Veronica's Bird

by Veronica Bird

  It had been a shock to reach this level, for the usual route took sixteen years of steadily climbing the prison service ladder, making grade after grade in turn. That was the way. When my turn for interview had come around, I told my colleagues, I was up for a job as Chief Officer. They were quite rude. ‘not a bloody hope Veronica. Bloody waste of time.’ So, they were not too pleased when I got the job…. as Chief Officer. It took a time for them to settle down to the fact someone was directing my career and, perhaps it wasn’t fair but Veronica was the boss directing their careers, and the boss had to be listened to.

  Early life at Risley enabled me to compare conditions, not only in the women’s wing but in the men’s’ wings as well. Curious as to why there was so much rubbish piled up outside the prison under the cell windows, it began to seep into my mystified mind that prisoners were dumping their pots and any other refuse they didn’t want, out through the windows at night, to mitigate the smell which otherwise might remain until the morning unlock. No-one appeared to worry about it, but to my Yorkshire eye it was an offence.

  I detailed cleaning teams, inside and outside the prison to scrub and polish, to remove all the rubbish piles from the women’s windows and allowed them additional time to sluice out in the evening. I needed to bring back some pride and I did it by suggesting to the women, their wing could be much cleaner and tidier than the men’s, a simple competitive edge inserted, which was as effective as my ideas for education. The men continued to dump through their windows everything they did not want until the contrast was so great I was summoned to the Governor who asked me to work with the men in the male wings. (not in the cells, of course, but to move over entirely to the male side). He wanted me to improve the living conditions.

  This was not for me. Equal opportunities were not yet a factor of our lives, for it could mean a man losing his job and I was not going to be branded by his colleagues as a troubler- maker. Better, I get on with my job which was eternally busy anyway.

  As a Chief Officer, I did not have to work at week-ends but I was in charge of all uniformed grades and I had to ensure the twenty to forty prisoner escort movements each day were organised and staffed to keep the Courts running on time. Judges did not like to be kept waiting. This delicate logistical problem was on top of the need to listen to the grouses on pay, duties, leave and accommodation. Prior to leaving for Court appearances, each prisoner on remand had to sign for and collect their belongings, be booked out, leaving the whole operation to reverse itself if they were returned that night to the fold. All this had to be done by hand, no computers of course It created a great deal of paperwork. Nowadays, prisoners can appear by video-link removing many of the demands placed on us; men and women are moved together in secure vans rather than private taxis. All efforts to reduce costs which would include no more bum-biting or jeering navvies for me.

  The graph became almost vertical as I learned the job on the job, so to speak. Jumping up another grade but being so busy in the meantime had meant there had been less time to train up to the position, read books on theory, listen to other Chief Officers with care and ask them questions. It made me nervous. I could not afford to make a mistake and the adjudication procedures were either right or wrong; there was nothing in between. Being wrong meant you rattled the Governor who was wholly dependent upon your actions to follow the correct routines, but the prisoners would also be upset when their own private orders of the day went astray. What the hell, you might say, does it matter if they are a bit put out? Well, a happy prisoner is one who is no trouble to you, so you tended to see their own small worlds were kept on an even keel. I was learning. If I was fortunate enough to become Governor grade in the future, I would have that balance between finding the support I needed from my staff, while keeping the lid on the potential furnace which would always fester in any prison.

  It was a furnace. It is easy to forget when the prisoners are all locked up together, to assume that is the end of the story. But prisoners yearn for freedom as much as any passer-by in the street. They too would like to sit on a beach on holiday, sipping a cold beer and ogling the six-packs walking out of the sea. And sex, the over-riding drive in any healthy woman or man never goes away. It remains in a bitter state of enforced abstinence, growling at an unfair world which manifests itself in sullen outbursts of rage and frustration.

  Add to this, the prisoner has to do as she or he is told, non-compliance inevitably meant a punishment cell for them with claustrophobia screaming at their minds. Is it any wonder the lid has to be kept on tightly?

  Britain festered in 1981 in the run-up to Christmas. It was the season when Arthur Scargill became leader of the National Union of Mineworkers and Margaret Thatcher rose to the dizzying heights of becoming Britain’s most unpopular post-war Prime Minister. It was also, more seriously, a time when the first case of Aids was diagnosed in the country. An instruction, not a benevolent yuletide request, was sent to my desk from Headquarters.

  ‘Veronica, we want you to go over to Thorp Arch with immediate effect. The Governor is on holiday over the Christmas period.’

  ‘Very well Sir. Where is Thorp Arch Sir?’

  ‘Boston. Boston Spa, Veronica. Nice Christmas present for you. Acting Governor. What he did not say was that Christmas was probably the most difficult time of the year to organise and manage. It was known in the Service as a time to get through as soon as possible.

