I met all the faces in Wandsworth: anyone who was anyone. It was a breeding ground for criminals over the years. Real villains come out of Wandsworth: men like the Krays, Richardsons, Freddie Foreman, Frank Frazer – all the legends; good old-fashioned armed robbers like Danny Alpress, Terry Smith, Ronnie Easterbrook, Wayne Hurren, Roy Shaw and Ronnie Brown. They all passed through Wanno. Wanno was the stepping stone for Parkhurst or Dartmoor. It’s like an apprenticeship of crime. You have to get the experience. That’s what it’s all about. To be a criminal you will one day get porridge. You will fall eventually. So expect what you get and plenty of it.
My true advice would be: don’t do what I’ve done. Do your bird easy and get out fast. You only win by walking out or going over the wall. Freedom is the ultimate goal in life inside unless you are a complete institutionalized moron. After all my years inside I still hate prison life and prison life hates me. I can never become institutionalized. It’s against my philosophy.
Some of my best years were in Wandsworth – crazy years, but memorable. I was just born to rock the boat and rock it I did. I almost escaped from there, I cut people there, I chinned people there, I got on the roof there, I shit up there, I met some of my best buddies there, I slept in the cell next to the condemned cell there, I taught myself to play chess and bridge there (out of books), I spent a good four years in solitary there, I was on hunger strike there, I chinned a doctor there, I chinned several governors there, I attacked a good dozen screws there, I smashed up dozens of cells there, I attacked many nonces there and I met some decent screws there. They weren’t all bad. There’s always some good everywhere. One in particular was a gentleman. He’d done a lot for me over the years. Over the last thirty-four years I’ve probably been back there twenty times, if not more, and he was always there. I watched his hair go grey. He watched mine fall out. That’s how life is inside – a fucking journey of madness. I’ll leave you with a funny story on Wanno. You’ll love this one …
Lord Longford – Frank to me – used to visit me all over England from as far away as Durham all the way to Parkhurst, the Isle of Wight. He was one of my favourite regular visitors and we had some bloody good laughs. He also helped me a lot with advice, etc.
My first visit with Frank was in the block in Wanno years back. He came to see me over my long years in solitary and he wanted to interview me for the book he was writing called Prisoner or Patient. Our visit had to be held in the Governor’s Office in the block (the Adjudication Room) as I was considered too unpredictable to be escorted over to the visiting area. Plus, going to the visiting area would mean passing the centre, and they didn’t want me walking over it. So the visit would be in the block. The Adjudication Room was quite large with a portrait of the Queen on the wall. So, ten screws unlocked me and marched me to the room. Frank had been told it was not safe to see me alone, but he responded, “Charlie won’t attack me. I wish to see him alone.” I walked in to see an old man with bottletop specs. I gave him a hug before we sat down to chat. The door had a plastic glass in it so they could look in on us. I said to Frank, “Look at them nosy fuckers.” He smiled and said, “They’re only doing a job.” So we had a good chat. He was a really nice fella to talk with: very clever; very helpful. He asked me what I did all day in my cell. I told him press-ups. How many, he asked. So I told him: between two and three thousand. As we spoke about my press-ups I said, “Look, watch this.” I got on the floor and told him to sit on my back while I did a quick hundred. To my amazement he did, but he fell off. As I went to help him up, the screws rushed in. They thought I’d hit him! It was so bloody funny. Then Frank showed me his pressups. He managed about five, which for an old man is great. He put all this in a wicked book he did called Longford Diaries. He was a brilliant old fella and I really liked him a lot, although we did have some heated arguments about Brady and Hindley, as my thoughts were anti and always will be. A lovely man. He’s another one I’ll not be having a pint with, but he remains in my heart – respect.
My prison records date from 1974 to 2008 (I was inside 1969, 1970 and 1971 for short spells – a shit and shave as they call it):
Risley: Chinned about five screws; attacked a good ten nonces; attempted a roof protest; got wrapped up in the barbed wire; cut a grass.
Walton: Took the roof off; smashed up the block; chinned the Governor; shit-up on a couple of screws; attempted escape; half a dozen fights with cons.
