Bronson (26 page)

On went the body-belt, and off we went. As we drove out of Luton, I sensed that it would be a very long time before I returned. But by the time we hit the M1, I was more positive. No stinking judge was going to destroy my dreams. I’d survive! We arrived safely at Belmarsh special security unit, a police escort with us right up to the gate. This Cat A unit was a prison within a prison, even having a separate 20ft wall surrounding it. Everything was treble secure: electronic doors, metal detectors, strip searches, cameras and a heavy ratio of screws. Being on this unit was apparently not enough for me, though. I had to be kept in the block section on my own. It was a fucking joke! All the other cons asked if I could be with them, but the Governor decided that I would remain in isolation.

Apart from all this, Belmarsh treated me OK. I got
plenty of food and my regular workout in the gym. There were also visits from Loraine and Andy, and the screws were decent to me. One screw in particular, Mick Reagan, was still a real gentleman. He went out of his way to put things right for me.

A week passed by without any problems, then I got a whisper that I was going to be moved. Parkhurst was mentioned, then Whitemoor. I didn’t have a clue which was true, but I needed to know, or my head would go!

Then I found out. I was moving up north to Wakefield, one of the worst piss-holes in the system. It had been almost two decades since I last slept in that dive and, I swear to God, it was the last place that I wanted to end up in! I felt bad. My mind was racing; I was thinking bad thoughts.

I felt like tearing up the place, but Belmarsh didn’t deserve that. This was the work of the Home Office. My name alone had caused this move. My eight years had begun, and they intended me to serve it the hard way!

I knew straight away that they had something planned for me because there was no way that Wakefield would let me go on the wing. It’s a jail full of stinking sex-cases – 80 per cent are lifers and 50 per cent of them are very unpleasant. Wakefield is infamous for its monsters – and I wasn’t about to serve my eight years with a bunch of monsters!

This was a bad move, and every screw’s face in Belmarsh confirmed my anxiety. I was now a
time-bomb
. The body-belt came out and I was trussed up once more. Most of the screws were genuinely gutted, and they all wished me well. I left there a very bitter man.

The journey up to Yorkshire was a silent one. As the van passed Luton on the M1, I thought of Loraine and I thought of my sick dad. I felt that my world was
beginning to cave in. It seemed that I was destined to walk the road back to insanity. I actually felt myself slowly going mad.

I’ve been on the edge of madness for as long as I can remember. I’ve always fought for my sanity and, at times, I’ve lost it, but I’ve always managed to get it back. The feeling that I had now was a strong desire to bury myself; a sense of complete defeat. I could not win. They would never allow me to be a normal con, and this move proved it. I started to fear myself, and believe me, this is the worst fear you can have. As Wakefield drew nearer, I went deeper into myself.

The only change that I immediately noticed as the van pulled up was the wall, which was no longer painted white. I watched as the gates opened, and as we drove slowly towards the special unit it seemed like I was going back through time to 1975. The van crept its way through another couple of gates. We stopped, and there they stood waiting, no less than 15 screws. With the six in the van, that made 21. Not good odds at all! I clocked the face of one screw who used to be at Full Sutton. The rest were distant, tense and ready to pounce. It’s quite pathetic the way that they crowd a man. It may well intimidate a lot of cons, but for me it just fuels my anger. I’m well past being scared. There’s only one man in the world who frightens me – and that’s myself.

Their eyes were all on me. They asked me my prison number and, as usual, I told them that I was a person, not a number. They also asked me what diet I was on and I told them, ‘Anything, as long as it’s dead.’

I was taken to a cell where the body-belt came off. Then I was strip-searched and they led me to the cage. So here I was in Wakefield, an animal in a cage. Alone, naked and bitter. That cage was infamous. I could smell despair in there. It was a concrete tomb.

They had their rules – you must wear prison clothes and must at all times be properly dressed …

I had my own rule, which was ‘bollocks to the rules!’ On 25 September, a Saturday morning, one of the governors came to give me a copy of the reason why I was being kept in the cage.

All this hostage shit had happened long before, so I couldn’t understand why they were taking action now. After all, I had behaved myself since then. The claim that I was threatening to do it again was a load of bollocks!

