A Prison Diary

by Jeffrey Archer

  Tony leaves me with a copy of the Sunday Mirror. Although it’s not a paper I’m in the habit of reading, I am at least able to bring myself up to date on the county cricket scores, not to mention who among the fighting fit will find a place in the England team for the third Test against Australia on Thursday. My beloved Somerset are in second place in the county championship and doing well in their current fixture against Glamorgan. On the England front, the Mirror’s cricket correspondent is suggesting it’s time to bring back Tufnell. I did an auction for Phil during his testimonial year, and although he’s not always popular with the selectors, the packed banqueting hall at the Dorchester proved the regard in which he is held by the Middlesex supporters. It seems that Thorpe, Hussain, Vaughan and Croft are all injured and will not make the starting line while a reluctant Atherton will be called on once again to skipper the side. It doesn’t seem to improve his batting.

  Meanwhile, Australia fields the same team that so roundly defeated us at Lords. I always thought it was the visiting side that was meant to have injury problems.

  I finally finish The Moon’s a Balloon, which left me with the distinct feeling that Mr Niven must have lived a charmed life. I only met him once, and that was at a literary luncheon in Yorkshire, where he was on the circuit with Bring on the Empty Horses, the sequel to the book I’ve just finished reading. It was an occasion I shall never forget, because the other author was James Herriot of It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet fame. I was there to launch my first effort, Not A Penny More, Not A Penny Less, and was naturally delighted to be among such illustrious company. After the speeches had concluded, the authors were each escorted to a table, so that they could sign copies of their books.

  Mr Niven’s queue stretched across the dining-room floor and out of the front door, while Mr Herriot’s fans were almost as legion. In my case, I didn’t have a single customer. When the signing was over, Mr Niven graciously came across to my table, purchased a copy of Penny, and told me he would read it on the flight back to Los Angeles the following day. He turned out to be one of the three people who paid for the book. A generous gesture, which many people have since told me was typical. But imagine my surprise when a few days later I received a handwritten letter from the Bel Air Hotel.

  Dear Jeffrey,

  Much enjoyed Penny, have no doubt it will sell even more copies than Horses by the time you’re my age.

  Yours ever

  David

  10.00 pm

  Bang on ten, the rap music begins blasting out.

  Gunshot to the head, pussyboy gets dead

  Gunshot to the head, pussyboy gets dead

  Gunshot to the head, pussyboy gets dead

  Gunshot to the head, pussyboy gets dead

  Gunshot to the head, pussyboy gets dead

  Gunshot to the head, pussyboy gets dead…

  Have you ever stopped at a traffic light to find yourself next to an open car with its radio full on? Do you then allow the offending driver to accelerate away? Imagine being in a cell with the music blasting out on both sides of you, but you can’t accelerate away.

  Day 12

  Monday 30 July 2001

  6.03 am

  Overslept, but then woken by the Alsatians off on their morning rounds. They are every bit as reliable as an alarm clock, but not as cheerful or optimistic as a cockerel. I put on a tracksuit, sit down at my desk and write for two hours.

  8.10 am

  A bowl of cornflakes with UHT milk, plus the added luxury of a banana which Del Boy has smuggled out of the canteen. I sit on the end of the bed and wait to see what fate has in store for me.

  10.00 am

  I’m told I must report to the workshops, despite putting my name down for education. Another long trek to a different part of the building. This time we’re escorted into a large square room about the same size as the chapel, but with whitewashed, unadorned brick walls. The first person I recognize is Fletch, who is seated next to a prison officer behind a trestle table at the top of the room. He’s obviously the works manager.

  The work room has five rows of tables, each about thirty feet in length, with prisoners seated on both sides making up a chain gang. My group consists of four inmates whose purpose is to fill a small plastic bag with all the ingredients necessary to make a cup of tea. In the centre of the table placed between us are large plastic buckets heaped with small packets. At the bottom end of the table sits a silent Serb, who places four sachets of sugar in each bag and then pushes his contribution across the table to a Lebanese man who adds three sachets of milk. He then passes the bag on to an inmate from Essex who drops in three teabags, before it’s passed over to me. My job is to seal up the bag and drop it in the large open bucket at my end of the table.

  Every fifteen minutes or so another prisoner, whose name I never discover, comes and empties the bucket. This mind-numbing exercise continues for approximately two hours, for which I will be credited with two pounds in my canteen account.

  The Serb (sugar) who sits at the other end of the table is, I would guess, around thirty. He’s unwilling to discuss anything except the fate of ex-President Milošević, and the fact that he isn’t cooperating with the European Court in the Hague. He will not talk about his crime or the length of his sentence.

  Ali, the Lebanese man (powdered milk) who sits opposite me, is more forthcoming. He’s been found guilty of ‘breach of trust’. Ali tells me that he worked for a well-known credit-card company, and after several years was promoted to manager of a London branch. During that time he became infatuated with an American lady, who could best be described as high-maintenance, and used to the sort of lifestyle he couldn’t afford. Ali began to borrow (his words) money from the company safe each night. He would then take her to a casino, where they would have a free meal, before he began working the tables. If he won, he would put the money back in the safe the next morning. If he lost, he would borrow even more the following evening. One night he won £5,000 and returned every penny the following day.