  I had no idea where Boston was. On the map, it was clearly sited in Lincolnshire but the instruction had been Boston Spa which eventually turned out to be a large village in West Yorkshire. The prison was built on the banks, almost, of the river Wharfe with a young Offenders facility at one end of the site and an open Prison at the other. (Today it has been much expanded and is a Category B prison). The big issue was that the Governor of the entire prison, the overall boss as it were, had gone on holiday at Christmas. Christmas was the time when all routines came to an end, teaching, which filled the day, ended. Teachers were gone, causing some difficult voids in the weekly staffing charts. How do you fill the day for a healthy if violent youth and keep him occupied? These lads would be moved on to places like Armley once the Courts re-sat; meantime we, or rather I, had to devise ideas to keep the lid on the pressure cooker.

  Those who had arranged to send me to Thorp Arch had also added a written rider, ‘Don’t do anything silly Veronica.’ As if I would? But, it was part of my legal duties to make contact with the prisoners as I had to check each day whether the lunch was acceptable and to ensure that those languishing in the punishment cells were being well-treated. Surprisingly, the men slept through much of the holiday period, for, as New Year approached there came the usual reckoning, the examination of their ‘bird’, totalling up how many days, months and years they had to go. Some of these calculations brought pleasure; others delivered despair at the seeming endless days to come. It was all feast or famine, a ticking off of the empty days in a cardboard-bound diary.

  The Governor, refreshed from his holiday a month later, returned, so I likewise went back to Risley, wiser perhaps and thankful that I could now get back to seeing my charges engaged again in work.

  Thankful, I write? Risley held some very dangerous prisoners. Myra Hindley had been here at one time in her sentence. On the other side of the fence were IRA, there were drug barons lording over other prisoners, and the most dangerous of the armed robbers. They were so dangerous a Category A unit was placed inside the Category B site.

  There was another snag, perhaps challenge is a better word, to deal with, one which arose every day of the week and one which I would never have given a thought before I entered the Service. I was, I know, naïve, ignorant almost of the association many women made with other women. Of the one hundred and twenty-eight staff under my control, eighty-eight of them were in lesbian relationships. I had to come to terms with the matter quite quickly so I could understand how this acceptance worked inside Risley. The first thing I did was to ensure I always wore a skirt which w
as like a billboard to the other staff. Officers could be ‘husbands’ and others were ‘wives’, some dressed up in trousers to denote their ‘gender’. Problems were inevitable as relationships disintegrated into ‘divorces’ and separations, spats were common and timetables were thrown out when a couple wanted to be off at the same time. Ahhh!

  We, as Chief Officers had to lead by example, over-riding these petty arguments by always demonstrating we could do any job inside the prison, and probably do it better. I often showed my ability to take over at a moment’s notice, a job abandoned through argument, or sickness, an ability which I think I learned at Ackworth – it is with me today.

  Let me assure you, reader, that despite the unusual and high percentage of lesbian relationships, it made no difference, for I retained a very fine force, a dedicated team particularly in the Young Prisoner wing. Such orientation made not the slightest difference when it came to dealing with an issue.

  It was in this lighter mood I was advised the Home Secretary, Willie Whitelaw was to make a visit. The Governor put me in charge of organising the day on the Female wing and I read up on the Minister’s background which was extensive, and impressive. These were the days when he could make Margaret Thatcher, his boss and Prime Minister, eat out of his hand from which arose her famous maxim, ‘Everyone should have a willie’. Willie, as he was affectionately known, was a giant, both physically and in his intellect. It manifested itself in his charm, his calm and his good manners. Somehow, he managed to get what he wanted without raising his voice. His whole demeanour belied the fact he had been a very brave tank officer in the Second World War and awarded the Military Cross. Well dressed, looking every bit the part of the third most powerful man in Government yet well-mannered, he arrived at our Main Gate shadowed by his Private Secretary and a security officer. He had been Secretary of State for Northern Ireland during some of the worst troubles, and he was a marked man, but he managed to maintain his affability with an easy smile while throwing out hundreds of razor sharp questions.

  His visit marked a difficult day for me. Working with a full-time medical officer, he had previously asked to check my throat as I had had a persistent niggling cough. He recommended I see a consultant as ‘…you may have a cyst on your vocal chord.’ But as I read the letter he had written out to take with me to see the specialist, I could see two frightening words, ‘throat cancer’. In those days’ cancer was a death sentence. There were no cures. Sod’s law, of course, for the Home Secretary’s visit coincided with my appointment with the Consultant. I had to do both. Of course, Willie Whitelaw was late, such important visitors often were though for no reason I could fathom and, in desperation I had to slink away to find a phone and tell the specialist I would be late. Meanwhile, the fear of the big-C remained while I attempted to answer the flurry of questions.

  Eventually, we all waved him off the site and I dashed to my appointment hoping the tremble in my hands was not a sign of something else.

  I was told, soon enough into the appointment that I did not have cancer. The relief was tangible and all embracing. Worry had made me paranoid and this expanded to imagining I also had lumps on my breast. This imagination then turned to reality as I was found to have two lumps which were duly removed five days later along with my worries. There was some reasoning behind my concerns, for both my uncle and grandpa had died of throat cancer. I felt better, though restraining myself from kissing the man who also had a smile on his face. It had to have been easier for him giving me this news than the alternative of placing a black cap on his head like a presiding judge in a murder trial.

