Authors: Vicky Pryce
In that lovely dining room, I was given a plastic plate, bowl and cup, and a plastic knife, fork and spoon, and told that I could ask my family to bring me proper plates and cutlery at their next visit. In
the meantime, I could borrow from what was left behind by departing residents in what was called ‘The Butler’s Room’ – it actually had that inscription on its door. That room was effectively an old scullery for the kitchen, with two big sinks, hot water for teas and coffees, a cold water machine and a fridge, and a place where the coffees, tea bags, sweeteners,
whiteners
and extra diet sweeteners were kept. But what was interesting was that in addition to all this that same room, where everyone entered constantly either to clear their plates and wash trays after a meal or help themselves to a drink, was also equipped with an ironing board and three hairdressing salon seats (well, I must not exaggerate their quality) with mirrors and three hairdryers and hair straighteners attached to each set. It was actually extraordinary and obviously the place to hang around in if you wanted to chat and know what was going on around the prison. Among the residents there were a number of qualified
hair-dressers
who spent a lot of time doing other people’s hair – a sharply worded notice reminded them not to spill hair dye on the floor and if they did to clear it up.
There were occasional mishaps but on the whole it worked rather well. This relatively small space, its only redeeming feature being a nice view to the gardens from a set of big windows, was a hive of activity – girls queuing to throw food away and wash plates; a panicky resident ironing her uniform furiously before dashing to the car to take her to her afternoon shift at a hotel in Maidstone; girls fussing over their hair, girls plucking their eyebrows; black girls putting in the most amazing hair extensions; Aanjay doing pedicures using bowls and I, with hygiene in mind, refusing to let her empty the water
in the sink but making her go to the loo and throw it there. All the secrets were discussed in the Butler’s, all the conspiring and complaining could take place there interrupted only when an officer – and
sometimes
even a governor – would come in to fill their flask with hot water, whereupon the rest of us either fell silent or joked with the officer, depending on who it was.
That first night my plastic plate and bowl were replaced with proper porcelain ones by a lovely South American girl, Valeria, who was probably the most beautiful girl in East Sutton Park. We got on incredibly well. She explained that she had already spent some nine years in prison and had been to eight separate prisons before deciding that she had to tame her temper so she could be sent to an open and start rebuilding her life. She was hoping for release within a year. She was generally keeping herself to herself but we seemed to click. Liz and I, who were allocated a seat at the same table next to each other, found ourselves becoming very friendly with her and went on to give her advice on her plans for the future, and to review her business plans that she had put together to request funding from external organisations so she could start a fitness training business for women of a certain age who were recovering from some major upset. She was in her late thirties herself with a
fifteen-year
-old son who lived somewhere in Australia with his father but with whom she had kept in touch. She confessed to us that if she hadn’t come to prison she would probably be dead by now from drug use but she was a very intelligent girl and had learned good English while serving her time. She was putting her experience to good use and had been asked by the
governor to go to schools along with other residents and explain her case and why crime does not pay. She had been convicted of importing drugs – clearly the drugs must have been worth a lot of money hence her double-digit sentence (of which one tends to do only half except in exceptional circumstances). She had already started going out on day visits and home leave for a few nights every few weeks and was certainly streetwise already. I marvelled how ‘with it’ she was and pondered how much she must have gone through to survive so many years in prison already. We always advised her to keep her fiery Latin temper under control but other residents were wary of her and she gave back as good as she got. One learned quickly in prison who not to upset; particular care had to be given to the foreign girls, who might take things too literally or not understand the subtleties of English humour and therefore be offended by simple misunderstandings. But Valeria was clearly capable and determined – and quite a character. As she
cheerfully
told us: ‘See these boobs, they not real. See these eyebrows, they’ve been done. Everyone does it in my country, it’s so cheap. As soon as I get out I’m going back for more!’
