Bronson (5 page)

CHAPTER TWO

The first thing that hits you when you’re banged up with long-term prisoners is the dead eyes. The dreams that have turned into nightmares, fantasy to reality, love to emptiness. Behind every door at Walton Jail there was misery. Blokes like me, newly sentenced, with the prospect of years inside. Wives and girlfriends isolated as much as us – at least at first. That gnawing, draining, feeling of hopelessness. The knowledge that your loved ones are left to fend for themselves. The numbed fear that you may never see them again.

Some convicts, of course, never do. Some are destined to live and die behind bars. It’s never nice to see the old boys hobbling around the exercise yard, with their distant, watery eyes. Some of these old lags have been locked up for maybe 40 years. They know little else but prison life. Many actually don’t wish to be freed; most simply die in their sleep. No family, no home, no contact. Their whole world is prison, and prison is all they have for family. Institutionalised … beyond help. You might call it a living hell; dead men walking. Above all, it’s just very, very sad.

H Wing at Walton was the long-term allocation wing. Below us was the punishment block. I was told I would be on the wing for six to nine months. I never liked this jail from the second I entered it. It was one of the old Victorian jails, in a suburb of Liverpool. Five storeys high, dirty, cockroach-infested, rat-infested, overcrowded, swill for food, rags for clothes. Everything was meant to bring a man down, degrade and humiliate him.

With hindsight, I suppose we were lucky in one sense. On H Wing, it was all single cells. We were long-termers – five years and over. My seven years was a short stretch compared with most. It was depressing to read the cards showing the names and sentences of the other inmates outside their cell doors. It was even more depressing to see a man walk out of his cell with vacant eyes. We were all losers, failures. It’s bloody hard for a man to accept he’s a loser. It’s even tougher when you’re behind a locked door.

Christmas was soon on us. In 1974, the Christmas Number 1 hit was ‘It Will Be Lonely This Christmas’ by Mud. I had a visit from Irene and my boy, but it never helped her at all. She was tearful and upset throughout it. An hour in six fucking months was all I spent with them! It was getting to me, and it was
becoming harder to control my urges of violence. As lovely as Irene was and as sweet as she looked, I felt lost when I saw her. We were lost to each other. It was too much for her; she was slipping away from me. I could sense it.

I can remember that day so clearly. I was seriously wound up; six months inside, and sixty minutes with my family!

After the visit, I broke a con’s nose and smashed up his ribs. I left him on the floor of his cell. He was a lifer (he’d strangled his girlfriend and assaulted his kid). I took my frustration out on him. Right or wrong, I emptied myself of tension. I felt better. Fuck him! This toe-rag had snuffed his girl and smashed his kid – and I was being torn away from mine.

A few days later, I smashed up a filthy grass in the recess. He was lucky, as I felt like cutting him up. That’s not my game, but I felt hate bubbling up inside me like never before. It was as if I was on a suicide mission. I hit him with hooks, crosses. Insanely, I even tried to gouge his eye out. I was so far gone I was actually enjoying it.

Violence is an escape from reality. It can relieve tension. In prison, it’s like being in a pride of lions, or being a lone wolf; the law of the jungle prevails. The victor will be respected. It’s truly mad but it’s prison life. I left the filthy grass on the toilet floor in his own blood and dirt. I walked out to be escorted to the punishment block.

This dungeon was a shit-tip, filthy, gloomy, no heating, damp – and the screws ran it with a fist of iron. There were a lot of unnecessary kickings going on down there. I was pushed into a cell, smashed up against a wall, and told what would happen if I stepped out of line. As they left, they slammed the steel door,

I felt a strange feeling of blackness come over me, a
sort of indescribable depression. With blood still on my fists and over my shirt, I covered myself with a blanket, lay on the wooden boards and drifted into a nightmare.

