I decide I must use whatever persuasive powers I possess to get him to agree to publish, without reservation, everything in that little green book.
Day 19 Monday 6 August 2001
5.17 am
I’ve spent a sleepless night. I rise early and write for two hours. When I’ve finished, I pace around my cell, aware that if only I had held onto Fletch’s little green notebook I could have spent the time considering his words in greater detail.
8.00 am
I know I’ve eaten a bowl of Corn Pops from my Variety pack, because I can see the little empty box in the waste-paper bin, but I can’t remember when. I go on pacing.
9.00 am
An officer opens the cell door. I rush down to the ground floor, only to discover that Fletch is always let out at eight so that he can go straight to the workshops and have everything set up and ready before the other prisoners arrive. Because of the length of his sentence, it’s a real job for him. He’s the works manager, and can earn up to forty pounds a week. I could go along to the workshops, but with seventy or eighty other prisoners hanging around, I wouldn’t be able to hold a private conversation with him. Tony tells me Fletch will be back for dinner at twelve, when he’ll have an hour off before returning to the workshops at one. I’ll have to wait.
When I return to my cell, I find a letter has been pushed under my door. It’s from Billy Little (murder). He apologizes for being offhand with me during Association the previous evening. August is always a bad month for him, he explains, and he’s not very good company for a number of reasons:
I last saw my son in August 1998, my favourite gran died in August, the heinous act of murder that I committed took place on August 22, 1998. As you can imagine, I have a lot on my mind.
I can’t begin to imagine, which I admit when I reply to his letter. He continues…
During this period, I tend to spend a long time inside myself. This could give an impression to those who don’t know me of being ignorant and unapproachable. For this I apologise.
By this time tomorrow, you’ll be sunning it up by the pool, or that’s how Springhill will feel in comparison to Hellmarsh. In a way, you’ve been lucky to have spent only a short period here, a period in which you’ve brought the normal inertia of prison to life.
Over the last three weeks you will have felt the resentment of other prisoners who feel strongly that equality should be practised even in prisons. You no doubt recall the Gilbert and Sullivan quote from
I think what I’m trying to say is that your status, friendliness and willingness to help and advise others has not gone unnoticed by those who are destined to spend a great deal longer incarcerated.
For this I thank you, and for your inspiration to press me to think more seriously about my writing. I would like to take you up on your offer to keep in touch, and in particular to check over my first novel.
I’ll be resident here for another month or two, or three, before they move me onto a first stage lifer main centre [
You are Primus Inter Pares
Yours,
Billy (BX7974)
I sit down at my table and reply immediately.
12 noon
When Fletch arrives back from the workshops, he finds me waiting by his cell door. He steps inside and invites me to join him. [36] I ask if I might be allowed to borrow his notebook so that I can consider more carefully the piece he read to me the previous evening. He hesitates for a moment, then goes to a shelf above his bed, burrows around and extracts the little green notebook. He hands it over without comment.
I grab an apple for lunch and return to my cell. Reading Fletch’s story is no less painful. I go over it three times before pacing up and down. My problem will be getting him to agree to publish his words in this diary.
3.37 pm
Mr Bentley opens my cell door to let me know that the Deputy Governor wishes to see me. As I am escorted to Mr Leader’s office, I can only wonder what bad news he will have to impart this time. Am I to be sent to Parkhurst or Brixton, or have they settled on Dartmoor? When the Deputy Governor’s door is opened, I am greeted with a warm smile. Mr Leader’s demeanour and manner are completely different from our last meeting. He is welcoming and friendly, which leads me to hope that he is the bearer of better news.
He tells me that he has just heard from the Home Office that I will not be going to Camphill on the Isle of Wight or Elmer in Kent, but Wayland. I frown. I’ve never heard of Wayland.
‘It’s in Norfolk,’ he tells me. ‘C-cat and very relaxed. I’ve already spoken to the Governor,’ he adds, ‘and only one other member of my staff is aware of your destination.’ I take this as a broad hint that it might be wise not to tell anyone else on the spur of my destination, unless I want to be accompanied throughout the entire journey by the national press. I nod and realize why he has taken the unusual step of seeing me alone. I’m about to ask him a question, when he answers it.
‘We plan to move you on Thursday.’
Only three more days at Hellmarsh, is my first reaction, and, after asking him several more questions, I thank him and return to my cell unescorted. I spend the next hour considering every word Mr Leader has said. I recall asking him which he would rather be going to, Wayland or the Isle of Wight. ‘Wayland,’ he’d replied without hesitation.
In prison it’s necessary to fight each battle day by day if you’re eventually going to win the war. First it was getting off the medical centre and onto Block Three. Then was escaping Block Three (Beirut) and being moved to Block One to live among a more mature group of prisoners. Next was being transferred from Belmarsh to a C-cat prison. Now I shall be pressing to regain my D-cat status, so that I can leave Wayland as quickly as possible for an open prison. But that’s tomorrow’s battle. Several prisoners have ‘Take each day as it comes’ scrawled on their walls.
4.00 pm
I try to write, but so much has already happened today that I find it hard to concentrate. I munch a bar of Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut (32p), and drink a mug of Evian (49p) topped up with Robinson’s blackcurrant juice (97p).
6.00 pm
Supper. I catch Fletch in the queue for the hotplate, and he agrees to join me in my cell at seven. ‘Miah [murder] is cutting my hair at seven,’ I tell him, ‘so could we make it seven fifteen? I can’t afford to miss the appointment, as I’m still hoping for a visit from my wife on Thursday.’
7.00 pm
Association. I sit patiently in a chair on number 2 landing waiting for Miah. He doesn’t turn up on time to cut my hair, so I return to my cell and wait for Fletch. He does arrive on time and takes a seat on the end of the bed. He doesn’t bother with any preamble.
‘You can include my piece in your book if you want to,’ he says, ‘and if you do, let’s hope it does some good.’
I tell him that if a national newspaper serializes the diary, then his words will be read by millions of people, and the politicians will have to finally stop pretending that it isn’t happening or they will simply be guilty by association.
We begin to go through the script line by line, filling in details such as names, times and places so that the casual reader can properly follow the sequence of events. Tony (marijuana only) joins us a few minutes later. It turns out that he’s the only other person to have read the piece, and it also becomes clear that it was on his advice that Fletch decided not only to write about his experiences, but to allow a wider audience to read them.
