Bronson (6 page)

Soon I was being carried. I couldn’t breathe, I was choking and some bastard was squeezing my balls! Fists were smashing into my body. Once they had me in the corridor they were shouting, ‘You bastard. We’ll teach you for hitting an officer with a stick!’ I seemed to have upset them.

By the time they got me to the punishment block, I was well and truly fucked. Pain is not the word. My bollocks were in agony, my body ached, my eye was cut, even my toes were throbbing. They stripped me off, then strapped me up in a body-belt. This is a leather belt that locks at the back and has a metal cuff on each hip, which locks your wrists. They also strapped my ankles. If this was not enough, they injected me in my right buttock with a hypodermic needle.

I felt a wave of fear; I began to panic. My head span, I felt sick and groggy. I’ll never forget the burning sensation as they injected me. I awoke in a pool of blood and vomit.

For me, this was all torture. They had already beaten me, so why do more? They did it to me because I obliged one of theirs. These injections were used a lot in the ’60s and ’70s.

It was known as the ‘Liquid Cosh’.

The doctors were using strong sedatives to control
unmanageable prisoners. This was my first shot of the Liquid Cosh, but sadly not my last. The drug – I believe it was a large dose of Largactil – knocked me out, but the side-effects were even worse: stiffness, muscular spasms, dryness of the mouth, blurry vision. It lingered for days. The practice is now banned in prisons.

I woke up in the ‘strong box’, a double-doored cell, sound-proofed and totally isolated. It’s like a cell within a cell with no windows and no furniture. It’s silent. And it’s where all the kickings are given out. I spent weeks there.

I gained an extra six months over that incident, as well as punishment and fines. Soon after, Irene and Michael visited. But unknown to me at the time, it was the last I would ever see of my wife. And I wouldn’t see my son for 23 years.

Irene said something to me on that last visit that has stuck in my head ever since. I can still hear her saying, ‘You’ll end up in a nut-house the way you’re going.’ How prophetic that was.

Life became more and more a battle to survive. My violent outbursts were becoming uncontrollable. Even locked in the punishment block 23 hours every day, I still got myself into serious trouble, smashing up cells, attacking screws. On one occasion I tried my luck at escaping!

I was out in the exercise cage, a small yard surrounded by a 20ft fence topped with razor wire and cameras positioned to monitor us walking around. This particular day, I spotted something worth a go. I can’t say how I did it for obvious reasons, but I got out of the cage. I ran to a building that was being demolished. My plan was to pick up a large wooden joist, take it over to the perimeter fence, lean it up, climb up it, pull it back up, put it over the wall and slide down it. It all sounds so crazy now, but it seemed
worth a go. Off I shot, but before I even got to the building, the alarm bells went off, the cameras were on me, dogs were barking and screws running. I was in trouble!

I ran as fast as I could back to the cage. I saw an alsatian dog 30 yards away coming at me with incredible speed and I could hear the pounding of boots getting nearer and nearer. I leapt on to a 20ft camera pole and shinned up it as fast as I could! From there, I leant over on to the fence and jumped – a long fucking drop! I left half my jeans and shirt up on the razor wire; blood was oozing out of a gash in my arm and out of a leg wound. My right ankle was smashed. Seconds after I hit the concrete floor inside the cage, there were dozens of screws surrounding the fence looking at me. Obviously the camera doesn’t lie, but I still denied everything. I got another six months for that.

For five months I was on punishment, but I assaulted more screws and just went from bad to worse. My mind was beginning to wander. Then I had a fall-out with a con who would later come back to haunt me, John Henry Gallagher. He was directly above my cell in the punishment block. Nobody liked him. He was a Jock serving six years, always in debt, always in trouble with other cons.

One night he was banging my ceiling. It went on and on and on until I shouted up, ‘Jock, give it a rest, mate. I can’t think.’ He shouted back, ‘Fuck off, you English pig!’

To say I was upset is an understatement. For days afterwards, I prayed that my door would be open the same time as his, but with being in the punishment block we all slopped out alone. It was useless, I couldn’t get to him.

I was getting badly worked up about him. Then after six months, I was moved back up on to the wing
where I was allowed to mix with other cons. I was starting to get worried about Irene – I hadn’t heard from her for months – but I was sorting out a big soft toy to be made in one of the workshops for my son. Two days went by and, to my shock, Gallagher walked on to my wing, bold as brass and twice as nasty! The screws knew that we didn’t get on, so I wonder whether it was a deliberate case of encouraging us to fight.