I wasn’t allowed out on exercise for my hour’s fresh air because I was refusing to wear clothes. And every time I slopped out there would be no less than a dozen screws watching me. The young screws chewed gum, trying to look hard. Really, it was quite pathetic.

The block was full up. Jon Jon Murray was here; he was one of the last to come down off the Strangeways roof after the riot there in Manchester. I couldn’t see him, but we had a good chat most nights through my window.

The geezer in the next cell to me had problems. Most nights I could hear his cries creeping through the walls. He would sob himself to sleep. It sounded like he was in pain; this poor sod obviously needed help. If I could hear him, then so could the night screw. But they just let him cry.

I banged his wall and told him to pull himself together. I sung Louis Armstrong’s ‘It’s a Wonderful World’ and I told him that it was only a matter of time and everything would seem better. But he would never respond.

Then the nights became so silent. Had he ripped up the sheets and hanged himself from the bars? One night I even rang my bell to tell the screw to look through his spy-hole. I felt sure he was dead. This guy was bugging me.

The guy that was above me was a sad case, too. He was a pre-operative transsexual and a double-lifer. He had killed his boyfriend’s lover and was now in the block awaiting transfer to Broadmoor. He kept on about a sex change, and how much it would cost him. I told him that if he got me a razor I’d do the operation on him myself, and I’d only charge him a couple of Mars bars! He didn’t speak to me again after that!

These sort of guys actually put a bit of humour into our days. He was calling himself Natasha, and it seems that he was doomed to die inside – I found out later that he was HIV positive.

I made it my duty to write to Loraine as much as I could. I can release a lot of tension by writing a letter. She also wrote to me more; she understands what a letter means to me. I wasn’t allowed any visits, except legal ones, on account of the fact that I refused to wear clothes. Julian Broadhead, my probation officer, booked a visit to see me but he was informed that I was too dangerous to be let out of the cage for a visit. But Julian said he needed to see me to make sure that
I was OK. He wouldn’t give up and he eventually got his way.

Julian was allowed to see me but I was not allowed out of the cage. Julian sat outside the cell door and I was naked on the other side of the bars. My cell stank – it had been my toilet and my bed for weeks. I’d had no air, so obviously I had started to smell, too. I’d not even been allowed to have a shave. It was embarrassing.

I looked like a wild man, an animal … like an ape in a dirty Victorian zoo.

It was magic to see him and actually to have a visit, but the circumstances were totally demeaning.

There were a few occasions when violence almost took me over and I just knew that the screws were waiting. But the Governor said he’d been instructed by the Home Office that I should remain isolated until further notice.

I sat in the corner, covered in a blanket and holding a biro pen in each hand, ready for the screws. I was prepared to blind the first fucker who walked through my door. I was getting ill again. Had my time come to go back into the nut-house? Was I mad? Or was I being driven mad simply because the prison system didn’t want me?

On 2 November the van arrived. I had spent 40 days and nights in that stinking cell with no clothes, no air and no real human contact. I felt bad, bitter and nasty. They secured me in the body-belt and led me off.

It was beautiful to feel the fresh air on my face. I filled my lungs with it; it felt like heaven. I shouted out to the lads, ‘Stay strong!’ as I climbed into the van. The electronic gate opened up slowly and the van drove off into Love Lane. As I was leaving that evil place behind, I thought to myself, May it rot. I was hoping that it would be the last time I would see
Wakefield. How wrong I was. I didn’t know it then but I was destined to return, very soon, to my very own nightmare.

The screws at Frankland didn’t seem to be taking any chances, maybe because the last time I was there I’d grabbed the Deputy Governor! I was put straight into the block. I was confused and bewildered because I’d been told I wouldn’t be there long, but they hadn’t told me what lay in store.

Eddie Slater, a lifer, was two cells away from me. Just beforehand, he had been up on the roof at Durham, protesting. Stevie ‘Sawn Off’ Galloway was also in the block. Steve is a Scouser, a lovely lad with plenty of bottle. He’d had a rough ride over the years, but always kept cheerful. A lot of my old mates were in Frankland at that time, but unfortunately I didn’t get to see them. At least Frankland block was clean, and we had sinks and toilets in our cells and I could wear my own clothes.

