836208

I was 20 and looked and had the mental age of a 14 year old when I first entered prison, in April 1971, for arson, burglary and deception, and received 5 years. Armley Prison, in Leeds, is a grim looking fortress overlooking the city centre.



My first impression upon entering the gates was that the law stopped outside of the gates, and that I was entering a lawless land. I noted that some of the guards wore slashed peaked caps and I was reminded of the SS. I also noted that the step beneath the locked gate to the Reception Area had worn down over the years to such an extent that I knew that I could crawl beneath the gate if I had wanted to. But, there was still the 20ft high wall to negotiate so I put the thought of immediate escape out of my mind. The smell was a mixture of decay, urine, sweat and disinfectant. I was processed at the long desk and given a number, 836208, and had a bath in 6 inches of water, and given a set of badly fitting clothes, the prison uniform had an itchy feeling about it.

I noticed that the Reception Officer gave a nod and a wink to the prisoner orderlies identifying those prisoners who had been convicted of sex offences against children or rapists, and they were dealt with violently when they visited the bathhouse. These prisoners would ask for protection under Rule 43, but before they could get to the relative safety of the Rule 43 landing, in effect, they had to run the gauntlet. I was not happy about this kind of treatment, and what made it worse in my eyes was that the prison doctor was in on this conspiracy. Before going into the main prison we were fed stodge and given a cup of transparent looking luke warm tea. The sex offenders had the added ingredients of urine and spit in their cups of tea.

When the cell door was slammed shut and locked behind me, my sense of bewilderment was distracted by this buff coloured booklet swinging from a hook attached to the back of the cell door. On the cover it stated "General Notes for the Guidance of Convicted Prisoners". I read the booklet, but later found that it bore little or no relation to the day to day realities of prison life that went on on the other side of the cell door. The booklet contained the disciplinary rules, some of which were clearly "catch-all" rules, and it was frustrating that I was not allowed to know all the Prison Rules and yet we were expected to abide by them.

I remember looking up at the half moon shaped window high up in the back wall, and having to put the chair on top of the table and climb up to look out. The walls were 8ft thick. It was a shock to my system to see that the world was still going on out there without me. Rather foolishly, I had imagined that it would have stood still, frozen in time, until such time that I was released. I felt pangs of regret. These quickly disappeared when a screw appeared at the spy hole in the door and shouted for me to get down and not feed the pigeons as it was against the rules. It did not matter that I was not feeding the pigeons. This was just the first of many false allegations levelled against me during 35 years of prison.

People go through life looking for security. I found this in prison.