I could take no chances, as he was a violent man himself. It was a case of attack or be attacked. I tore into his cell with a jug and smashed it into his face. I hit him again with the jagged handle. He screamed so I hit him again and again. Each punch was with the jug handle and it cut him every time – legs, body, arms, face, neck. I just kept cutting the bastard, and he kept on screaming. I was actually laughing as I was doing it – insanely.

My head was really going, the danger signs were there. For the first time in my life, I felt nothing but hate. Prison had created what I now was – a madman! I was taken back to the block covered in blood. Some of my clothes were put in a plastic bag for police forensic tests and I was charged with GBH. They took me to Hull Magistrates, then the escort drove away from Hull. I was being taken to another jail, and I really didn’t give a fuck.

Gallagher would pop up again, I was sure. And pop up again he did.

A couple of hours after leaving Hull, the van pulled up to what appeared to be an old castle. This place looked evil; I felt a warning sign pass through my veins like a shot of adrenalin. The van drove slowly through the open gates. I spotted the reception area where a dozen or more screws with big shiny boots were waiting. As I got out of the van, followed by the six screws who were with me, the
other screws came marching over. One of them said, ‘This is the fucker.’ It was pure intimidation; they were set for trouble.

I was taken through the tunnel that led to the punishment block. There were a dozen cells with beds outside the doors and I was led into a cell where they began taking off my handcuffs. It was all eye-to-eye contact. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife.

‘Right, sonny boy, strip off.’

I told them, ‘Bollocks.’

They never asked again.

They were on me like a ton of bricks, kicking, punching, tearing at my clothes until they left me naked, locked up in a freezing, dirty, stinking cell, with no furniture, no bed. There was just a Bible, a piss-pot, a jug of water and a lot of aches, pains and bruises. I’d arrived at Armley Jail, Leeds.

The next two years, from 1975 to 1977, were like a bloody merry-go-round: from Armley to Wakefield; to Wandsworth then Parkhurst; Wandsworth again, up to Walton, back to Wandsworth, and on again to Parkhurst.

Counting bricks in a cell will drive any man mad, so it was at Armley where I started my fitness régime, a discipline which kept me occupied and in good fighting shape for years to come.

My days at Armley were long, boring and totally soul-destroying. The Governor came down soon after I arrived to ask if I would behave myself. I told him, ‘I’ve done nothing – but just look at the state of me.’

He said I was to remain in the block on ‘good order and discipline’ for as long as I stayed in Armley. When I asked him why, he replied simply, ‘Because you’re too dangerous to mix.’

So here I was, locked up in the block, still no letters from Irene, and living the life of a hermit. I would go out on the exercise yard for my one-hour-
a-day 
walk, then be locked up for 23 hours. Those days, even a radio wasn’t allowed. I had to plan a routine to survive.

I worked out in my cell every day but Sunday – press-ups, sit-ups, squats, step-ups, shadow boxing. During my hour on the yard, I jogged.

At first, they said I wasn’t allowed to jog. I told them, ‘Bollocks. What the fuck are you going to do, break my legs? Go and fuck off!’ They left me alone to jog after that.

I only got one shower a week, so I used to
strip-wash
two or three times a day in my cell.

I still do that to this day. I get up at 7.00am, run the cold tap, and bung my head under for as long as I can before washing.

Night-times at Armley, I would have my light turned off by 7.00pm and I’d just switch off completely. I used to plug my ears, cover my eyes and go into myself. Deep thoughts; some good, some bad, some evil. I went through a period of searching myself.

I never found out a lot! I was just a mixed-up, confused young man with so much energy. I hoped my training routine would at least take the edge away and relax me enough to stop me becoming violent. I could never build up too much muscle, not with the diet I was on. It was swill. It seemed an eternity since I’d chewed a decent piece of meat or had a cool drink of milk. Prison food is mostly stodgy, uncooked plates of filth. Even the porridge is pig feed, but you become accustomed to it. Two pieces of fruit a week, when I used to eat eight pieces a day outside.

At times I felt fatigued and faint when I worked out, but I pushed myself to the limit. I persevered – I had to, as I had so much tension inside. I was given one letter a week to write out. I had stopped writing to Irene, so I mostly wrote to my parents.