While I was at ESP she managed to pass an
interview
and get a job as a receptionist at a large and busy hotel just outside Maidstone. We agonised about whether it was worth it and our dinners were dominated by the latest twists in the story. The pay was minimum wage, the train fare had to be borne by the resident, and once tax and the contribution to the Victim Support Fund were deducted it didn’t leave much. In this case the crucial difference was whether the prison was prepared to drive Valeria and a couple
of others who also got jobs in the same place for free to the station and then pick them up at night –
sometimes
close to midnight – rather than letting them risk returning late at night in a taxi by themselves,
something
not only costly but also dangerous for these women. It was finally sorted out and though the net earnings were still low, for Valeria the most important thing was gaining experience that might then allow her to get a reasonable job on the outside as she was learning to use her interpersonal skills, work in a team and become familiar with customer service practices.
In my view that was the main benefit of ‘open’ – the fact that it managed, with all its faults, to move people towards permanent rehabilitation – but ironically you wondered what the purpose of actually staying in prison for people like her was. She was towards the end rarely sharing our dining room table except on the odd rest day; she worked five to six days a week, returning late to sleep at ESP, was up again at 8 a.m. for roll call, then exercise, made her packed lunch and supper and disappeared again for the afternoon – all this interspersed with days out and home leave. And this was the pattern for many. A beautiful girl, who must have been 6 foot tall, very thin and very bright, was doing an open degree in law and found no time to study as she was working on a voluntary basis at a marketing firm in Islington every day, which meant she had to take the car at 6.30 every morning. The bang of the door in the next room as she rushed out in the morning was a sure wake-up call for me in the unlikely event my other roommates managed somehow to sneak out to their jobs on the ESP farm at 5.30 a.m. without me hearing them.
And indeed there is the question of whether people
should be kept in for so long if they are no threat to society, particularly when they have demonstrated that they can hold down a job and get back on time, do not abscond even though they have ample chance to do so (they can access the internet and contact who they want when they are on the outside and also use their mobile phone) and pass the mandatory drug tests if they are asked.
As well as Valeria, we also met Luciana, a Latin American girl, that first evening. I wouldn’t see her often during my stay at ESP because she worked a lot of the time but whenever she caught sight of me she would come over for a chat and give me advice on prison life as she had been in custody for very many years already. She told me that while in prison I shouldn’t trust anyone. I told her that outside prison the advice also holds. There was a world-weariness about her. I soon realised that her experiences were
legendary
and I became aware of rumours about what had happened to her while in prison and why she had had to move prisons a number of times. While reading ex-Brixton prison governor John Podmore’s excellent book
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
at the hairdressers after leaving prison, I nearly fell off my chair when I read in black and white what had only been whispered in my ears by other ESP residents. A prison governor in a women’s prison had taken advantage of a vulnerable prisoner and had himself received a five-year sentence in 2011 for improper relations with her – and from his description it appeared to me it was indeed Luciana who had been thus abused. I was amazed. She had been nothing but kind to me and had taught me more about how to survive in prison than anyone else. I will be forever grateful to her.
After dinner, Liz and I were introduced to the lady in charge of our induction, Barbara. The expectation was that the induction would run for a week or so, maybe more, depending on people’s availability. We were each given some nice green folders which had to be filled in and signed by the various instructors as we were going through. It included seeing one of the governors, which I was looking forward to. Back in my dorm, I chatted to my roommates, put my stuff under and around the bed, found space for the many books I had brought in and some pads and pens in the cupboard, put my toiletries in the bedside locker, turned my bed around to face the other way so I could have access to the power point on the wall by the window to light my reading lamp, did my first roll call at 8 p.m. – and then went to karaoke.
