Heaven

don’t seem to be that interested. Patrick feels that we could be back in power the election after next; Simon is not so optimistic.

‘But,’ he adds, ‘if Brown takes over from Blair, we could win the next election.’

‘What if someone takes over from IDS?’ I ask.

Neither replies.

When they leave, I realize how much I miss the House and all things political.

10.15 pm

This is my last night on the south block. Despite a football match blaring from next door, I sleep soundly.

DAY 145 MONDAY 10 DECEMBER 2001

3.52 am

I wake early, so write for a couple of hours.

6.00 am

Pack up my final bits and pieces and go across to the hospital to join Doug, who’s carrying out the same exercise in reverse.

7.30 am

I will describe my new daily routine before I tell you anything about my work at the hospital.

6.00 am Rise, write until 7 am.

7.00 am Bath and shave.

7.30 am Sister arrives to take sick parade, which lasts until 8 am.

8.00 am Deliver ‘off work’ slips to the north and south blocks, farm, works, education and the front gate.

8.20 am Breakfast.

9-10.30 am Doctor arrives to minister to patients until around ten-thirty, depending on number.

11.30 am Sick parade until noon (collecting pills, etc.).

12.00 Lunch.

12.30 pm Phone Alison at the office.

1-2.00 pm Write.

3.00 pm Prisoners arrive from Birmingham, Leicester, Wayland, Lincoln or Bedford, all C-cats, to join us at NSC. They first go to reception to register; after that their next port of call is the hospital, where sister signs them in and checks their medical records. You rarely get transferred to another prison if you’re ill.

I check their blood pressure, their urine sample for diabetes, not drugs; that is carried out in a separate building later – their height and weight, and pass this information onto sister so that it can be checked against their medical records.

4.30-5.00 pm Sick parade. Linda, who began work at 7.30 am, leaves at 5 pm.

5.00 pm Supper. If anyone falls ill at night, the duty officer can open up the surgery and dispense medication, although most are told they can wait until sick parade the following day. If it’s serious, they’re taken off to Pilgrim Hospital in Boston by taxi, which is fifteen minutes away.

5.30 pm Write for a couple of hours.

7.45 pm Call Mary and/or James and Will.

8.00 pm Read or watch television; tonight, Catherine the Great I’m joined by Doug and Clive (I’m allowed to have two other inmates in the hospital between 7 and 10.00 pm).

10.20 pm After watching the news, I settle down in a bed five inches wider than the one in my room on the south block and fall into a deep sleep. It is, as is suggested by the title of this book – compared with Belmarsh and Wayland – heaven.

DAY 146 TUESDAY 11 DECEMBER 2001

5.49 am

I am just about getting the hang of my daily routine. It’s far more demanding than the work I carried out at SMU. I hope that Linda will be willing to teach me first aid, and more importantly give me a greater insight into the drugs problem in prisons.

7.25 am

I’m standing by the door waiting for Linda to arrive. I prepare her a coffee; one sweetener and a teaspoonful of milk in her pig mug. The five doctors all have their own mugs.

Linda has worked in the Prison Service for over ten years. She has three grown-up children, two sons and a daughter. She was married to a ‘nurse tutor’, Terry, who tragically died of skin cancer a couple of years ago at the age of fifty-three. She works long hours and the prisoners look on her much as I viewed my prep-school matron – a combination of mother, nurse and confidante. She has no time for shirkers, but couldn’t be more sympathetic if you are genuinely ill.

8.15 am

After sick parade, I carry out my rounds to the different parts of the prison to let staff know who will be off work today, before going to breakfast. I ask John (lifer) what meat is in the sausage.

‘It’s always beef,’ he replies, ‘because there are so many Muslims in prisons nowadays, they never serve pork sausages.’

10.00 am

The hospital has a visit from a man called Alan, who’s come to conduct a course on drug and alcohol abuse. He moves from prison to prison, advising and helping anyone who seeks his counsel. There are 150 such officers posted around the country, paid for by the taxpayer out of the NHS and the Home Office budgets.

Alan is saddened by how few prisoners take advantage of the service he offers. In Bradford alone, he estimates that 40 per cent of inmates below the age of thirty are on drugs, and another 30 per cent are addicted to alcohol. He shows me the reams of Home Office forms to be filled in every time he sees a prisoner. By the end of the morning, only two inmates out of 211 have bothered to turn up and see him.

11.00 am

I have a special visit from Sir Brian Mawhinney MP, an old friend whose constituency is about twenty miles south of NSC. As a former cabinet minister and Shadow Home Secretary, he has many questions about prisons, and as I have not entered the Palace of Westminster for the past six months, there are questions I’m equally keen for him to answer.

Brian stays for an hour, and after we stop going over past triumphs, we discuss present disasters. He fears that the Simon Burns scenario is realistic, a long time in the wilderness for the Conservatives, but ‘Events, dear boy events, are still our biggest hope.’ Brian runs over time, and I miss lunch – no complaints.

4.00 pm

Mr Hart passes on a message from my solicitors that my appeal papers have not been lodged at court. Panic. I passed them over to the security officer six weeks ago. Mr Hart calls Mr Hocking, who confirms that they were sent out on 29 October. Who’s to blame?

5.00 pm

Canteen. Now that I’m enhanced, I have an extra ?15 of my own money added to my account each week. With my hospital orderly pay of ?11.70, it adds up to ?26.70 a week. So I can now enjoy Cussons soap, SR toothpaste, Head and Shoulders shampoo, and even the occasional packet of McVitie’s chocolate biscuits.

6.00 pm