My next three weeks passed with no serious problems, but my pal Eddie Slater lost his father and the bastards denied him permission to go to the funeral. That put a bad taste in my mouth. It made me think about my own dad. If he were to die, as it looked likely he would soon, would they allow me to attend his funeral?

Three weeks doesn’t sound a long time, but believe me it is when you are stuck in no-man’s land, not knowing where you are going next.

One day my door unlocked and I was asked if I would see an officer from the special unit in Hull Prison. I agreed – what did I have to lose? Sweet
fuck-all
. I spoke to the senior officer from Hull for about 30 minutes and he as good as told me that my move to Hull Special Unit had already been sanctioned by the Home Office. I felt a bit of hope run through my veins. For the first time since I had been sentenced, I
actually felt relaxed. At least I would be able to make a cup of tea on that unit. I’d be able to mix with other cons and work out in the gym. I could try to settle down at last. I slept a bit more peacefully that night.

A couple of days later, the van arrived, the belt went on and off I went. I shouted out to Eddie and the lads to stay strong. This was going to be one of the few journeys that I actually felt happy about.

It took just over two hours from Frankland to Hull. As we travelled in the van, I truly felt now that I could get on and do my eight years. This was the break that I needed. It had to beat the blocks and the dungeons. I decided I would give it a good go. This was surely my last hope.

Hull gave me, in my first few months, the feeling of being in control of myself again, a big step for me at the time. It also produced one of those rare, magical moments that are so cherished by long-term cons.

I’d arrived on the unit on 29 November 1993 and settled down well. I did my own cooking, and I was allowed to phone Loraine and Andy twice a week. But, as often happens with me, a situation developed where I ended up not talking to the screws on the unit for three months. It wasn’t a sensible way to go on, so I put a deal to them – and I put it down in writing. It turned out to be an absolute blinder! By now it was Easter 1994, and Good Friday – which was also 1 April – was coming up. I told the screws, on a piece of paper, that I would talk with them only if they all stood outside my door on 1 April and sang ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’. That was my full and final demand!

I personally didn’t believe that they would do it, but to my amazement they did! Every screw on duty that morning at 8.00am stood there in a line and sang it for me. The other three cons on the unit, Paul Flint, Tony McCulloch and Eddie Slater, just couldn’t believe what was happening! They were buzzing. It
was magic – and it finally buried the hatchet. I’ve a lot of respect for them for doing that. The reason I had chosen not to speak to them in the first place was because one screw had upset me. I won’t go into it as it’s personal, but he knows what he did, so I’ll just leave it at that.

By now I’d learnt how to cook, I’d taken English and carpentry lessons, I’d done some paintings and a sculpture of a head. I got more certificates of achievement in four months than anyone else had in four years. Everyone was impressed – the teachers, the screws, the psychologist – but most of all I impressed myself.

I trained hard in the gym and helped the other three cons along, as I respected each one of them. They were only young, but all of them were good, dignified men. Karen Simpson was the unit psychologist. She was a lovely person and I don’t think she realised how much she helped me. Our chats together were always positive and I rate her as one of the nicest people that I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting. She certainly gave me a lot of hope and good advice.

Roland Barber was another lovely guy. He was an outside cook who came in twice a week to teach us. He always cheered our days up. Then there was Lach Forbes, an outside carpenter, who came in to teach us woodwork. Lach’s a diamond. He would come into the gym with us and have a laugh. He also made all the frames for my paintings. Then there was Steve Burgess, a hypno-therapist who came on to the unit twice a week to help us relax. Steve and I wrote a play for the radio together. I’ve a lot of respect for Steve, he helps so many people and he’s also got a big heart! There were so many decent people there, like Ivor Man, the English teacher – such a nice guy. They all helped us. And one screw in particular was very
decent. His name was Roy Kirk. Roy was only in his late 20s, and I’ve got to be honest, he’s one of the best blokes I’ve ever met. He stands no shit, but he’ll speak up for the cons if he thinks they are right. You couldn’t ask for better.