  By the time his girlfriend had dumped him and flown back to the States, Ali had ‘borrowed’ £28,000. He decided to come clean and report the whole incident to his boss, assuring the company that it was his intention to repay every penny.

  Ali then sold his house, cashed in his life-insurance policy, pawned a few valuables and reimbursed the company in full. He was later arrested, charged with breach of trust, and last Friday sent down for eighteen months. He will probably end up serving seven months and is due to be transferred to Ford (D-cat) next week. He is fifty-three, an intelligent and articulate man, who accepts that he will never be able to work in this country again. He plans to go to America or return to the Lebanon, where he hopes to begin a new life.

  My former secretary, Angie Peppiatt, the Crown’s main witness in my case, admitted to the same offence – breach of trust – while giving evidence at my trial. In her case she wasn’t able to explain how thousands of pounds went missing, other than to smile at the judge and say, ‘I have done things I am ashamed of, but it was the culture of the time.’ I have recently asked my solicitor to place the full details in the hands of the police and see if she is subject to the same rigorous inquiry as I was. You may well know the answer by the time this book is published.

  The Essex man (teabags) sitting next to Ali boasts to anyone who cares to listen that he is a professional gangster who specializes in robbing banks. The gang consists of his brother-in-law, a friend and himself. He tells me they make a very profitable living, but expect to spend at least half of their working lives in jail. He and Ali could not be more different.

  The prisoner who turns up every fifteen minutes to empty the large bucket at the end of the table doesn’t hang around, so I can’t discover much about him, other than he’s twenty-three, this is his first offence, his case hasn’t come before the court yet, and he’s hoping to get off. If he doesn’t, he tells me, he’ll use the time to study for an Open University history degree. I don’t think he realizes th
at he’s just admitted that he’s guilty.

  A hooter blasts to indicate that the one hundred and twenty minutes are finally up, we are all escorted back to our separate spurs, and banged up again until lunch.

  12 noon

  Lunch. What’s on offer is so bad that I have to settle for a small tin of Heinz potato salad (61p) and three McVitie’s biscuits (17p). As I return from the hotplate I see Andy leaning up against the fence that divides the spur from the canteen area. He pushes a bottle of Highland Spring through a triangle of wire mesh – the high point of my day.

  2.00 pm

  The Chaplain, David Powe, makes an unscheduled visit to my cell. He’s wearing his dog collar, the same beige coat, the same dark grey trousers, and the same shoes as he has at the previous meetings. I can only conclude that he must be paid even less than the prison officers. He’s kept his promise and got hold of some drawing paper for Derek Jones, who can’t afford more than one pad a week.

  The Chaplain goes on to tell me that he and his family will be off on holiday for the next three weeks, and just in case he doesn’t see me again, he would like to wish me luck with my appeal, and hopes I’ll be sent in the near future to somewhere a little less foreboding than Belmarsh. Before he leaves, I read to him my description of the service he conducted last week. He chuckles at the Cain and Abel reference – a man able to laugh at himself. He leaves me a few moments later to go in search of Derek, and hand over the drawing pads.

  It was some hours later that I felt racked with guilt by the thought he must have paid for the paper out of his own pocket.

  2.48 pm

  My door is unlocked by Ms Taylor who enters the cell carrying what looks like a tuning fork. She goes over to my window and taps the four bars one by one.

  ‘Just want to make sure you haven’t loosened them, or tried to replace them,’ she explains. ‘Wouldn’t want you to escape, would we?’

  I’m puzzled by Ms Taylor’s words because it’s a sheer drop of some seventy feet from the third floor down to the exercise yard, and then you would still have to climb over a thirty-five-foot wall, topped with razor wire, to escape. Houdini would have been stretched to consider such a feat. I later learn that there’s another thirty-five-foot wall beyond that, not to mention a few dozen Alsatians who don’t respond to the command, ‘Sit, Rover.’

  I can only conclude it’s in the prison manual under the heading, ‘tasks to be carried out, once a day, once a week, once a year, once in a lifetime’.*

  4.00 pm

  I’ve put my name down for the gym again as I’m now desperate to get some exercise. When an officer hollers out, ‘Gym,’ I’m first in the queue that congregates on the middle floor. When the gate is opened, I’m informed by the duty Gym Instructor that only eight prisoners can participate from any one spur, and my name was the twelfth to be registered The low point of my day.

  I return to the ground floor and watch the first half of a Humphrey Bogart black-and-white movie, where Bogey is a sea dog who plays a major part in winning the war in the North Atlantic. However, we are all sent back to our cells at five, so I never discover if it was the Germans or the Americans who won the last War.

