deterrent. After ten years, Linda says there is often a sea change in a lifer’s attitude that coincides with their move to a B-cat and then again when they reach a C-cat. This is even more pronounced when they finally arrive at a D- cat and can suddenly believe release is possible.
By the way, it’s almost unknown for a lifer to abscond. Not only would they be returned to an A-cat closed prison, but its possible they never would be considered for parole again.
However, most of the lifers being interviewed today have led a farily blameless existence for the past five years, although there are often scars, missing teeth and broken bones to remind them of their first ten years in an A-cat.
During the day, each of them goes meekly in to face the board. No swagger, no swearing, no attitude; that alone could set them back another year.
Leon is followed by Michael, then Chris, Roger, Bob, John, John and John (a coincidence not acceptable in a novel). At the end of the day, Linda comes out exhausted. By the way, they all adore her. She not only knows their life histories to the minutest detail, but also treats them as human beings.
4.00 pm
Only one other incident of note today – the appearance at SMU of a man who killed a woman in a road accident and was sentenced to three years for dangerous driving. He’s a mild-mannered chap who asked me for help with his book on Kurdistan. Mr New tells me that he is going to be transferred to another jail. The husband of his victim lives in Boston and, as the inmate is coming up for his first town visit, the victim’s husband has objected on the grounds that he might come across him in his daily life.
The inmate joins me after his meeting with Mr New. He’s philosophical about the decision. He accepts that the victim’s family have every right to ask for him to be moved. He’s so clearly racked with guilt, and seems destined to relive this terrible incident for the rest of his life, that I find myself trying to comfort him. In truth, he’s a different kind of lifer.
10.00 pm
It must be Guy Fawkes Day, because from my little window I can see fireworks exploding over Boston.
DAY 111 TUESDAY 6 NOVEMBER 2001
5.49 am
The big news in the camp today is that from 1 November, NSC is to become a resettlement prison. (No doubt you will have noticed that it’s 6 November.) The change of status could spell survival for NSC, which has been under threat of closure for several years.
Resettlement means quite simply that once a prisoner has reached his FLED (facility licence eligibility date) – in my case July next year – he can take a job outside the prison working for fifty-five hours a week, not including travelling time. The whole atmosphere of the prison will change when inmates are translated into outmates. They will leave the prison every morning between seven and eight, and not return until seven in the evening.
Prisoners will be able to earn ?150 to ?200 a week, just as Clive does as a line manager for Exotic Foods. It will be interesting to see how quickly NSC implements the new Home Office directive.
8.30 am
Seven new arrivals at NSC today, who complete their induction talk and labour board by 11.21 am. My job as SMU orderly is now running smoothly, although Matthew tells me that an officer said that for the first week I made the worst cup of tea of any orderly in history. But now that I’ve worked out how to avoid tea leaves ending up in the mug, I need a fresh challenge.
2.30 pm
Mr New warns me that the prison is reaching full capacity, and they might have to put a second bed in my room. Not that they want anyone to share with me, after the
5.00 pm
I write, or to be more accurate, work on the sixth draft of my latest novel
7.00 pm
Doug and I watch Channel 4 news. Fighting breaks out in Stormont during David Trimble’s press conference following his reappointment as First Minister. If what I am witnessing on television were to take place at NSC, they would all lose their privileges and be sent back to closed conditions.
Doug has a natural gift of timing, and waits until the end of the news before he drops his bombshell. The monthly prison committee meeting – made up in equal numbers of staff and prisoners – is to have its next get- together on Friday. The governor is chairman, and among the five prison representatives are Doug and Clive; two men who understand power, however limited. Doug tells me that the main item on the agenda will be resettlement, and he intends to apply to work at his haulage company in Cambridgeshire. His application fulfils the recommended criteria, as March is within the fifty-five-mile radius. It is also the job he will return to once he’s released, relieving his wife of the pressure of running the company while he’s been locked up.
But now for the consequences. His job as hospital orderly – the most sought-after position in the prison – will become available. He makes it clear that if I want the job, he will happily make a recommendation to Linda, who has already hinted that such an appointment would meet with her approval. This would mean my moving into the hospital, and although I’d be working seven days a week, there is an added advantage of a pay rise of ?3.20 so, with my personal income of ?10, I’d have over ?20 a week to spend in the canteen.
But the biggest luxury of all would be sleeping in the hospital, which has an en-suite bathroom, a sixteen-inch TV and a fridge. It’s too much to hope for, and might even tempt me to stay at NSC – well, at least until my FLED.
DAY 112 WEDNESDAY 7 NOVEMBER 2001
5.58 am
They call him Mick the Key. He arrived yesterday, and if he hadn’t been turned down for a job in the kitchens, I might never have heard his story. Even now I’m not sure how much of it I believe.
Originally sentenced to two years for breaking and entering, Mick is now serving his ninth year. They have only risked moving him to a D-cat for his last twelve weeks. The reason is simple. Mick likes escaping, or assisting others to escape, and he has one particular gift that aids him in this enterprise. He only needs to look at a key once and he can reproduce it. He first commits the shape to memory, then draws the outline on a piece of paper, before transferring that onto a bar of prison soap – the first impression of the key. The next stage is to reproduce the image in plastic, using prison knives or forks. He then covers the newly minted key with thick paint he obtains from the works department. The next day he has a key.
During his years in prison, Mick has been able to open not only his own cell door, but also anyone else’s. In fact, while he was at Whitemoor, they closed the prison for twenty-four hours because they had to change the locks on all 500 cells.
Getting out of prison is only half the enjoyment, this charming Irishman tells me, ‘Getting into kitchens, stores or even the governor’s office adds to the quality of one’s life. In fact,’ he concludes, ‘my greatest challenge was opening the hospital drugs cabinet in under an hour.’ On that occasion, the officers knew who was responsible, but as nothing was missing (Mick says he’s never taken a drug in his life), they could only charge him ‘on suspicion’, and were later unable to make the charge stick.
Some of the prison keys are too large and complicated to reproduce inside, so, undaunted, Mick joined the art class. He drew pictures of the skylines of New York, Dallas and Chicago before sending them home to his brother. It was some weeks before the innocent art teacher caught on. The security staff intercepted a package of keys brought into the prison by his sister. What a useful fellow Mick would have been in Colditz.