Armley: Attacked the riot mob; took off a cell door; a shit-up; assaulted a governor and screw.
Full Sutton: Took a probation officer hostage; attacked six screws; attacked the riot mob; assaulted several governors; set fire to a cell with a grass in it; half a dozen fights with cons; smashed TV sets.
Durham: Chinned two screws; kept in specially constructed cage.
Gartree: Chinned four screws; alleged stabbing; alleged scolding of a nonce; smashed up four cells.
Long Lartin: Attacked five screws in one day; chinned nine screws.
Whitemoor: Hunger strike; attacked riot mob; shit-up.
Lincoln: Chinned Deputy Governor; assaulted two screws; shit-up.
Leicester: Got on roof; took cell door off; two assaults on screws.
Woodhill: Took library screw hostage; smashed up special unit in stand-off riot.
Highdown: Chinned Governor; three assaults on screws.
Bullingdon: Took solicitor hostage; smashed up cell.
Bristol: Assaulted Governor; shit-up.
Albany: Smashed block up; assaulted two cons; chinned one screw.
Camp Hill: Attacked four screws; hunger strike.
Parkhurst: Certified insane – liquid cosh (drug control); stabbed con; assaulted five screws; chinned two screws; cut one screw; stabbed-up myself multiple times; several fights with cons; smashed up wing; got on roof; alleged arson to workshop.
Winchester: Got on roof; smashed up block; two assaults on screws; one assault on con.
Hull: Took Governor hostage; got on roof; took teacher hostage; cut a con; three assaults on screws; two shit-ups on Governor; attempted escape; once put in restraint and ankle straps and moved out in wheelchair; liquid cosh.
Wakefield: First con in Britain to be pepper-sprayed; attacked riot mob; smashed up three cells.
Norwich: Shit-up.
Strangeways: Assaulted two screws.
Oxford: Chinned a screw.
Ashworth: Cut a lunatic; asylum; attacked four screws.
Rampton: Attempted strangulation of a lunatic (paedophile); attacked four screws; liquid cosh.
Broadmoor: Three roof protests; attempted strangulation of a nonce; attacked three screws; attacked four lunatics; attempted escape; hunger strike; liquid cosh; smashed up lots of cells.
Winson Green: Attacked four cons; stole Michael Samms’s leg; took doctor hostage; attacked riot mob; smashed up three cells.
Belmarsh: Attacked two cons; took three hostages (Iraqis); assaulted Governor; smashed up cell.
Scrubs: Smashed up seg. block; attacked riot mob; assaulted two screws; attacked Governor.
Pentonville: Shit-up; smashed up cell; assaulted two screws.
Do you know, this is only half of what I did? It’s not even counting my disciplinary charges or verbal threats and abuse or bad behaviour. Fuck me, I really was a nasty bastard. How I’ve changed. It’s now seven years since I was in any serious trouble. I’ve actually learnt the hard way. I’m just not the same man nowadays. I’m now anti-violence and anti-crime. This record is my past, thanks. Fuck, it makes frightening reading and it’s only a small summary of my past behaviour. Now you know me better. Maybe you now hate me or you believe I should die inside, but bear in mind that I have paid the price. I have been punished severely. People do change. I’m the proof of it. I could actually help a lot of youngsters stay out of jail.
I will never glamorize crime or violence. One thing’s for sure – my body is now paying the price for my violent life. I’m a walking scar and the arthritis is kicking in. My eyes are goin
g. My mind wanders. I feel shell-shocked. I suffer with post-traumatic stress disorder. I’m the old ghost … Did I ever tell you about the time I carved a gun out of a bar of carbolic soap and then spread black boot polish over it? I stuck it in a work screw’s face and said, “Give me your fucking keys now, you cunt!” Fuck me, he nearly had a heart attack. The Governor wouldn’t accept that it was only a prank, so that cost me three months in chokey with no canteen and no bed. They just can’t take a joke these people! Hey, it did look like a real gun though. You see, in jail you have time to think, time to pass. You can do anything if you’re determined; well, anything within reason.