  5.20 pm

  I have an unscheduled visit from two senior officers, Mr Scanell and Mr Green. To be fair, most meetings in prison are unscheduled; after all, no one calls in advance to fix an appointment with your diary secretary. They are concerned that I am no longer going out into the yard during the afternoon to take advantage of forty-five minutes of fresh air and exercise. They’ve heard a rumour that on my last outing I was threatened by another prisoner, and for that reason I’ve remained in my cell. They ask me if this is true, and if so, am I able to supply them with any details of those who threatened me. I tell them exactly what took place in the yard, but add that I am unwilling to name or describe the young tearaway involved. They leave twenty minutes later with several pages of their report sheet left blank.

  I ask Tony what would have happened if I’d told them the name of the two culprits.

  ‘They would have been transferred to another prison later today,’ Tony replied.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be easier for them to transfer me?’ I suggest.

  ‘Good heavens, no,’ said Tony. ‘That would demand a degree of lateral thinking, not to mention common sense.’

  6.00 pm

  Supper. Vegetable stew and a lollipop. The lollipop was superb.

  6.43 pm

  Fletch visits my cell and tries to convince me that it’s my duty to name the cons who threatened me in the yard, because if I don’t, it won’t be long before they’re doing exactly the same thing to someone less able to take care of themselves. He makes a fair point, but I suggest what the headlines would be the following day if I had given the officers the names: Archer beaten up in yard; Archer demands extra protection; Under-staffed prison service doing overtime to protect Archer, Archer reports prisoner to screw. No, thank you, I tell Fletch, I’d rather sit in my cell and write. He sighs, and before leaving, hands me his copy of the Daily Telegraph. It’s a luxury to have a seventy-two-page paper, even if it is yesterday’s. I devour every page.

  The lead story is a poll conducted for the Telegraph by youGov.com showing that, although Iain Duncan Smith is running 40–60 behind Ken Clarke in the national polls, he is comfortably ahead with the Party membership. It seems to be a no-win situation for the Conservatives. The only person who must be laughing all the way to the voting booth is Tony Blair.

  7.08 pm

  I have a visit from Paul, a tea-boy – which is why he’s allowed to roam around while the rest of us are banged up. He says he has something to tell me, so I pick up my pad, sit on the end of the bed and listen.

  Paul is about six foot one, a couple of hundred pounds and looks as if he could take care of himself in a scrap. He begins by telling me that he’s just been released from a drug-rehabilitation course at the Princess Diana centre in Norfolk. It’s taken them eight months to wean him off his heroin addiction. I immediately enquire if he now considers himself cured. Paul just sits there in silence and avoids answering my question. It’s obviously not what he came to talk to me about. He then explains that during his rehab, he was made to write a long self-assessment piece and asks if I will read it, but he insists that no one else on the spur must find out its contents.

  ‘I wouldn’t bother you with it,’ he adds, ‘if it were not for the fact that several prisoners on this spur have had similar experiences, and they’re not necessarily the ones you might expect.’ He leaves without another word.

  If you were to come across Paul at your local, you would assume he was a middle-class successful businessman (he’s in jail for credit-card fraud). He’s intelligent, articulate and charming. In fact he doesn’t look any different to the rest of us, but then why should he? He just doesn’t want anyone to know about his past, and I’m not talking about his ‘criminal past’.

  As soon as my cell door is closed, I begin to read the self-assessment piece that is written in his own hand. He had a happy upbringing until the age of six when his parents divorced. Two years later his mother remarried. After that, he and his brothers were regularly thrashed by their stepfather. The only person he put any trust in was an uncle who befriended him and turned out to be a paedophile. His next revelation I would not consider for a plot in a novel, because it turns out that his uncle is now locked up on House Block Two, convicted of indecent assault on an underaged youth. The two men can see each other through the wire mesh across the yard during the afternoon exercise period. Paul doesn’t know what he would do if he were ever to come face to face with his uncle. At no time in his exposition does he offer this as an excuse for his crime, but he points out that child abuse is a common symptom among those serving long-term sentences. I find this quite difficult to come to terms with, having had such a relaxed and carefree upbringing myself. But I decide to ask Fletch if Paul is a) telling the truth, b) correct in his overall assessment.

&nbs
p; When I did eventually ask Fletch, I was shocked by his reply.*

  10.00 pm

  After I’ve read through Paul’s piece a second time, I turn to the latest bunch of letters – just over a hundred – which keep my spirits up, until I switch on the nine o’clock news on Radio 4, to discover that there are still no plans to move me from this hellhole.

  11.00 pm

  I start to read John Grisham’s The Partner, and manage seven chapters before turning the light off just after midnight. I can’t believe it, no rap music.

  Day 13

  Tuesday 31 July 2001

  5.55 am

  Woke up before the Alsatians this morning. I’ve finally worked out why they make so much noise. It’s because they are being fed on the same food as the prisoners. Write for two hours.

  8.00 am

  I finish the box of cornflakes and the last drop of UHT milk, hopeful that my canteen order will materialize at some time later today. I get dressed. I can move another notch up on my belt – I must have lost several pounds, but have no other way of confirming this.