It was pretty quiet in this block, but the block
cleaner was a complete toe-rag, a filthy grass. I actually heard him grass up a con who smuggled in some tobacco. I waited for the right moment, then I pounced. I hit him five or six times in a blind spot by the showers then just left him on the floor and went back to my cell and banged up. Five minutes later, the screws came in for me.

I denied hitting anyone.

The cleaner vanished and a new one took his place. Then Dougie Wakefield arrived. He got life for killing his uncle with a pitchfork. He was moved from another prison for the attempted murder of a screw. It was our first encounter, but it was the beginning of a long friendship. Dougie was facing years of hell and he knew it. I was facing years of hell but I never knew it.

Dave Anslow was the next to arrive. Dave had been in the control unit at Wakefield for six months. He was from Dudley in the West Midlands – fit, strong and fearless. They decided to let us out on the yard together. He was the first con I’d really mixed with for months. It was a treat. I respected Dave so much; he and his brothers, Eric and John, all became loyal friends of mine. I called them the Dudley Firm.

Dave and myself were getting pissed off with all the solitary so we decided to put something together. We plotted up and went to work. Our cells were next to each other. When we heard the eleven o’clock chime in the night, that was when we were going to execute our plan. On the last chime, I picked up my iron bed and began ramming it into the door. After a good 30 or 40 smashes the spy-hole casing was gone, the hinges were loose, the whole thing was breaking up. The plan was crazy, but that’s how we were … smash the doors off, grab some screws and go home!

Nothing’s that simple!

I could hear Dave’s door, every thud rocking the walls. The whole fucking jail must have woken up.
Soon the screws turned up, some in uniform, some in civvies. There was the Governor, too, and there were dogs. We weren’t going anywhere!

They went to Dave’s door first. They shouted at him, ‘Right, Anslow, stand back. We’re coming in.’ Next thing I heard a scuffle, shouts and Dave being carried away. It was a good 20 minutes before it was my turn. There was no warning; it was just bang, smash and they were in.

I ended up in a strong box at the other end of the jail, a box that had been out of use for years. When they slung me in and slammed the door it was total blackness. I could smell dampness and dust. I could feel lumpy things under my feet – dead cockroaches. The place had the smell of decay. I was itching, I felt dirty. I had a good seven hours in pitch darkness before they unlocked me.

It felt like the longest seven hours of my life. Dave had been put in the block box, but this box was the fucking pits!

When the door opened in the morning, I attempted to rush out. I was shouting, ‘I can’t fucking breathe!’

I battled with them, my head was gone completely. They grabbed me, bent me up and slung me back in! For two days I endured this hell-hole, and I can honestly say it was the worst pit I’ve ever had to climb out of.

Soon after, I was moved again – another mystery tour in the back of a van. I went to Wakefield and Dave and Dougie were moved to Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight. I got my charge dropped from GBH on Gallagher, pleading guilty to unlawful wounding. I received another nine months. As I left Hull Crown Court, I didn’t even bother to ask where the van was going. I just sat there thinking. The strange thing was, nobody knew then that three years later Gallagher would be released and would kill four people. He was
later sent to Broadmoor for the rest of his natural days. If I had killed the scumbag, four people would be alive today. But who can see into the future?

From the second I entered Wakefield top-security unit, I knew I would not last. The reception screws told me I was going straight into the block. When I asked them why, they just smiled and said, ‘The Governor will tell you tomorrow.’

I went mad. ‘Bollocks,’ I said. ‘I want to know now, not tomorrow!’

They surrounded me, led me to the block and locked me up. I wasn’t too happy!

The Governor came into my cell with half-a-dozen screws to tell me that I was staying in the block on good order and discipline and would remain so all of the time I was there. When I asked why, he told me the Home Office wanted me isolated as they felt I was a danger. This was a fucking joke to me. Wakefield Jail housed over 500 cons, 450 of them lifers. I made it clear that I was not happy with this decision, but the Governor just smiled and walked out. I was now trapped, my reputation had preceded me. I felt hostility towards me – the screws were tense, ready to jump me at any time. Within hours of being there I blew. I went out to collect my tea. A good dozen screws were staring at me. One said, ‘You! Back to your cell and put a shirt on.’