An Unexpected Adventure
by Inmate HW7689
“They’ll never put you away for that” – the words hung cruelly in my memory as I walked towards Brixton Prison’s darkly Dickensian A-Wing. “This is the beginning of My Adventure”, I tried desperately to rationalise this unexpected turn of events
Entering the cell, cramped and ugly in its primitive furnishing, I persuaded myself that this would be OK, that I would tidy it up and then have a look around the wing. It was thus with shock I heard the call door slam shut. “How long do we stay in here then”, I asked the wary-looking occupant who was to be my cellmate for the next few weeks “23 hours a day”, he replied.
Having had a fairly privileged upbringing, and not being accustomed to the constant noise and frequent brutality of prison, I spent sleepless nights and anxious days until the next unexpected step in my adventure. “You’re being shipped out to the Isle of Wight”, insisted an unfriendly but firm voice, one morning. Blood flushed through my body and instantly I felt sick. I couldn’t go there – miles away from home. How would anyone visit me? My fear was compounded by taunts from inmates as we left “No place for a first-timer, that place - you watch out”
Arriving after hours in a baking hot cubicle in the prison van (I still say a quiet prayer for the guys inside whenever I see one go by), I was immediately cheered by the deceptively pleasant view: Flower beds, open space, all far from the dark, satanic aspect of an Inner London jail. But holiday camp it wasn’t…
Here I saw intimidation, I heard the sickening crack of fist against jawbone, I saw blood spattered across walls. More freedom, more chance for bullies to exercise their will over those less prepared to be violent and aggressive.
Being well-educated, I was asked to help teach. I found it rewarding; it gave me status and earned me respect. You can’t imagine what it’s like to be looked up to by guys who would terrify you if they looked at you on the street: men with gunshot wounds, men who had tortured, men who had killed. I kid you not: this was becoming an extraordinary adventure.
Each time I walked across the courtyard – which was mercifully frequent – I looked at the gates and imagined the day when my adventure would end and I would actually walk out and go home. But it always seemed so far away.
Then, finally, came a welcome development. Reclassification allowed me to move to Ford Open Prison. The relative freedom here was welcome. I had a room with my own key. I attended lessons in art, I joined a book club, I mixed with businessmen and solicitors: fraudsters as well as murderers. The devastating loneliness still tormented me each night, but there were more diversions, people and pastimes - things to keep the pain away.
The last stage of my adventure was unnervingly strange. Home visits – all part of re-integration into society became the most eagerly awaited events of my life. How fantastic it was to be met by my wife, in the car park across the road from the prison, to hold her and smell her and kiss her. But it felt strange to be sitting in the Gipsy Moth in Greenwich with a pint of beer in my hand, or to lie quietly in bed with my wife. I felt uneasy; it felt odd to be free, all the while knowing I must return to jail in three days’ time. Returning from home leave that first time, I felt teased; I had been shown a perfect world and had it promptly confiscated.
Finally I came home to stay. What had my great adventure really taught me? Just this: that underneath all the facades - intellect, money, lifestyle, possessions, bravado - we’re all essentially the same; we hope, we fear, we love, we survive.
The coda to this tale is so trite, so predictable, so ‘Church Magazine’ of me, that I nearly didn’t write it. Yet the truth is, it was during this adventure that I found God.
And, ultimately, that’s all there is.
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