mushroom soup. So I linger over the soup followed by vegetable stew. It’s not Le Caprice – but it’s not Belmarsh either.
1.15 pm
I’m told that as part of my induction I must report to the education department and take a reading, writing and numeracy test. When I take my seat in the classroom and study the forms, it turns out to be exactly the same test as the one set at Belmarsh. Should I tell them that I took the papers only two weeks ago, or should I just get on with it? I can see the headline in the Mirror: Archer Refuses to Take Writing Test. It would be funny if it wasn’t exactly what the Mirror would do. I get on with it.
3.15 pm
Gym. It’s circuit-training day, and I manage about half of the set programme – known as the dirty dozen. The youngsters are good, but the star turns out to be a forty-five-year-old gypsy, who is covered in tattoos, and serving an eleven-year sentence for drug dealing. He’s called Minnie, and out-runs them, out-jumps them, out-lifts them, out-presses them, and isn’t even breathing heavily at the end. He puts me to shame; I can only hope that the youngsters feel equally humiliated.
4.20 pm
I’m back in time for a shower. David (whisky bootlegger) is standing by my door. He tells me that he’s written the outline for a novel and wants to know how to get in contact with a ghostwriter. This is usually a surrogate for are you available? I tell him exactly what I tell anyone else who writes to me on this subject (three or four letters a week): go to your local library, take out a copy of The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook and you’ll find a section listing agents who handle ghostwriters. I assume that will keep him quiet for a few days.
4.41 pm
David returns clutching a copy of The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook and shows me a page of names. I glance down the list but none is familiar. I have come across only a handful of agents over the years – Debbie Owen, George Greenfield, Deborah Rodgers, Jonathan Lloyd and Ed Victor – but there must be at least another thousand I’ve never heard of. I suggest that as my agent is visiting me tomorrow, if he selects some names, I’ll ask Jonathan if he knows any of them.
4.56 pm
David returns with the list of names written out on a single sheet of paper. He hands over a Diet Coke. He’s what Simon Heffer would describe as ‘a proper gent’.
6.00 pm
Supper. Vegetable pie, two boiled potatoes and a lump of petits pois, making un seul pois.
I switch on the TV. Australia are 241 for 3, and Ponting is 144 not out. Together with Waugh, they’ve put on 170.1 switch off. Why did I ever switch on?
After supper, I go down to the Association room to find Dale (wounding with intent) and Jimmy (transporting Ecstasy tablets) playing snooker for a Mars bar. It’s the first time I’ve seen Jimmy beaten at anything, and what’s more, he’s being thrashed by a far superior player. It’s a subject I know a little about as I was President of the World Snooker Association before I was convicted. Jimmy whispers in my ear, ‘Dale beats everyone, but like any hungry animal, he has to be fed at least twice a day. We take it in turns to hand over a Mars bar. It’s a cheap way of keeping him under control.’ In case you’ve forgotten, Dale is six foot three and weighs twenty-seven stone.
After the game is over, the three of us join Darren in the exercise yard. Dale manages only one circuit before heading back in, exhausted, while the three of us carry on for the full forty-five minutes. During the second circuit, I tell them about Derek, who did the drawing of my cell (Belmarsh), and ask if they know of any artists in Wayland. Jimmy tells me that there is a brilliant (his word) artist on C block. I ask if he will introduce me.
‘Be warned, he’s weird,’ says Jimmy, ‘and can be very rude if he takes against you.’
I tell Jimmy that I’ve been dealing with artists for the past thirty-five years and I’ve never met one who could be described as normal. It’s all part of their appeal.
‘I feel like a drink,’ says Darren as the evening sun continues to beat down on us. ‘Know anyone who’s got some hooch?’ he asks Jimmy.
‘Hooch?’ I say. ‘What’s that?’
They both laugh, a laugh that suggests I still have much to learn. ‘Every block,’ says Darren, ‘has a hotplate man, a cleaner, a tea-boy and a painter. They’re all appointed by the screws and are paid around twelve pounds a week. Every block also has a drug dealer, a haircutter, a clothes-washer and a brewer. C block has the best brewer – for a two-pound phonecard, you can get half a litre of hooch.’
‘But what’s it made of?’
The ingredients are normally yeast, sugar, water and orange juice. It’s harder to produce during the summer months because you need the hot pipes that run through your cell to be boiling in order to ferment the brew, so it’s almost impossible to get decent hooch in August.’ ‘What’s it taste like?’
‘Awful, but at least it’s guaranteed to get you drunk,’ says Jimmy. ‘Which kills off a few more hours of your sentence, even if you wake up with one hell of a hangover.’
‘If you’re desperate,’ Darren adds, ‘fresh orange juice is still on the canteen list.’
‘How does that help?’
‘Just leave it on your window ledge in the sun for a few days, and you’ll soon find out.’
‘But where can you hide the hooch once you’ve made it?’
‘We used to have the perfect hiding place,’ Darren pauses, ‘but unfortunately they discovered it.’
Jimmy smiles as I wait for an explanation. ‘One Sunday morning,’ Darren continues, ‘the number one brewer on our spur was found roaming around inebriated. When breathalysed, he registered way above the limit. The drug squad were called in, and every cell on the spur was stripped bare, but no alcohol of any kind was discovered. His hiding place would have remained a mystery if a small fire hadn’t broken out in the kitchen. An officer grabbed the nearest fire extinguisher and pointed it in the direction of the blaze, only to find that the flames leapt even higher. An immediate halt was called by the chef who fortunately understood the effects of ethanol, otherwise the prison might have been razed to the ground. A full enquiry was held, and three inmates were shipped out to different B- cats the following morning, ‘on suspicion of producing hooch’.’
‘In fact,’ said Darren, ‘It wasn’t hooch they were guilty of brewing. This particular strain of neat alcohol had been made by filtering metal polish through six slices of bread into a plastic mug in the hope of removing any impurities.’
I feel sick, without even having to sample the brew.
Jimmy goes on to point out that not only are some inmates brighter than the officers, but they also have twenty-four hours every day to think up such schemes, while the screws have to get on with their job.
‘But the best hooch I ever tasted,’ said Darren, ‘had a secret ingredient’
‘And what was that, may I ask?’
‘Marmite. But once the screws caught on to how much yeast it contained, they took it off the canteen list’ He pauses. ‘So now we just steal the yeast from the kitchen.’
‘Damn,’ I said. ‘I like Marmite; it was on the Belmarsh canteen list.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good enough reason, my lord, to be transferred back to Belmarsh,’ says Darren. ‘Mind you,’ he adds, ‘perhaps I should have a word with the governor, now it’s known that you are partial to it’
I kick him gently up the backside as an officer is passing in the opposite direction.
‘Did you see that, Mr Chapman? Archer is bullying me.’ ‘I’ll put him on report, and he’ll be back in Belmarsh by the end of the week,’ Mr Chapman promises.
We laugh as we continue on the perimeter circuit. However, I point out how easy it is to make an accusation, and how long it takes to refute it. It’s been a month since Emma Nicholson appeared on Newsnight insinuating that I had stolen money intended for the Kurds, and it will probably be another month before the police confirm there is no case to answer.
‘But just think about that for a minute, Jeffrey. If it hadn’t been for that bitch Nicholson, you would never have met Jimmy and me, who have not only added greatly to your knowledge of prison life, but enabled a further volume to be written.’
7.30 pm
One of the officers says there’s a package for me in the office. I’m puzzled as I’ve already had my mail for today, and registered letters are always opened in front of two officers, around eleven each morning. When I walk in, he makes a point of closing the office door before he hands over a copy of Alan Clark’s Diaries, a pad and a book
