It’s an autobiography of my twenty -five year career serving in Her Majesty’s Prison Service. A warts and all revelation of what really goes on behind the closed door of the UK’s penal establishments. The book charts my early career from 4 July 1993 until my subsequent disillusionment of the service and my eventual early retirement.
A chance meeting on holiday in Majorca changed my life forever and launched me into a 25 year career in a job that I never would have considered previously: working in Her Majesty’s Prison Service.
This book catalogues my personal experiences of working as a prison officer, from my early days at high security HMP Pentonville to my final years in therapy-based HMP Grendon. Filled with interesting observations and incidences, hilarious wind-ups and memorable characters, this autobiography is the story of a journey, from the happiest days in what will always be a potentially volatile environment to a complete state of disillusionment as an old dinosaur that no longer fitted into the modern prison service world.
The book is filled with amusing incidents and anecdotes in my early days through my promotions, running the London Marathon, meeting my wife until my complete disillusionment of how our prison service is being run.
You meet the characters that made our jobs more bearable, until their demise through political correctness gone mad.
How decisions at the top were made and changed at a moment’s notice to fulfil the ambitions of our politicians.
I give an honest account of my feelings, as someone who would never be a yes man and toe the party line, in the face of a constantly changing environment that had become increasingly controlled by political correctness gone mad and by budgetary needs rather than human needs.
I am a man who cared, and even though my heart was sucked out of my job, I never lost my dignity or respect. Most importantly, I would never allow myself to be reduced to just a turnkey.
Until I could take no more taking early retirement from a job I loved, my heart sucked out and my ambitions in tatters.
The book will make you smile and laugh and then cry and feel how I did, but then with renewed hope as I left to start a new life.
Targeted Age Group:: Everybody
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
People! As I state early in my book I was fed up with the press, TV, radio, and the politicians portraying prison officer and the prison service always in a negative light, and I had always said I would write a book and tell the truth, but never did. Then there was a (I think) Linda LaPlant thriller on the TV about a prison that was so way off reality that it made me so angry I was fuming. The next day at work I was still fuming and one of my colleagues said to me that I should write my book. I had previously said I would write a book about my time in the service. So I started to write it from then. This was my inspiration
How Did You Come up With Your Characters?
They are all real people, people I met and people I worked with, most of those I worked with had nick names and I had to change these for the book but keep them in context with the names they had Quite complicated but I think it worked, those that know the characters will still recognise them.
Book Sample
Chapter 25
The London Marathon
It was January 1991. I’d been at The Mount for a couple of years and had been temporarily promoted for most of this time, yet my life was just drifting. I lived on my own in the village of Bovingdon and went out occasionally for a drink in the local pub, but I generally avoided drinking in the officers’ club or with groups of my colleagues. It seemed that whenever a group of prison officers got together all they talked about was the job. It had become boring and I was beginning to dislike everything.
I was fast becoming a grumpy, intolerant old man. In fact, although I didn’t realise it at the time, I’d actually stopped liking myself and therefore everything and everybody else, and I was beginning to let myself go – a very dangerous position to be in. One day a group of staff asked me if I wanted to go for a lunchtime run with them, just for three to four miles around the village. Thinking that I was pretty fit, despite being a smoker, as I still played football on nonworking weekends and went training once or twice a week, I decided to go. Piece of piss, I thought. It’ll be a doddle. Well, we set off and I could only get as far as the end of the drive, which was about half a mile, and I was struggling. Bloody hell, what’s happened to me?
One of my colleagues reassured me, saying that he felt the same when he first started running and that it would get easier with time and I’d be fine. Fine? I was bloody knackered. I was smoking too much, not exercising sensibly or enough, eating crap and generally letting myself go, so I made a conscious decision at that point to sort myself out and get my life back on track. I’d lived alone for long enough without any really serious relationships and I was missing that closeness to another person. I’d already decided I wasn’t going to find someone else, so I needed to find another interest instead.
Football was out, as my knee wouldn’t cope with anything more than the casual playing and training I was already doing. Also, I was fast approaching forty, so I wasn’t exactly in my prime. Maybe this running lark was just what I needed? Circumstances conspired to assist me. My father was rushed into hospital with yet another heart attack, after suffering from heart problems for some years now. It was a Thursday, and I got home from work, put my pack of cigarettes on top of the television as usual, went for a shower, changed and rushed out to visit my dad in Chase Farm Hospital, Enfield, arriving back home pretty late. In the morning I went off to work and, on arriving at my wing,
I reached for my first cigarette of the day. At that point I realised I’d left them on top of my TV at home. A colleague offered me one of his, but I declined. I decided I could manage without until lunchtime and then pop home and get them. However, that never happened. My new running mates said they were going for a run that lunchtime, so I decided to join them instead. I never smoked again. Those cigarettes sat on top of my telly for several weeks as a reminder that I’d stopped smoking just like that. Well, I thought, if I can do that then I can master this running lark; in fact, I’m gonna run the London Marathon before I’m 41. My birthday was the following August. I prepared for the London Marathon like some sort of military exercise, training every day and gradually increasing the miles covered. I just did a couple of miles per day at first, sometimes alternating between running and walking when I started feeling tired. I increased my run from five times a week to seven times a week, by which time I was doing five miles per day. The buzz I was getting from this exercise was indescribable; it was like taking drugs.
