Heaven: A Prison Diary

Heaven

A Prison Diary

Volume 3

Jeffrey Archer

 
2006

The signpost
announces North Sea Camp, one mile. As we approach the entrance to the prison,
the first thing that strikes me is that there are no electric gates, no high
walls and no razor wire.

I am released from
my sweat box and walk into reception, where I am greeted by an officer. Mr Daff
has a jolly smile and a military air. He promises that after Wayland, this will
be more like Butlins. ‘In fact,’ he adds, ‘there’s a Butlins just up the road
in Skegness. The only difference is
,
they’ve got a
wall around them.’

Here, Mr Daff
explains, the walls are replaced by roll-calls – 7.30 am, 11.45 am, 3.30 pm,
8.15 pm and 10.00 pm, when I must present myself to the spur office: a whole
new regime to become accustomed to.

While Mr Daff
completes the paperwork, I unpack my HMP plastic bags. He barks that I will
only be allowed to wear prison garb, so all my T-shirts are taken away and
placed in a possessions box marked ARCHER FF8282.

Dean, a prison
orderly helps me. Once all my belongings have been checked, he escorts me to my
room – please note, room, not cell.

At NSC,
prisoners have their own key, and there are no bars on the windows.
So far so good.

However, I’m
back to sharing with another prisoner. My room-mate is David. He doesn’t turn
the music down when I walk in, and a rolled-up cigarette doesn’t leave his
mouth.

As I make my
bed, David tells me that he’s a lifer, whose original tariff was fifteen years.

So far, he’s
served twenty-one because he’s still considered a risk to the public, despite
being in a D-cat prison. His original crime was murder – an attack on a waiter
who leered at his wife.

Dean (reception
orderly) informs me that Mr Berlyn, one of the governors, wants to see me. He
accompanies me to the governor’s Portakabin, where I am once again welcomed
with a warm smile. After a preliminary chat, Mr Berlyn says that he plans to
place me in the education department. The governor then talks about the problem
of NSC’s being an open prison, and how they hope to handle the press. He ends
by saying his door is always open to any prisoner should I need any help or
assistance.

Dean takes me
off to supper in the canteen.

The food looks
far better than Wayland’s, and it is served and eaten in a central hall, rather
like at boarding school.

Write for two
hours, and feel exhausted.

When I’ve
finished, I walk across to join Doug in the hospital. He seems to have all the
up-to-date gossip. He’s obviously going to be invaluable as my deep throat. We
sit and watch the evening news in comfortable chairs. Dean joins us a few
minutes later, despite the fact that he is only hours away from being released.
He says that my laundry has already been washed and returned to my room.

I walk back to
the north block and report to the duty officer for roll-call. Mr Hughes wears a
peaked cap that resembles Mr Mackay’s in
Porridge,
and he enjoys the comparison. He comes across as a fierce sergeant major
type (twenty years in the army) but within moments I discover he’s a complete
softie.

The inmates
like and admire him; if he says he’ll do something, he does it. If he can’t, he
tells you.

I return to my
room and push myself to write for another hour, despite a smokefilled room and
loud music.

Final roll-call.
Fifteen minutes later I’m in bed and fast
asleep, oblivious to David’s smoke and music.

Alsatians woke
me at Belmarsh, at Wayland it was officers jangling keys as they made their
early morning rounds, but as NSC is only 100 yards from the coastline, it’s the
constant squawk of seagulls that causes you to open your eyes. Later, much
later, the muffled grunts of swine are added, as the largest
group
of residents at NSC are
the pigs living on the 900-acre prison farm. I
drape a pair of black boxer shorts over the light above my head to make sure
David is not woken while I continue my writing routine.

He doesn’t
stir. At seven-thirty I make my way to the shower room at the end of the
corridor.

Dean
accompanies me to breakfast: porridge from Monday to Friday, and cereal at
weekends, he explains. I satisfy myself with a very hard-boiled egg and a
couple of slices of burnt toast.

Induction.
During the first week at NSC, a prisoner spends
his time finding out how the place works, while the officers try to discover as
much as possible about the new inmate.

My first
appointment is with Dr Walling, the prison doctor, who asks the usual questions
about drugs, smoking, drinking, illnesses and allergies. After twenty minutes
of prodding, breathing in, being weighed, and having my eyes, ears, teeth and
heart checked, Dr Walling’s only piece of advice is not to overdo it in the
gym.

‘Try not to
forget you are sixty-one,’ he reminds me.

As I leave the surgery,
Doug, the hospital orderly a friend of Darren (Wayland, marijuana only),
beckons me into the private ward. Doug is six foot, and about sixteen stone,
with a full head of hair just beginning to grey, and I would guess is in his
late forties. The ward has eight beds, one of which is Doug’s, as someone has
to be resident at night in case a prisoner is suddenly taken ill. But what a
job; not only does Doug have a room the size of a penthouse suite, but he also
has his own television, and his own bathroom. He tells me that he’s in for tax
evasion, but doesn’t elaborate. Doug closes the door to his kingdom and
confirms that medical orderly is the best job in the prison. However, he
assures me that the second-best position at NSC is orderly at the sentence
management unit (SMU). Doug whispers that the SMU job is coming up in just over
four weeks’ time when the present incumbent, Matthew, will be released. Mr New,
the senior officer – equivalent to Mr Tinkler at Wayland – will make the final
decision, but Doug will put in a good word for me. ‘Whatever you do,’ he adds,
‘
don’t
end up working on the farm. Winter’s not far
off, so if the food doesn’t kill you, the farm will.’

