The Great Escape

I do love a great mystery, in particular those involving the locked room scenario. This is why I set this brain teaser, unfortunately maneatingceesesandwich missed the fun. I won't go into the mental breakdown here, but it is similar to that which soldiers can undergo in the front line. What is relevant is that I ended up in the hospital wing of the prison being removed from normal location.

I was quite an adept cat burglar in my younger days, and realised that I had the ability to squeeze through small gaps. For example, when I first entered Armley Prison in Leeds, in April in 1971, I noticed the gap beneath the gate leading to the Reception Area. Over the years the sandstone step had worn away in the middle. I said to a prisoner, "I bet you half ounce of Old Holborn, I can get out of here". He looked around at the bars and locked gate and felt that he was secure in winning the bet so he accepted my challenge. It was arranged for a prisoner to keep the Reception Officer occupied in conversation whilst I wriggled under the gate and back again to collect my tobacco. Then I borrowed the ruler off the Reception Officer's desk and measured the gap at its widest point, it was 8 inches. I have got through smaller gaps before. As small as 6 and a half inches. The average brick is 3 inches wide, and the cement in between tends to be half inch, and I would gauge whether I could get through a gap by the span between the tip of my thumb and the tip of my index finger which is six and a half inches (and it's a true measure of penis size).

I had noticed the gap at the top of the cell windows on normal location, but these were half inch too narrow for me to escape. The Norman arch style design window frames had a single upright bar with round steel cross bars going through the upright bar. On all the windows except the one I crawled out of, the upright bar extended an inch above the top cross bar and was stuck in the middle of the half moon shape at the top of the window arch. Whilst walking around the hospital exercise yard I looked up and noticed on this one cell window that the bars had been inserted upside down, and the one inch bar that should have blocked the arch at the top was uselessly blocking the gap at the bottom. Unfortunately, I was not located in that cell. It took me three trips over to the hospital wing before I was located in the right cell.

Like a cat knows that if it can get its head and whiskers through a gap, I knew that if I could get my head and ears through then I could get the rest of my body through. However, this assessment is dependent upon the body being in proportion. At the time I had a 36 inch chest, 28 inch waist and 34 inch around the hips, and weighed 9 stone. Whilst the prison doctor was correct in his examination of my body that I was not double jointed or rubber boned, he erred in his assessment proclaiming that it was impossible for me to have slipped through the seven or seven and a half inch gap. I was naked and lubricated my body with soap. In the same way that a high diver dives to lessen the impact into the water, that is how I went out through the gap. First one shoulder tucks into the gap next to my neck, and then the other hand and arm come up as though getting into a jumper or if you like doing the overarm as in swimming. Once both my arms were out I was able to pull one pectoral muscle at a time through the gap. As my waist was then in the gap, I was able to turn over onto my back and grip the roof guttering and pull myself out and up onto the roof.

I remember someone who had spent two weeks digging out of a cell in Walton Prison in Liverpool. It was a relief to see the bed sheets dangling in front of my cell window as it meant and end to the ceaseless scraping that I found annoying. As one prisoner slid past the window he said "Tarrah!", and I last saw him running across the yard into the darkness. His cell mate was not so lucky, he was pear shaped, that is, his arse was bigger than his chest and once he had got his arms out his lateral spread prevented him crawling back in and his fat arse prevented him from crawling out. He was well and truly stuck in a hole, having previously stopped digging. Meanwhile, his cell mate was caught by one of the dog handlers after his dog had tasted flesh, and a roll check dicovered one half of a body still in the cell and the screws beat the shit out of what they could see.

Up on the roof, I had to work out my next move. I play chess like that, one move at a time, whereas others tend to work out several moves ahead. An Olympic long jumper might have been able to run along the rooftop and leap onto the outside wall, but I did not fancy my chances and if I had missed it was a 20ft drop either side. The drainpipes have been cemented to ensure that there are no gaps behind to allow for a handgrip to prevent anybody climbing up for a rooftop protest. And, as an added precaution, the visible metal is covered in grease. The other end of the hospital wing facing the main prison offered the best option, by hanging down from the gutter my feet were just able to reach a wall attached to the hospital wing. I walked along the wall as though a tightrope walker until I reached the relatively new Visting Room and clambered up onto its roof. This was adjoined to the gatehouse so that visitors are as near to the outside world as possible and are prevented from seeing too much of the world inside prison. However, with modern prison building programmes the security which afforded the Victorians is compromised.

Generally speaking, the gate house is considered to be the most secure because it is the highest point of the perimeter wall. However, in this case, and in a few other examples I have seen, it becomes the weakest point. Although an eye to security is a must when alterations are made, They are looking from the perspective of keeping prisoners in, with Us its from a perspective of getting out. Its one of those odd situations where we don't exactly see eye to eye. Had I managed to get out of my cell in Wakefield via "the fireplace", I had planned to use the security measures to affect my escape. This would have been very embarrassing for the prison authorities. For example, the tool I used for digging the "fireplace" I had "borrowed" from the Security Department and it was what they used for checking the bars. I also knew that my escape route was a blind spot for the CCTV camera, on the basis that if I could not see it then it could not see me.

Once on the Visiting Room roof I was able to pull myself up onto the roof of the gatehouse, but I could not see an easy way down from there and crossed to the other side. There I found the sloping roof which led down to the small enclosed yard, it was only a short drop but I still felt a twinge in my ankles and a burning sensation in the soles of my feet. I was just about to climb up the wooden gate to get over the wall, when I thought if the gate was unlocked I could actually walk out of the prison and that this would make the victory taste that little bit sweeter. Once outside I rolled about on a grass bank and laughed my head off.

When I was returned to the prison, the governor told me that his head would roll for this. He took it personal. "Why me, Hirsty, whatever have I done to you?". I told him, "Nothing personal, Guv, I just saw the opportunity and took it".