In one jail I was in, which I’ll not name for obvious reasons, I made a kite. Yeah, a fucking silly kite. I got hundreds and hundreds of yards of cotton and flew it over the wall from my cell window. Why? Use your head! Let’s just say I never went without for a good brew. It’s easy if you’re 100 per cent determined, but you have to believe in yourself and have contacts outside. Nowadays they smuggle in mobiles. Every week in jail there are hundreds found and confiscated, especially in the low category jails. Times change. How nice it must be to call your girl up, in private, and have an hour or two’s dirty talk. Why not? In one jail I was in the lads were passing around a blow-up doll with a real fanny hole. It cost 3oz of baccy a night. You’d be amazed at who was shagging that doll. It’s more like who never shagged it! Okay, I had a go. I put a load of margarine in the hole and went for it. Fuck me, I never kissed it! Then rock band Procol Harum came on the radio with “Whiter Shade of Pale”, so we had a slow dance. Then I bent her over the bed and did her doggy style. Sure it’s mad, but that’s how jail is – mad! You can’t get through it without being mad. Luckily I covered up the door spyhole, or I’d have ended up in the padded cell! The screw ended up knocking on the door at 2 a.m.
He shouted, “Take down the cover so I can see you, Bronson.”
I shouted back, “I’m having a shit!”
He yelled, “What, since nine p.m.?”
“Fuck off!” I shouted as I cuddled up to the doll.
“You’re nicked, Bronson.”
What’s new! The next night some other hot-blooded stag had a go. Now I’m not making this up, but in one jail they had a sheep, a fucking blow-up sheep … and no, I never!
There’s a whisper here that some have blow-up dolls with cocks on. Now that don’t amaze me with all these filthy nonces, so it’s probably true. It’s fucking loonyology, total insanity gone mad!
I’ve only ever had one fair fight with a screw in thirty-three years and that was in the seg. block in Wandsworth back in 1976 – or was it 1975? One of them years. He was a Geordie screw; a big lump, in his early thirties. He loved a drink and a fight. What Geordie don’t?
Anyway, one thing led to another and a confrontation broke out. He took off his keys and ran into my cell. That was it. A real fight began, toe to toe. Crack, bang, wallop! It was a good fight. That’s how it should be sorted, not ten on to one. Men don’t need ten behind them. So Geordie got my respect. Even though some of his mates ran in to break it up just as I was getting the better of him, it was a proper scrap that we both wanted. It cleared the air.
You gotta understand that men are born to fight. In my walk of life you can’t but fight. Prisons are a volcano of violence just waiting to erupt. It don’t take a lot to work out why: we are men; frustrated; anxious; fed up; bored. We are sick of it all. Why can’t the system wake up? Let us have a good old-fashioned fuck every once in a while; a bit of pussy juice. Let us do what we are put on the planet for. That’s unless a guy is satisfied wasting his life away. I’m not. That becomes boring.
Hey, I should have been a psychologist! My way would clear up all prison violence. I would make our prisons safer places – with common sense! Work the cons hard, with lots of discipline, but every so often let the girls in to bring in some loving. Sweet and tender loving works! Wake up you prison officials. My way would stop all the pain!
SWEET AND TENDER LOVING
Games of the mind … a tortured soul
Loveless and empty
A body full of pain
No release
No smells
No sweet smells. Nothing but doom
Sweet and tender loving
Roll it my way
I’ll have some of that in a slice of bread
Toasted and hot and juicy
Without love there is no hope, no life, no dreams
It’s a fucking pit of despair
A cage of snakes
Ripping out your lungs
Squeezing your strength
A dead man breathing
A fucking pile of shit
Dehumanized … Brutally destroyed
Bloodless … All dried up
A faceless, boneless person
A number for a name
Close the coffin lid and fuck off!
Over the years I’ve had some memorable visits from all walks of life: family, biz and pleasure. I’ve even had a fuck several times. Difficult but it’s possible.