This cell was freezing. It stank of stale piss; it was dirty with bits of food stuck to the walls and ceiling. There were stains where the cons had slung their cups of tea. On the concrete floor were specks of dried blood. It was enough to drive a sane man mad. The cell was 12ft long, 8ft wide and 12ft high. There was no window, no furniture, just boards for a bed and a plastic piss-pot. The ‘Judas hole’ in the door was the real wind-up for me. Every half-
an-hour
it opened; that fucking eye staring at me, watching me. It was invading my privacy. I was becoming something I never believed existed – a lost soul. My insight was fading, I was losing my head. I screamed blue murder, I even tried to break out the thick glass so I could poke them in the eye, but they’ve got an answer for everything – they moved me to another cell.

It’s a battle of wits, but they will overcome anything you come up with. Obviously you can make it difficult for a spell, but you can’t ever win.

Eventually they steamed in and kicked the granny out of me.

They were doing it to the wrong person! I’d never let it be. As they walked away I shouted to them: ‘One up on you bastards!’ They must have taken it seriously as I was let up on the wing the very next day. I had one thought running through the back of my mind … My turn will come.

Days later, I was involved in a ‘sit-in’ inside a workshop over the way a con had been treated. He was dragged out of the shop a bit heavy by a bunch of screws. We didn’t like the way he was handled.

I grabbed a pair of scissors and stuck them down
my overalls, ready to stab a screw if any violence broke out. I was ready and willing to go all the way!

Security screws came in to see what was up and some cons told them we were not happy. There were a good thirty screws. They brought in a con called Delroy Showers, a black guy from Liverpool, well respected and regarded as one of the top men in the jail. It was my first meet with Delroy. He told us that the con who’d been dragged out was OK and not injured. All the Scouse lads said Delroy was 100 per cent. We took his word and called it off. I was moved the next day.

As the cuffs went on my wrists and the van drove out of Walton Jail, I knew in my heart I’d be back one day to avenge that beating! No fucker beats me and lives to say I never come back. I’ll always come back for more – until I win or until I die. It was to take ten whole years but, hell, did I get my revenge in style! As the van sped off, I wondered where I was going. It was even further north – and right on the other side of the country.

As the van drove up to Hull Prison, the first things that struck me were the electronic cameras all set on the walls and outside the prison gates. It may be common now, but this was 1975 – over a quarter of a century ago. Once inside the gates, I noticed even more cameras plus a 20ft barbed-wire fence within the walls. This jail was maximum secure. It housed some of Britain’s most dangerous men: killers, terrorists, bank robbers. As my van drove in, Delroy Showers’ brother Michael drove out. He was on his way to Albany Jail on the Isle of Wight. I was taking his cell! That’s how jails work … one leaves, one arrives. It’s like a game of chess, but we are the pawns. Whether we walk to the van or are forcibly carried, we have no choice.

Once I was through reception, I was allocated to A
Wing. There, I met a few cons I knew: Tommy Tedstone, Harry Johnson, Wally Lee, Micky Ahmed and Jimmy Cassidy. Then I was introduced to many others who became life-long friends, guys who I respect – legends in the system and legends outside. Charlie Wilson was among them. He got 30 years for the Great Train Robbery in the ’60s. He’s a man I had so much respect for. He never cried about his sentence, he always helped other cons out – a truly lovely guy. Nothing was ever too much for Charlie. Some toe-rag shot and killed him some years later at his villa in Spain. A great loss to us all, but he will always be remembered.

Stan Thompson is another man I’ve always admired, a born fighter. He later made one of England’s most dramatic escapes, in the ’80s, from Brixton secure unit. Three top-secure cons dug through three walls and escaped! Stan’s served years in top-secure jails, but he still fights his way through, keeps super fit and lives for victory.

Siddy Draper got life and 28 years for a robbery up in Scotland. From when I met him at Hull in 1975, it took him ’til 1987 to get out. He went out in a helicopter from Gartree, Leicestershire. It was the only helicopter escape this country has ever known. Sadly, he was recaptured some months later. Blackie Saxton was serving 24 years, a great guy who I love and respect. He’s one of the old school, solid. His league is a dying breed.