I felt great when I went for a run and utterly depressed when I couldn’t, which thankfully wasn’t often. I would go out in the pouring rain and even bought a special waterproof and windproof running suit so that I could continue to train in bad weather. I also bought lots of books on running, and from reading these I devised my own training schedule to ensure a good level of fitness for the London Marathon. I completed my entry form, knowing that there was no guarantee that my application would be successful. The number of people that apply to run the London Marathon is phenomenal and getting selected is a difficult task unless you’re being sponsored by one of the big charities or you’ve run it before. I wouldn’t find out if I could participate until around Christmas time, but I still had to continue my training. It would be no good waiting until the end of December and then starting to train only if I was accepted, as I just wouldn’t be able to get my fitness to an adequate level before the event if I did that. Come December, I was running around 30 miles during the week and around 15 miles in a single session at weekends. By this time I’d been running seriously in preparation for the marathon for nearly nine months, I’d put my life on hold – no alcohol, no fatty fryups, no cigarettes, and basically watching what I was eating and trying to follow a healthy diet, comprising mainly chicken and pasta meals with jacket potatoes, etc. I was probably fitter than I’d ever been, and I certainly felt better about myself than I’d done for some time.
Then a letter of rejection arrived. All that bloody work for nothing, I thought, constantly pushing myself through the pain barrier to run further and faster than my previous effort. Oh shit. I’d run in my lunch breaks, in the evenings after work and even sometimes in the mornings before I went to work. I’d even got caught short running along the Grand Union Canal and had to squat over the side of the canal for a pooh and wipe my bottom with large dock leaves. And all this for what? To be rejected! Bloody hell, it just wasn’t fair. However, there was a slight glimmer of hope when I noticed a competition in my Today’s Runner magazine, the prize being an entry into the London Marathon. You had to write about your training experiences and why you wanted to run in the marathon, so I decided to enter it.
In the meantime, I continued with my running, but during January I was out in severe weather when something went in my ankle and I ended up limping home in real discomfort. I went to the doctor, who sent me to the local hospital for X-rays. It wasn’t good news. I’d damaged my ankle ligaments and would have to rest up for some time. Double bollocks! Why did this have to happen now, when I’d been doing so well with my training? Never mind, I thought, it’s not as if I’m going to be running in this year’s marathon. It seemed as though my ambition to do it before my 40th birthday was now well and truly out of the window. Then, completely out of the blue, I received a letter from Today’s Runner magazine.
Yep, I’d won the competition and an entry into the London Marathon, and they wanted me to do an interview about my training. Bloody well typical. I did the interview, omitting the part about my injury, and my story was featured in a future issue of the magazine. The inter-prison magazine decided to do a feature about all the staff throughout the country that had entered the London Marathon and, without any prior warning, a reporter turned up at The Mount to interview me. This interview proved quite interesting, as our
PO PEI tried to claim I was getting all the help I needed in regard to my training schedule from his department! So I put the reporter straight and told him I hadn’t received any help from the PE department and wouldn’t have accepted any even if it had been offered, as I was determined to do this thing by myself.
I didn’t reveal my injury in this interview either. I decided to seek the help and advice of a sports injury specialist, who carried out a course of intensive treatment on the ankle. When I explained that I needed to be fit enough to run in that year’s (now 1992) London Marathon he just laughed at me and said, “No way.” However, I was determined to participate in that year’s race. There was a clause in the marathon agreement that said that if competitors weren’t able to run due to injury their applications would be held over for the following year’s event, but as my entry was a competition prize this wasn’t guaranteed in my case. I was left with a choice. I either backed out of the event due to injury or I went ahead despite my ankle problems. I couldn’t face putting my body through the pain barrier on long runs again, in preparation for the following year, so I decided it was going to be this year or never at all. And to me, never just wasn’t an option.
So I continued with the treatment, which was costing me £20 each session, and I strapped up my ankle whenever I went for a run. Somehow I made it to Blackheath and the start of the race on 21 April 1992. My training goal had been to get me fit enough to complete the race in a time of 3 hours and 30 minutes, which was a good standard for a 40- something to achieve. It was pretty ambitious, but I was gonna do it. I’d run my first competitive race, Lincoln Half Marathon, prior to sustaining my ankle injury, and I’d managed to complete it in a respectable time of 89 minutes. This had actually put me in the top 100 finishers and I was really proud of myself.
On the evening before the London Marathon I went to the famous pasta party that is held every year in London before the race, and I stayed in a hotel overnight so that I could be at Blackheath nice and early the next morning. When the race began, I couldn’t believe how long it took me to get from my position in the throng of runners to the official starting line. It was a huge distance, so much so that the organisers of the race actually knocked off nearly 20 minutes from my time so that it started when I crossed the actual start line. I clicked my stopwatch at this point, too, so that I could keep track of my own time. The time I recorded was 20 seconds faster than the official one, but that’s splitting hairs really. In the end my finish time was 3 hours and 22 minutes, so I crossed the finish line 8 minutes inside my goal. Something that amazed me was how many runners stopped within the first mile of the race and yet started in front of others that could run better.
