Strangeways

by Neil Samworth

  As for the cons, back in the day they used to wear denims and blue-and-white striped shirts that had to be tucked in, made in-house. On the yard they wore donkey jackets. Go on eBay today and that old gear – with a prison label on – can fetch £100–£200. These days the sewing shop makes grey prison tracksuits or sentenced prisoners can wear their own clothes. Skint lads are issued with standard prison boxers – one size fits all – socks, a tracksuit with no pockets, a grey sweat top and T-shirt. Prisoners who get out of line are made to wear a maroon combo known as ‘corned beef’, due to its colour, which they detest. Imagine you’re a Salford gangster, bit of an image, and made to walk around like that. If you are one of the guys, you’re going to feel like a dick.

  HMP Manchester was laid out like this. A Wing was for sex offenders, nice and quiet as those wings are. Not a lot of bother. B Wing was – don’t laugh – drug free. No wing in this country – or world – is drug free. It seemed to me they picked their own prisoners: hardworking types who wanted to do their time in peace. Once, I walked up to the fours landing, where three lads were strewn across the stairs.

  ‘What you doing up here, boss?’ one asked. ‘Staff don’t come up here.’

  B Wing staff traded on being laid-back, yet what they really were was lazy bastards who spent all day by the kettle while the prisoners ruled the roost. B Wing inmates were regularly piss tested, but there are loads of ways around that.

  C Wing was for lifers, a bit brighter and cleaner than anywhere else, though not everyone was whole of life. That eighteen-month ‘life sentence’ I mentioned before went to a first-time offender who killed another teenager in a knife-fight: genuinely tragic given their age and immaturity. He was on C Wing. Not much happens, although being full of murderers, when it does it’s serious.

  D Wing was essentially K Wing’s overflow, everything you can imagine – remand, lifers, troublesome, disruptive, mentally unwell . . . you name it. Walk on C Wing, nice and light, all painted up. D Wing – shithole. However, some staff loved it. It had a bit of a buzz, a lot of testosterone flying around. ‘Smiffy, you twat, get that cleaned up . . .’ – down to earth, a no-nonsense place to work. Officers migrated to where they fit best. Put D Wing staff on C Wing and they’d be bored.

  E Wing was like three wings in one. It housed the segregation unit, where the prisoners were locked up all day; the small Category A unit with its own special set of rules, full of highly dangerous and frequently violent criminals as defined by the Home Office; and opposite that was VP (vulnerable prisoners), sex offenders, rapists, paedophiles and other such unpopular types, who are kept separate from the rest of the prison population for their own safety, do their own exercise and have their own visits area.

  I remember one VP who came to us on K Wing, quite old, hard bastard and skinny as fuck. He had white hair, no teeth, and he used to wear make-up, black tights and a sequined dress. You’d think in an environment like that he wouldn’t have lasted two minutes, wouldn’t you? Not a bit of it. This guy would offer folk out, staff and prisoners – he’d go to their cells and threaten to do them in. The VPs were usually no bother. They might have considered themselves powerful on the out, but inside among the real hard cases it was a different story. Mostly, they were sly enough to know it.

  Manchester had an anomaly, an OP section, the term for someone designated ‘own protection’. A druggie in debt to another prisoner, for example, can apply to go OP, although why anyone would do so is mystifying as often they’d go to a VP wing. Then again, a lot of OPs are also lower than a snake’s belly, so keeping such horrendous company doesn’t matter to them.

  Having three categories all on E Wing might sound daft, but it was a good plan. Cat A lads aren’t going to want to associate with perverts, are they? They have a hard and macho image to maintain. A gate separated the two areas as well, so there would be no communication or risk of anything dodgy being passed.

  That was the bottom jail; in top jail you found G Wing, where all the inductions happened and prisoners coming in were processed. They were brought in in vans, put in holding cells, stripped of their property in reception and moved there, except for sex offenders who went straight to E Wing.