Kelly Anne was one. We got it on in Albany and Hull jails. She was one crazy bitch but a good visitor. At Albany on the Isle of Wight I was forever in the seg. block and all my visits were in a room meant for solicitors’ visits. Screws used to sit outside the door and it also had CCTV, so you would think it impossible to have a shag. Yeah, so would I. Plus we were supposed to sit at either side of the table. This was the rules. This was the late 1980s. This is what happened.
I arrived at the visit with an escort of eight screws, as I was on a seriously heavy unlock these days as my world was a crazy journey. I was so unpredictable. I sat down at the table waiting for Kelly Anne to come in. In she walked with a tray of orange juice and chocolates. She had a wicked smile. She was up to no good. I always knew when she was being naughty. Then she undid her coat. Fuck me, she had fuck all on and it was winking at me. What she’d done was slid into the ladies, taken her clothes off and stuffed them in her pockets! I couldn’t believe it. I really couldn’t. I had a raging hard-on and said, “Right, let’s do it.”
She came around my side of the table and sat on me. It slipped right up her. I just could not fucking believe it. We was fucking. Her coat was still on, so all the screws could see was her sitting on my lap. It was mental.
One screw came in and said, “Come on, Charlie, that’s not allowed.”
What could I do? What would anybody do?
I said, “Look boss, she’s a bit upset. Give it five minutes.”
And it worked!
He said, “Five minutes or you’ll get me in trouble.”
As she bobbed up and down there were screws looking in. It was fucking brilliant. Hot, wet, sticky and bloody lovely. But, as usual, Kelly can’t behave. She just goes over the top.
“It’s supposed to be a secret fuck,” I whispered. “Slow down, you’re putting it bang on me there.”
But she kept bouncing up and down and making the noise that’s only ever used when you’re alone.
The screws came back in. “Come on, Charlie, you’ll have to let her sit on her side of the table.”
As he spoke I shot my load right in her. The screw must have known as I was truly hazy.
“Yeah, okay boss, no problem.”
Kelly got off and went to the toilet to clean up, but most of it was all over me. My jeans were drenched in pussy juice and come. When she came back we just started laughing. It did me the world of good. All my stress and anxiety had vanished. I felt human again. It was brilliant.
After I ate some chocs and drank some orange Kelly then gave me a good old-fashioned wank under the table. I swear the screws could see. There’s no way they couldn’t but see. She wasn’t playing chess under the table. Her body was shaking as she wanked me off. It was so funny. A bit strange, but again I shot my load. Most went on the floor, but she must have got some on her hand as she licked it off. Kelly Anne was to me sex on legs. What a visit that was – very memorable
.
Another time was in Hull Jail. Looking back I guess she’s an exhibitionist. She loved getting men at it. It’s her scene but it all turned nasty with Kelly. It’s all in my other books so I won’t bother going into it again. I’ve no real bad feelings on the matter, I just move on in life, bury the hatchet so to speak. But marks out of ten for sex with Kelly would be ten-and-a-half. It was brilliant. She was bloody crazy and that’s how I like my women: a bit mental, dangerous, unpredictable. She took a gamble and it paid off. It could’ve turned nasty, but it truly was a brilliant fuck to remember. That shag in Albany must go down in history.
She must’ve been so up for it, as it just slipped in. It was the hottest fanny on the planet. It’s the danger that does that to a woman: the dare, the gamble. She had planned it down to the split second – all the way from Luton to the Isle of Wight. She was gagging for it. She wanted to give me something to behave for. It was her way of saying, “Be good, behave and get out fast and you can have a lot more of this. It’s waiting for you. Come home.”
But life don’t ever work out like that. I don’t believe in fairy tales. Never have done. Life is reality. Kelly Anne knew it too. She had other plans for me. Plans that I knew fuck all about but I was sure to be dragged into them, and I was. The rest is history.
The moral to the story is: the cat that gets the cream is not always a happy cat. Some cats are greedy, selfish fuckers!
I also had a blow job in Parkhurst Visiting Room. I’ll not say who by. My reason for that is simple: I don’t wish to. Some women don’t deserve to be exposed; in fact most don’t. Most to me are ladies I respect.
The Mammoth Book of Hard Bastards (Mammoth Books) Page 9