I guess it’s just one of those quirks of having 35,000 runners in one race I did have one really bad moment during the race. I’d just run past the Tower of London, along the cobbled stones that line The Embankment, and then through the gates and into the worst part of the race, surrounded by big, tall buildings and with the wind blowing straight into me. Then, as I came past Nelson’s Column, on my approach to Admiralty Arch and The Mall, the dreaded wall hit me. Yes, it really does feel like a wall. My legs just wouldn’t function properly. My brain said run, but my legs didn’t listen. I struggled up to Admiralty Arch, where there was a water station, and for the first time in approximately 22 miles I stopped running. I started to pour water over my head, my neck and my legs, as well as down my throat.
Somehow I had to get my legs moving again. Come on, you’re nearly there, I said to myself. If only my bloody legs would get going. My legs started to respond and I set off towards The Mall. I was just going under the arch when a member of the public literally saved me. He’ll never know it, but he really did. He shouted out, “Come on, number … You can do it, mate.” Bloody hell, I thought, somebody is shouting out my number. I don’t know who it is, but I could kiss him.
He thinks I can do it, so I bloody well will. And at that point my body came back to life, my legs started working, my head cleared and I was back to my race pace. Thanks a million, mate, whoever you are. I continued on down The Mall, around past Buckingham Palace and up over Westminster Bridge. All the while I could see the finish line. Yes, I’m gonna do it. Come on legs, just keep going five more minutes, then you can rest. Is that Sebastian Coe standing at the finish line? It looks like him. Yes, it is, and he’s waving at me. I always liked Seb Coe more than Steve Cram. I’m there, I’ve finished! I’ve just run 26 miles and 385 yards and then some prick sticks a gold medal that weighs a ton and half around my neck and says well done, while I practically collapse from the weight of the damn thing! Why can’t they
just hand it to you? Don’t they realise I’ve just run a bloody marathon?
I was then wrapped in silver foil and given more water, a Mars Bar and an apple. Good, ’cause I’m bloody hungry. I was bent over, with my hand on my knees, taking deep breaths. My damaged ankle was throbbing and very sore and my legs were pretty shaky, but I was feeling on top of the world. Then I heard a man’s voice saying to me, “Well done. How do you feel?” How do I feel? What a bloody stupid question, I thought. I was just about to tell him to fuck off when I looked up and – oh my God – it was Seb Coe. Thank God I’d checked who was speaking before I mouthed off!
“Great,” I replied sheepishly. “How about you?”
“Fucking knackered, but elated,” he said, patting me on the back and walking off. And that was that. I’d done it. I’d run the London Marathon. I’d finished in pretty poor condition, but considering the injury I was carrying and the time I’d done it was undoubtedly one of my best achievements ever. Maybe I wasn’t such a bad bloke after all? Maybe I actually did like myself again? Yes, running had dragged me out of the doldrums and given me back a purpose. Over the next few years I really got into my running. I loved it. I lived for it. Running became my life. It helped me cope with the stresses and strains of working in a prison and in particular in a YOI. There were several other enthusiastic runners at The Mount and we formed our own little running club. Every weekend we’d participate in local runs, competing in 5 or 10 kilometre races, 10 mile races, Borehamwood Half Marathon, and even a charity run around Brands Hatch – my lap time was good, but not really in the same league as Lewis Hamilton! I also completed Luton Half Marathon and the Great North Run twice, the second time finishing in the top 3,000 with a time of 90 minutes.
You may ask why this chapter is all about my running achievements and me and has nothing to do with the prison service. It may seem to have no relevance in this sense, but taking up running was a real turning point in my life. Had the prison service not brought me to Bovingdon, and had some of my colleagues not asked me to go running on that particular day, the rest of my life would’ve turned out very differently. Anyway, it’s my book, so I’m entitled to a little bit of self-indulgence, don’t you think?
I’ve got to say, on a final note, that completing the marathon was actually easier than collecting the money from those that had sponsored me. However, in another one of those quirks of fate, getting sponsorship money and running for charities led me to another major life event: meeting my future wife.
About the Author:
This autobiography about my prison service life and is my first book. Born 1951 in Tottenham England I am a family man and former prison officer. I have previously worked as a Telegraphist where I learned to touch type, very handy when it came to writing my book. I worked in the computer industry for several years and then as a driving instructor in London, but decided in 1983 that I needed a safer for of work so joined the Prison Service. I am happily married to a loving wife who I am lucky enough to be able to say is also my best friend. I have two step-daughters and four fantastic grandchildren. I have turned into my worst nightmare a doting grandad. I love all sports (Olympic Games in London 2012 was fantastic) particularly soccer, good wine, eating out, long lingering evening meals with good friends around the table. Holiday in the sun, and cruise holidays to see different places in the world.
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