  On G Wing, they’d get a five-day induction course in a classroom. Prisoners very often shitting themselves were told how to make phone calls, get their family in, make money, how to survive basically. Decent arrivals were kept there for a good length of time. Any shite was fast-tracked to K Wing within hours. If they had only been on G Wing a day, you knew they’d be troublesome.

  I Wing stank. It was for detoxing drug addicts and alcoholics. The stench of body odour was constant. The majority had no hygiene skills; they thought baths were for keeping spiders in. A lot were repeat offenders, living on the streets. They don’t look after themselves. They’d come in with nothing and go out with nothing. Other than that, with only seventy prisoners when full, it wasn’t a big population to manage. They were like medicated robots too: meds in the morning, meds at dinner, meds at night. On arrival at Strangeways, prisoners got a reception pack – sweets or tobacco. That made them targets generally but on I Wing, where everyone was craving something, they were like worms in a field, circled by crows. Once they were detoxed, they’d move on to H Wing to complete their alleged recovery. There was always a steady movement of cattle.

  In prison everyone reckons their original wing had the most adverse conditions. That was true for K Wing at Strangeways, where I landed when I started. We had all sorts, the entire spectrum – from brutal killers to prisoners other wings couldn’t handle to sales reps in for a month for crashing a car. It meant K Wing staff developed a tough reputation, despite being no harder or better equipped than anyone else. Lads in the private sector had told me it was like Beirut, and they weren’t wrong, although while I was there it was mostly kept under control thanks to Bertie and the commanding officers. But I have very fond memories of it. We knew what was expected of us. The staff and prisoners we had on those landings made prison life as volatile and exciting as it gets. K Wing was big but it ran like clockwork.

  Cock of the walk was PO Pennington, one of your old-style regimental sergeant majors. He had a ’tache, dressed smart and looked the part, Fulton Mackay with an English accent. The entrance to the top jail was named after him: Pennington’s Back Passage. He was very proud of that. His withering one-liners were legendary.

  Once there was a fight on the yard, 200 prisoners on exercise and only two staff supervising them. Some drugs had flown over the wall. ‘Draw batons!’ yelled PO Pennington, like some general on a horse on a hill. So everyone did, but couldn’t do anything with them for laughing. Another time his voice came over the radio, ‘Send in the second wave! We need more troops.’

  Above him was the governor. We had a few in our time. At the very top of the jail is the number-one governor – the one who gets interviewed on the TV when something goes wrong – but at every prison there are a number of managers lower down who also have that title. Indeed, every prison wing has one. Among ours was the training centre PO who didn’t like me at first – let’s call him Captain Hurricane. Most hands-on were our three SOs, front-line managers like Bertie, rotating on shifts. Two good ones and you’re laughing. Bertie’s oppos were Spongebob, a vertically challenged mini-me, maybe five foot five with a flattop. People said he modelled himself on Bertie, but so what? They worked the same way. You’d argue and it would be over. Happy days. Wainers, our third SO, was a lover not a fighter, a gentle man who’d been in the job ages. He’d sweep up the administrative stuff. Unlike Bertie Bassett and Spongebob, he wasn’t one for dishing out discipline or confrontation, but was a cracking manager too.

  Then there was K Wing’s married couple, known to all as Tractor and Trailer, a rare set-up. Relationships inside were frowned upon – they led to serious conflicts of interest: how they’d managed to get around that I don’t know. What I do know is that it worked a treat. They’d met at HMP Liverpool and fallen in love.
Personally, I wouldn’t want anyone I loved working in prison, especially on the same wing.

  Trailer Pete was pleasant with a goatee beard and looked like a milkman or librarian, not a clichéd screw like me. He was as gentle as Tractor Helen, his wife, was loveably stern, fixing you to the spot with a knowing look over her glasses. During the time we worked together, she lost weight, leading by example as usual, making Pete eat salads at dinnertime when what he really wanted was pizza or a burger. As a couple they were a perfect match.

  Helen’s normal domain was the office. But, my god, when she was out on the landing she could be harsh. She said it how it was, didn’t matter how big or hard you were. From staff or prisoners she would take no shit. If she was in the prison service now, where staff shortages mean there’s a lack of control, she’d likely be assaulted. She would not back down, though, even without support around. We were all pretty much scared of her at some point or other.

