I am a Cambridge Graduate (English 2:1 1972). I am the son of a Vicar. Arriving in jail as a first timer is shocking, particularly as a 56-year-old, normally 'good' citizen, or 'burgher of this borough'. (Shrewsbury, Shropshire, UK). That's what happened to me on April 7th, 2005, after I had been distressed enough to set fire to my own office at home. Within less than 24 hours of the incident, I was bundled into The Dana at Shrewsbury. I had handed myself over to the police because I knew I had done something wrong. I also knew I was ill and needed help. I was at wit's end. After librium had helped me down from excess alcohol - (a major contributory factor in the causation of the sorry event) - I set about surviving, on the only terms available. These were my own. Writing was the means by which I tried to make order out of Chaos, or what I later determined was KAFKA = the institutional insanity of the prison unsystem. I wrote irregularly but constantly, jotting down everything and anything of interest - to keep the mind alive in this most mind-destroying of places. The Alpha-Omega was my special vehicle - a concise way of getting mind over matter. I stole unashamedly from the books to hand, and then made my 'A-Z' sense of the meat of them. There was a wonderful hour of performance just after Christmas in Stafford Jail when prisoners shared talents. That's what I'm doing now, I hope. For any 'outside' or 'inside' prisoners. 'The mind is its own place, and in itself/Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.' Writing helps self-analysis, making sense, keeping self together - hope. 'Don't let the bastards get you down.' Words rise.

DEEP INSIDE

By MIKE WILLMOTT

Trafford Publishing

Copyright © 2007 Mike Willmott
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4251-0989-9

Chapter One

      51 MEN IN A CAGE - HMP THE DANA

    Warm summer sunshine, peace in the Cage,
    apart from the early match-cheering from the Gay Meadow.
    51 cons take their afternoon exercise:
    a clockwise perambulation round the 100-metre circuit.
    One screw stands languidly watching each side:
    no action likely – an hour's tedium for them,
    outside the tall fence – no contact, lonesome –
    imprisoned in their head – time to contemplate
    their mental imprisonment: their lives, their wives.
    Overhead, the fishing-net strung over the octagon fence
    to prevent incoming projectiles, hurled from outside,
    over the wall from Castlefields –
    half-tennis-balls, loaded with crack.

    But shame is not the whole story.
    Even encaged, there are common decencies,
    common courtesies, and hail-well-mets,
    well-wishing for next court appearance,
    gentle askings after health, partners, kids;
    laughter and stories, experiences and tales:
    in the Cage the raconteur thrives.
    Also, there's the hum of learning,
    where random expertise is shared in short-hand:
    drugs, crime, alcohol, punishment, the Outside –
    the inevitable, infiltrated with the unusual, or the deep.
    The Cage encourages souls to express themselves,
    and hidden learnings to be exposed:
    Immigration; What happened to the Gold Coast?
    Funerals in Ghana; Charles Bronson and the Governor;
    Zimbabweans in Hamburg, spreckening Deutsch;
    Organic farming; Gangland Telford; Nutrition.

    It's not really a cage –
    it's not a den of iniquity.
    It's a Pandora's box,
    producing something rich,
    and strange.

HMP COTTAGE INDUSTRIES

SYB

Prisoners make all sorts of things
for other prisoners, in other prisons.
Sudbury, Derbyshire, produces some fine quality foot-wear,
that looks quite classy.
Featherstone, Wolverhampton creates bodywarmers
with jazzy buttons.
All your plastics – combs, toothbrushes, bowls, etc
come from Gartree, Liverpool;
towels and bedding from Wandsworth.

Unfortunately, HMP Full Sutton,
who produce track-suit tops for Shrewsbury
got tangled up with `Shrewsbury' and `Shrowsbury',
and managed to shorten it down to SYB.
Hundreds of track-suits are wrongly labelled.
Or are they?

Shrewsbury Yob Brigade
Shrewsbury Young Bastards
Shrewsbury Yelling Buggers
Shrewsbury Yawning Bed-pressers
Shrewsbury Yellow Boys
Shrewsbury Yacking Badmouthers
Shrewsbury Yesmen Beanheads
Shrewsbury Yoked-up Bedfellows
Shrewsbury Yuppie Burglars

(or even quite plausibly)

Shrewsbury Youth Band

All is explained – later –
(which it always is – inside - never sooner).
Shrewsbury – SY - Category B (Remand) Prison
becomes, legitimately:

SYB

What a name tag!


ON THE BRIGHTER INSIDE - DOWN THE PAN

Sanitation in the cell has improved since Dickens' day.
Nevertheless, it's a bit rudimentary
to have to sit behind a 3 foot 6 `guard',
staring your cell-mate in the face,
emitting at least unsavoury noises,
and, unfortunately, some cell-filling odours.

But on Day Four in the Dana,
the wretched pan sprang a leak.
We had to have the `experts' in:
cons earning pocket money.
The one in the blue was passing sixty,
with thick-rimmed glasses.
His `apprentice' was forty,
though treated like fourteen.

Amidst several `fuckings',
and lots of spilt water,
it was discovered that the replacement was the wrong size,
and the joint was fitted with a punctured gasket.
(The two Ronnies would have made a better job of it,
though their dialogue wouldn't have been as colourful.)

Mission completed,
after a brief three-quarters-of-an-hour.
At one moment, at least four cons leant over the pan,
observing a screw being twisted in –
(quite fitting, for a prison, with failing outlets).
What professionalism! What finesse! –
Should have been a piece of piss!

Now – testing time, and possibly Eureka.
There was the new pan,
but the last twist of the ear-splitting drill
split the shiny bowl – possibly made in Stoke -
(like most of the druggies in the Dana).

`CUNT!' said the foreman in blue, with his dulled glasses.
We all laughed – like a drain!

    A THANKSGIVING TO
    GOD FOR HIS HOUSE

    Lord, Thou hast given me a cell
    Wherein to dwell:
    A little house, whose humble roof
    Is weather-proof;
    Under the spars of which I lie
    Both soft, and dry.
    Low is my porch, as is my fate –
    Both void of state;
    And yet the threshold of my door
    Is worn by the poor
    Who thither come, and freely get
    Good words, or meat.
    Like as my parlour, so my hall
    And kitchen's small.
    Some brittle sticks of thorn or briar
    Make me a fire,
    Close by whose living coal I sit
    And glow like it.
    Lord, I confess too, when I dine
    The pule is thine,
    And all those other bits, that be
    There placed by Thee –
    The worts, the pursloin, and the mess
    Of water-cress.
    Thou mak'st my teeming hen to lay
    Her egg each day.
    All these, and better Thou dost send
    Me to this end
    That I should render, for my part,
    A thankful heart.


    A THANKSGIVING TO
    TO GOD FOR HIS CELL

    Lord, Thou hast given me a cell
    Wherein to dwell:
    little house, whose humble roof
    Is weather-proof;
...