Heaven: A Prison Diary (19 page)

Incidentally,
the other gym orderly Bell is also the NSC goalkeeper. He used to be at Spring
Hill, but asked for a transfer to be nearer his wife. NSC needed a goalkeeper,
so the transfer only took four days. Thanks to this little piece of subterfuge
we’re now on a winning streak. However, I have to report that the goalkeeper’s
wife has run off with his best friend, which may account for Bell being sent
off last week. We lost 5-0.

I now have to
work seven days a week, as there’s a surgery on Saturday and Sunday.

It’s a small price
to pay for all the other privileges of being hospital orderly.

Not many
patients today, eleven in all, but then there’s no work to skive off on a
Saturday morning. Sister leaves at ten-thirty and I have the rest of the day to
myself, unless there’s an emergency.

Spend a couple
of hours editing
Sons of Fortune
, and
only take breaks for lunch, and later to watch the prison football match.

The football
manager and coach is a senior officer called Mr Masters. He’s proud of his
team, but when it comes to abusing the referee, he’s as bad as any other
football fan.

Today he’s
linesman, and should be supporting the ref, not to mention the other linesman.
But both receive a tirade of abuse, as Mr Masters feels able to give his
opinion on an offside decision even though he’s a hundred yards away from the
offence, and the linesman on the other side of the pitch is standing opposite
the offending player. To be fair, his enthusiasm rubs off on the rest of the
team, and we win a scrappy game 2-0.

Only five
inmates turn up for early morning surgery. Linda explains that although the
prison has a photographic club, woodwork shop, library, gym and chapel, a lot
of the prisoners spend the weekend in bed, rising only to eat or watch a
football match on TV.

It seems such a
waste of their lives.

My visitors
today are Malcolm and Edith Rifkind. Malcolm and I entered the House around the
same time, and have remained friends ever since. Malcolm is one of those rare animals
in politics who has few enemies.

He was
Secretary of State for Defence and Foreign Secretary under John Major, and I
can’t help reflecting how no profession other than politics happily divests
itself of its most able people when they are at their peak. It’s the equivalent
of dropping Beckham or Wilkinson at the age of twenty-five. Still, that’s the
prerogative of the electorate, and one of the few disadvantages of living in a
democracy.

Malcolm and his
wife Edith want to know all about prison life, while I wish to hear all the
latest gossip from Westminster. Malcolm makes one political comment that will
remain fixed in my memory: ‘If in 1979 the electorate had offered us a contract
for eighteen years, we would have happily signed it, so we can’t complain if we
now have to spend a few years in the wilderness.’ He and Edith have travelled
up from London to see me, and they will now drive on to Edinburgh. I cannot
emphasize often enough how much I appreciate the kindness of friends.

Mr Baker drops
in for coffee and a chat. The officers’ mess is closed over the weekend, so the
hospital is the natural pit stop. He tells me that one prisoner has absconded,
while another, on returning from his town visit, was so drunk that he had to be
helped out of his wife’s car. That will be his last town visit for several
months. And here’s the rub, it was his first day out of prison for six years.

‘Papa to Hotel,
Papa to Hotel, how do you read me?’

This is PO
New’s call sign to Linda, and I’m bound to say that the hospital is the nearest
I’m going to get to a hotel while I remain incarcerated in one of Her Majesty’s
establishments.

It’s a freezing
morning in this flat, open part of Lincolnshire, so there’s a long queue for
the doctor. First in line are those on the paper chase, due for release
tomorrow. The second group comprises those facing adjudication – one caught
injecting heroin, a second in possession of money (£20) and finally the inmate
who came back drunk last night. The doctor declares all three fit, and can see
no medical reason that might be used as mitigating circumstances in their
defence.

The heroin
addict is subsequently transferred back to Lincoln. The prisoner found with £20
in his room claims that he just forgot to hand it in when he returned from a
town visit, so ends up with seven days added.

The drunk gets
twenty-one days added to his sentence, and no further town visits until further
notice. He is also warned that next time,
it’s
back to
a B-cat.

Those in the
third group – by far the largest – are either genuinely ill or don’t feel like
working on the farm at below-zero temperatures. Most are told to return to work
immediately or they will be put on report and come up in front of the governor.

I phone Mary,
who has some interesting news. I feel I should point out that Mr Justice Potts
claimed at the end of my trial that this is, ‘
As
serious an offence of perjury as I have had experience of and as I have been
able to find in the books’.

A Reader in Law
at the University of Buckingham has been checking sentencing for those
convicted of perjury. She has discovered that, in the period 1991–2000,

1,024 people
were charged with this offence in the United Kingdom. Of the 830 convicted,
just
under
400 received no custodial sentence at all,
while in the case of 410, the sentence was eighteen months or less. Only four
people were given a four-year sentence upheld on appeal. One of these framed an
innocent man, who served thirty-one months of a seventeen year sentence for a
crime he did not commit; the second stood trial twice for a murder of which he
was acquitted, but was later convicted of perjury during those trials. The
other two were for false declarations related to marriage as part of a largescale
immigration racket.