  I left the hospital so light-headed, so ecstatic, I took the wrong road. I found myself on the M6 heading north to Wigan and being unable to turn around, as if that mattered.

  The very fact I had seen the prison medical officer was due to Risley having a large hospital wing on the male side of the site. It was staffed with full-time doctors and psychiatrists. One of these doctors commuted on his horse – yes, the four-footed variety – and hitched it up to one of the main gate posts as if he was starring in the Three Ten to Yuma. He was one of those medics of times past where the very presence of the man made you feel better – bedside manner we used to call it – so when he was tragically killed on holiday in Scotland on the brink of retiring, it was a disaster for us all. One of the saddest scenes was a forlorn pile of retirement presents piled up on a table uncollected, unwanted, ready for his farewell party (farewell, yes, party, no). Such a loss and such a waste (he was killed in an accident not of his fault) at the very moment he was going to take life a little easier.

  Alarms jangled in my ears. A prisoner had activated the fire bell. She was positioned on the far side of a three-sided building containing a courtyard but she was able to see across to the other side to a fire in a cell. The prison officers, however, did not have her vantage point and, abandoning their posts all hurried to the fire which they still could not see, down two sides of the courtyard. They had no idea of the location of the fire as it was just a few yards behind them, much to the mirth of the prisoners when they learned what had happened. It was a lesson in planning for fires and a procedure was put in place so the whole prison was not placed in jeopardy.

  It was characteristic of this prison that we never knew from one day to the next what was going to happen. There was always a small crisis which conflicted with the orders for the day. A woman prisoner might slash her legs with broken glass in front of me for no particular reason; another might pretend to be blind – for week after week – until one wondered if she really was blind. The acting could be superb, the ruses more and more plausible though the prisoner who said she was blind, wasn’t!

  There followed on quickly the case of the great Pepper Order. Norman Lowe, in overall command of Risley was held in great respect by both staff and prisoners with a charm which made one want to do anything he requested. He cruelly suffered from advanced arthritis to such a degree that towards the end of his time with us he had to be driven around various sectors of the prison. He was meticulous in his planning and told the story against himself of a time, soon after decimalisation, having joined the Civil Service. He was working as a civil servant in the prison service food ordering department and had placed an order for 10lbs of white pepper, only to place the decimal point in the wrong place. Hence, his order now stood at 100lbs of white pepper. The market, recognising the large order placed raised the world-wide price of pepper allowing the civil servant, one Mr Lowe, to be congratulated on purchasing his pepper requirements before the massive hike in price. His reputation soared, though he had no idea why. I never found out how long it took to reduce the pepper to a single pot.

  Amongst the grimness, the rancid odours and the sheer bloody-mindedness of some of our charges, the country exploded in delight when Charles married Diana. We were determined to make the day as joyous as we could and had agreed plans to install a television in the dining room with lunch as a buffet, just for the day. But, the clue is in the word bloody-mindedness for three of the women were anti-royalist and threatened to cause trouble. It meant everyone had to be locked up in their cells together with their lunch. It was sad to see such bitterness surface, prepared, as they were, to wreck the whole day for everyone else. Such people we had in our care would always take much longer to be won over before they too could be placed on a path of coming to terms with life outside the walls.

  CHAPTER NINE

  BACK TO STYAL AS A GOVERNOR

  There are no exams after Principal Officer. One doesn’t apply for promotion; you are called for interview when your performance report recommends you. There came such a day when I was called to Headquarters in London, a request which left me quite nervous. I wanted to do well, I wanted a new job at an improved level and I knew I could hold down anything my masters deemed to throw at me. But, even having the Equal Opportunities Act now making inroads into my glass ceiling, I knew I would struggle to impress against some much more experienced Governors. Nervous was
not really the word when, on arrival at Victoria Station I climbed into a taxi.

  ‘Prison Service Headquarters please. I don’t think it is far.’

  The taxi driver looked back at me through his mirror. He was clearly judging me in some way. Eventually, satisfied, he reached an arm out of his window and opened the opposite door to the one I had entered. ‘There you are Miss. No charge.’ He pointed at the nearest building. ‘Not too far to walk…I hope.’ He had the grace to smile and so did I.

  Hoping no-one was watching my antics from an office in the building I was headed towards, I marched up to the main entrance shrugging down my new pink suit.

  I soon learned there were between twenty and thirty applicants being interviewed though I had no idea for how many jobs. The waiting room had that usual tension, a mix of men idly studying the contents of their wallets, intent on finding some dust in a corner, and those who gazed out of the window as if to determine how many pigeons they could see in one minute. Having counted as many as he could, one of these strolled over to me and studied my new suit with some interest.

  ‘Hullo. Are you on the same caper as me?’

  ‘Well. I don’t know what caper you are on.’ I replied with a rather asinine retort.

  ‘Governor promotion.’ He explained he had had a senior post with ICI but the stress of the job made him look at alternatives. With this sort of quality, I hadn’t a chance, but he felt otherwise.