As I leave, he
adds, ‘Come and have a drink this evening.’ (By that he means tea or coffee.)
‘I’m allowed two guests from seven to ten, and you’d be welcome.’ I thank him
and, silently, my old mentor Darren.
Who
you know
is just as important on the inside as it is on the outside.

My second
induction meeting is to decide what job I’ll do while I’m at NSC. I make my way
to the sentence management unit, a building that was formerly the governor’s
house and is situated just a few yards from the front gate. The pathway leading
up to the entrance is lined with tired red flowers. The light blue front door
could do with a lick of paint; it looks as if it is regularly kicked open
rather than pushed.

The first room
I enter has the feel of a conservatory. It has a dozen wooden chairs, and a
notice board covered in information leaflets. Four officers, including a Mr
Gough, who looks like a prep school master, occupy the first room on the ground
floor. As he ticks off my name, Mr Gough announces, in a broad Norfolk accent,
that he will be speaking to all the new inductees once everyone has come across
from their medical examination. But as Dr Walling is taking fifteen minutes
with each new prisoner, we may be sitting around for some time. As I wait
impatiently in the conservatory, I become aware how filthy the room is. At
Wayland, the floors shone from their daily buffing, and if you stood still for
more than a few moments, someone painted you.

Eventually, all
seven new inductees turn up. Mr Gough welcomes us, and begins by saying that as
most prisoners spend less than three months at
NSC,
the officers aim to make our time as civilized as possible while they prepare
us for returning to the outside world. Mr Gough explains that at NSC anyone can
abscond. It’s all too easy as there are no walls to keep you in. ‘But if you do
decide to leave us, please remember to leave your room key on your pillow.’
He’s not joking.

He then tells
us about a young man, who absconded sixteen hours before he was due to be
released. He was picked up in Boston the following morning and transferred to a
C-cat, where he spent a further six weeks.

Point taken.

Mr Gough takes
us through the jobs that are available for all prisoners under the age of
sixty, pointing out that over half the inmates work on the farm. The other half
can enrol for education, or take on the usual jobs in the kitchen, or painting,
gardening or as a cleaner.

Mr Gough ends
by telling us that we all have to abide by a ‘no drugs policy’. Refusing to
sign the three documents stating you are not on drugs and will agree at any
time to a voluntary drugs test will rule you out of becoming ‘enhanced’ in
eight weeks’ time. Enhancement allows you a further £5 a week to spend in the
canteen, along with several other privileges. To a question, Mr Gough replies,
‘Wearing your own clothes is not permitted in an open prison as it would make
absconding that much easier.’ However, I did notice that Doug (tax evasion) was
wearing a green T-shirt and brown slacks held up by the most outrageous Walt
Disney braces.

There’s always
someone who finds a way round the system.

I happily sign
all of Mr Gough’s drug forms and am then sent upstairs to be interviewed by
another officer. Mr Donnelly not only looks like a farmer, but is also dressed
in green overalls and wearing Wellington boots. No wonder the place is so
dirty. He appears keen for me to join him on the farm, but I explain (on Doug’s
advice) that I would like to be considered for Matthew’s job as SMU orderly. He
makes a note, and frowns.

After ten weeks
locked up in Wayland and always being handed a plate of food, I can’t get used
to helping myself. One of the kitchen staff laughs when I pass over my plate
and expect to be served. ‘A clear sign you’ve just arrived from a closed
prison,’ he remarks.

‘Welcome to the
real world, Jeff.’

After lunch,
Dean takes me across to view the more secluded, quieter south block, which is
at the far end of the prison and houses the older
inmates.1
Here
, there is a totally different atmosphere.

Dean shows me
an empty room, large by normal standards, about twenty by eight feet, with a
window that looks out over the bleak North Sea. He explains that the whole spur
is in the process of redecoration and is scheduled to reopen on Monday. In-cell
electricity (ICE) will be added, and all rooms will eventually have a
television. On our way back to the north block, an officer informs me that the
principal officer, Mr New, wants to see me immediately. I’m nervous. What have
I done wrong? Is he going to send me back to Wayland?

PO New is in
his late forties, around five feet eleven, with a shock of thick white hair.

He greets me
with a warm smile. ‘I hear you want to work at SMU?’ he says, and before I can
reply adds, ‘You’ve got the job. As Matthew is leaving in four weeks’ time,
you’d better start straight away so there can be a smooth takeover.’ I’ve hardly
got the words thank you out before he continues, ‘I hear you want to move to
the south block, which I’m sure will be possible, and I’m also told you want to
be transferred to Spring Hill, which,’ he adds, ‘will not be quite as easy,
because they don’t want you and the attendant publicity that goes with you.’ My
heart sinks.