There’s a knock
on my door, and as the hospital is out of bounds after six o’clock unless it’s
an emergency, I assume it’s an officer. It isn’t. It’s a jolly West Indian
called Wright.

He’s always
cheerful, and never complains about anything except the weather.

‘Hi, Jeff, I
think I’ve broken my finger.’

I study his
hand as if I had more than a first-aid badge from my days as a Boy Scout in the
1950s. I suggest we visit his unit officer. Mr Cole is unsympathetic, but
finally agrees Wright should be taken to the Pilgrim Hospital. Wright reports
back an hour later with his finger in a splint.

‘By the way,’ I
ask, ‘how did you break your finger?’

‘Slammed it in
a door, didn’t I.’

‘Strange,’ I
say, ‘because I think I’ve just seen the door walking around, and it’s got a
black eye.’

In my mailbag
is a registered letter from the court of appeal. I print it in full. (See
overleaf.) The prison authorities or the courts seem to have been dilatory, as
my appeal may be put off until February, rather than held in December. The
experts on the subject of appeals, and by that I mean my fellow
inmates,
tell me that the usual period of time between
receiving the above letter and learning the date of one’s appeal is around
three weeks. It’s then another ten days before the appeal itself.

Among my other
letters is one from Dame Edna, enquiring about the dress code when she visits
NSC.

Brian (attempt
to defraud an ostrich company) thanks me for a box of new paperbacks that have
arrived at the Red Cross office in Boston, sent by my publisher.

My new job as
hospital orderly means I’ve had to adjust my writing regime. I now write
between the hours of 6 and 7 am, 1 and 3 pm, and 5 and 7 pm. During the weekends,
I can fit in an extra hour each day, which means I’m currently managing about
thirty-seven hours of writing a week.

I visit the
canteen to purchase soap, razor blades, chocolate, Evian and phonecards,
otherwise I’ll be dirty, unshaven, unfed and unwatered over Christmas, not to
mention uncontactable. The officer on duty checks my balance, and finds I’m
only £1.20 in credit.

Help!

‘Archer to report to reception immediately, Archer to report to reception
immediately.’

Now Mr Daff has
retired, I’m not allowed the same amount of latitude as in the past.

I’ve received
five parcels today. The first is a book by Iris Murdoch,
The Sea,
The
Sea,
kindly sent in by a lady
from Dumfries. As I read it some years ago when Ms Murdoch won the Booker
Prize, I donate it to the library. The second is a silver bottle opener – not
much use to an inmate as we’re not allowed to drink – but a kind gesture
nevertheless. I ask if I can give it to Linda. No, but it can be put in the
old-age pensioners’ raffle.

The third is a
Parker pen. Can I give it to Linda? No, but it can be put in the old-age
pensioners’ raffle. The fourth is a teddy bear from Dorset. I don’t bother to
ask, I just agree to donate it to the old-age pensioners’ raffle. The fifth is
a large tube, which, when opened, reveals fifteen posters from the Chris
Beetles Gallery, which I’ve been eagerly awaiting for over a week. I explain
that it’s a gift to the hospital, so there’s no point in putting it in store
for me because the hospital will get it just as soon as I am released. This
time
they
agree to let me take it
away. Result: one out of five.

I happily spend
a couple of hours, assisted by Carl and a box of Blu-Tack, fixing prints by
Albert Goodwin, Ronald Searle, Heath Robinson, Emmett, Geraldine Girvan, Paul
Riley and Ray Ellis to the hospital walls.

With over 900
Christmas cards littered around the beds, the ward has been transformed into an
art gallery. (See opposite.)

I return to the
canteen. I’m only £2.50 in credit, whereas I calculate I should have around
£18. It’s the nearest I get to losing my temper, and it’s only when the officer
in charge says he’s been trying to get the system changed for the past year
that I calm down, remembering that it’s not his fault. He makes a note of the
discrepancy on the computer. I thank him and return to the hospital.

I have no
reason to complain; I’ve got the best job in the prison and the best room, and
am allowed to write five hours a day.
Shut up, Archer.

I attend the
carol service at six-thirty, where I read one of the lessons. Luke 2, verses
eight to twenty. As I dislike the modern text, the vicar has allowed me to read
from the King James
version
.

The chapel is
packed long before the service is due to begin and the organ is played with
great verve and considerable improvisation by Brian (ostrich fraud). The
vicar’s wife, three officers and four inmates read the lessons. I follow Mr
New, and Mr Hughes follows me. We all enjoy a relaxed service of carols and
lessons, and afterwards there is the added bonus of mince pies and coffee,
which might explain the large turnout.

After the
service, Brian introduces me to Maria, who’s in charge of the Red Cross shop in
Boston. She has brought along my box of paperbacks and asks if I would be
willing to sign them. I happily agree.

Record numbers
report sick with near freezing conditions outside.