and the officer said no as he was a Life Guard in a swimming pool. The senior officer said “don’t bullshit me son, you could not get a horse in a swimming pool”.

All cells had to be inspected each day with a process called L.B.B’s (Locks Bolts and Bars). This meant that spur staff would have to inspect every cell every day to ensure that they were in good order and functional for their use. We would enter the cell and insist that the prisoners are out of their beds by announcing: “Hands off cocks and on with socks! We are here for a cell inspection and to see how well you are treating Her Majesty’s property”. As you entered the cell, which normally housed three prisoners, the smell would hit you hard. You would attempt to breathe through your ears as we asked the prisoners: “You lot must come from one of those three Chinese Cities, either Heaving, Minging or Gopping. By the smell of this cell, I would say that you are from Gopping and that therefore you must be Goppers. This is no way to treat Her Majesty’s belongings. Here is some cleaning equipment. Get it clean and make it shine, you Goppers!”

Because of this greeting, we developed a new name for prisoners, Goppers. Many attempts were made to stop us from referring to the prisoners as goppers, however as the management did not have a clue what this meant, they were even concerned that we referred to them as prisoners, as these were new, enlightened times, when the new breed of prison governors were trying to get us to call prisoners either ‘Mr’ or to use their first name and approach them in a fluffy, friendly way, the new name did not go down at all well. There seemed to be very little attempt to prevent prisoners from calling us all kinds of unsavoury names.

There appeared to be some resentment from the management about the camaraderie that was developing on House Block one and they accused us of being too ready to use C & R on prisoners. However, what they failed to realise was that an induction wing will always have a higher incident rate as most of our ‘customers’ are fresh from the street. They also failed to see that, compared to other local prisons, we actually had a far lower ratio of incidents on our house block.

Because we seemed to be having too much fun and our use of C & R was deemed higher than on any of the other Houseblocks, our team was split up and some of us were placed onto different Houseblocks and units around the prison. This only served to increase the confidence in the new officers on the other houseblock units. Their intent had clearly been to split up what they believed to be a team of thugs. However, it had the reverse effect by allowing our ‘enthusiasm’ for the job to brush off onto all the new recruits.