Then there was big Les Hilton. A lot of guys didn’t like Les. He was black and he was fearless. His 19 stone could, at times, be intimidating. I respected Les because he was a pure survivor. Eight Jocks once went into his cell to serve him up, but he fought them all and survived the stabbings! That’s a survivor at his best. He was later stabbed to death outside. I liked Les; I love a born fighter. And there are plenty of
other cons I met who became pals in the years that faced me: Kenny Wimbles, Ernie Page, Bertie Costa, Johnny Reed … I can go on and on, but the guys I’ve left out know who they are.

The jail itself was miles ahead of Walton. It had a good gym (at the time the only prison gym in the country with a boxing ring). It had a football pitch, snooker tables, darts, table tennis and a kitchen to cook a meal. Everyone had a single cell – luxury compared to most jails. My cell window looked over the wall. I could see the Hull Dock cranes and the ships being unloaded. It was a smashing sight. I’ve sat for hours watching those cranes at work. The smell of the fish was strong in the air. The seagulls woke us up most mornings, screeching. Fascinating birds to watch, they rarely flap their wings. They just glide with the wind.

I used to throw bread out to them. Some would dive and catch the bread before it hit the deck. Incredible birds, so graceful. They represent freedom to me, total freedom! As I tell you my story, I’m in a cell with no window – just thick mesh and, through that, a grey view of concrete, closed-circuit TV cameras and razor wire. Sometimes, but only sometimes, I catch a brief glimpse of a little bird flying by.

From my cell all those years ago, I actually witnessed part of the Humber Bridge being built, a bridge I would drive across many years later. At least I had something of a window on the outside world.

The food was also good in Hull. There was variety, it was well prepared – and most of all there was plenty of it. I felt like I could get on with my sentence and settle down. But life never works out like we hope, does it?

After a week, they gave me a job in a workshop on a sewing machine. Me on a sewing machine! It just doesn’t bear thinking about!

No possible way could I sit and work a soppy sewing machine. I told them ‘No’. I started to sabotage the machine. They soon got the message. They knew it was senseless putting me on a job like that, so they moved me. I was put in a workshop with cons nicknamed The Dirty Dozen. Basically, it was a workshop for those who could not, or would not, work. That suited me! We sat playing Scrabble all day, drank tea, chatted, played poker. We were happy enough … until one screw started his bollocks!

None of the cons liked him. He was a big man,
ex-rugby
player. He loved a row – what rugby player doesn’t? People forget that a lot of screws are sportsmen; they love a rough and tumble. Some are ex-military, some are just boot merchants. Whatever, they are only human.

The uniform doesn’t make them angels. Some are simply bully boys, some come straight out of the Forces where they never even had the wit to get past the most junior rank. In the Prison Service they get a bunch of keys and are called ‘Officer’. Overnight, they’ve got the status they never managed in the Army. OK, it’s not the best job in the world, locking up fellow human beings. And prison officers get more than their fair share of stick – and smackings. But the bully boys are a disgrace to the decent officers.

I don’t know much about his background – I don’t know and don’t give a damn whether he was in the Army or not – but as far as I was concerned at the time, he had a bad attitude. It was all, ‘I’m right – and you’re wrong.’

He upset me.

I smashed the shop to bits. The furniture, the windows, the lights, the office. I’d told the other cons to stay clear. I slung a broken table at the screws – one caught it full blast on his crust and was carried
out by his mates. Alarm bells went, screws came running, dog handlers were on standby. But I now had the workshop at my disposal.

This particular screw strolled in as if it was a picnic – obviously with a dozen heavies behind him. I had a stick in my hand. He said, ‘Put that stick down before I ram it up your arse.’

I did as I was told. I put it down … sixty miles an hour over his crust! I went to smash him again but they were on me like a ton of bricks and I was pinned down.