Since it was Friday, bedtime was at midnight – by then the main lights and TV should be off. The officers do a further roll check by coming into the bedrooms with a little torch and counting the heads that are in bed – all usually asleep. They do the same at 5.30 in the morning, after which you are allowed to get up. One tried – and managed successfully most times – to sleep through them coming in as they tended to be quiet – except one night when they were clearly training (not very effectively) a new officer, who came in and counted us and then shouted to the officer who was outside in a very loud voice: ‘Three.’ We woke up. I wondered whether it was deliberate. I had heard a story in Holloway of one particular officer (female) who would turn all lights in cells on from the outside and leave them on all night on the level where she worked – luckily she had different shifts on different days and wasn’t always on at night or on the same
landing so no one suffered for too long each time, but one does wonder what made people behave this way.
For a first night in a new environment I managed a good night’s sleep. My roommates were very quiet and the only issue was they got up very early: one was a natural early starter, waited always for 5.30 and then went out for her first tea and cigarette; the other worked on the farm and minded the animals, even on weekends. Aside from that, I soon then discovered the joys of a potential lie-in if one were so inclined, as roll call on a Saturday was at 9 a.m. rather than 8 a.m. as on weekdays. Breakfast therefore was also later and more leisurely, though girls were usually preparing for their day visits to family or friends; some could go to London from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. or anywhere within a fifteen-mile radius of ESP from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. There was frantic activity the evening before as taxis were organised, agreements entered into, costs calculated. The girls made their applications for travel and cash warrants, as whatever was spent had to be approved by the officers with limits upon how much could be drawn out by the women from their cash balances. In the end, off they went on those weekend mornings, some on their CRL or ROTL; the result was that at times over a weekend the prison was less than half full. In fact, what did amaze me was the sheer number of people who were away most of the time.
During roll call that Saturday morning, I had the opportunity to get rich quick. Anyone who worked in the house during the week always had the
weekend
off. The staff in the kitchen and farms still
needed help during the weekend – mainly to take the animals out, do the laundry and kitchen work – so there were always shifts available. And, to my amazement, women are messy. I thought until then, from my experience at home, that it was only men that made everything untidy. Well, ESP soon changed that. Women ARE messy – in fact, they are unbelievably so. My housewife/mother instincts came to the fore and I would get people to throw things away
properly
, wash their trays, tell them off when they left mess on the tables – no one got upset with me; they just ignored me!
There was always cleaning to be done. So everyone who was around for roll call on weekend mornings and ‘idle’ was given a two-penny job which consisted of emptying particular bins, washing showers,
cleaning
bathrooms, sweeping the smoking area, hoovering particular bits of the building, washing floors. Yes, 2p. No one had any great enthusiasm for these tasks but they were done and we kept the place going, just about until the following morning. I only did it twice as from the following week, once induction was over, I got the job of cleaning the dining room after breakfast and lunch, making sure cereal dispensers were full, trays disinfected for next use, floors cleaned and coffees and the rest filled up. But I actually ended up working every day, including at the weekends, to cover for my co-workers who were often either in education and unable to work or on external visits. They were happy to let me take charge – I must admit I became quite obsessed with cleanliness and tidiness, which apparently is something that happens to many women in prison. The laundry girl told me that she couldn’t rest and fretted all day if she hadn’t folded
a sheet exactly so and someone who was constantly ironing had an obsession with seeing her shirts and sheets with no creases at all.
But after roll call and before cleaning duties on Saturday, a treat. One of the first inductions was to the gym, which was built in a barn originally used for horse displays in the past before the building was turned into a borstal and then a prison. We had two trainers who we also shared with the nearby men’s prison Blantyre and we spent some time being taken around the various bits of equipment and told how to use them and how to stretch to avoid any injuries. I had never been to the gym before – actually, that’s not strictly true. Twenty years ago, we at KPMG were given subsidised membership of a gym nearby. I had just given birth to my rather large youngest son and as a result I was rather large, too. I knew from
experience
(he was child number five) that given time that extra weight would go away and I would be back to my rather thin self but I bowed to the pressure from my colleagues and went for an induction. I bought some sports gear and kept it in plain sight. As the weight dropped off, colleagues commented on how right they had been and how successful the gym regime was proving. I would nod wisely and leave it at that – except of course I never went to the gym once!