  Pete, like me, was a landing screw at heart, at his happiest unlocking folk, locking them up again, chatting to prisoners, breaking up fights now and then, having the odd brew and a bit of banter. Paperwork? Nah. Leave that to Wainers and the missus. Although he had a temper when pushed, he wasn’t particularly tough, Pete, but he was a caring man that the prisoners respected. ‘I’m not Johnny Concrete,’ he’d say, which made me smile. If inmates had a problem he’d either sort it or say he couldn’t, no messing around. In 2008, he actually won the Strangeways’ Prison Officer of the Year award and deservedly so. He had integrity, one of those people who bring light into your life.

  I never wore a watch in prison, which used to drive Pete mad. It would have been handy, but you’d be asked for the time every five minutes and I’d rather get on Pete’s nerves instead. Finally, he got so pissed off he gave me his own expensive timepiece, gold plated, crocodile strap.

  ‘I’ve had it ten years,’ he said. ‘Cost me £200 did that.’

  I’d only been wearing it two minutes when we were called to a restraint. Soon, shards of glass were all over the floor and all that was left of the watch was the strap.

  It was amazing how Tractor and Trailer handled things, together 24/7 with all the stresses and strain that brings. That said, despite being on the same wing, it was rare to find them at the same incident. It did happen once, though, when Helen was in charge of locking-up time on the threes and was putting everyone, including Bertie, in their place. I was on the twos. Hearing a bit of fuss, I looked up to see Pete arguing with a prisoner and Helen going in a cell in front of him and drawing her baton. Screws used to have truncheons, wooden jobs with a leather handle; now they have collapsible batons. With 200 prisoners that’s not a deterrent and, for legal reasons, there is an unwillingness to use them. Pete went in after her, someone hit the alarm bell and onto the threes we all went.

  It turned out Pete had seen someone cutting himself. I’ve got my own classification system for self-harmers, on a scale of one to ten. Nine to ten means hard-core. They go to extremes, aren’t fearful and know no limits. If they haven’t started on healthcare they will end up there. Less than 5 per cent of the prison population are like that. Four to eights are genuine too. They’ll have been at it for years, mentally unwell or been abused as a kid. It can be a cry for help. We had a lad once on K Wing who people didn’t like. When he cut himself bad, which he did now and then, it was for release. ‘Sorry to bother you, Mr Samworth, can you get a nurse to dress this?’ He didn’t want to be off the wing. Those sorts are few and far between too.

  The guy Pete saw was one to three – manipulative. This type could be a druggie who wants moving because he’s in debt. He might present staff with a noose saying he’s going to hang himself. Among self-harmers in prison, they are the majority. If someone is really going to commit suicide they won’t tell you, they will do it quietly.

  To cut to the chase, this lad was scratching at his arm with a razor blade and Pete had been trying to talk him down. Until Tractor bumped Trailer out of the way, stormed into the cell and twatted him. The prisoner, that is – not her husband.

  Every wing had a little brew room, where officers could use the kettle, eat meals, store stuff in the fridge, microwave food, etc. On K Wing, it was on the fours. At dinnertime, Helen and Pete would share a table. They were the sort of people you’d be happy to have as parents. They weren’t that much older than us but, as senior people, they looked after the younger ones. On the landings they were decent role models for lads from broken or dysfunctional homes. Totally different as individuals, if you could blend two people for the perfect officer you’d have him or her right there. You had respect for them. They did the job right.

  In K Wing, I was on twos pretty much constantly. It had four gated landings, plus an office and servery in the ‘basement’, our ones. As the wing was huge, looking after a single landing was a big job in itself. When prisoners were out of their cells during the day, they’d stay on their own patch, as would the staff, two to each landing – in effect, six officers guarding two hundred inmates.

  On the twos, effectively the ground floor, the landing was around ten metres wide, maybe less, on which prisoners could stroll up and down. The walkways on threes or fours were only a metre wide. Nor could cons walk circuits, because one end was locked off; they were stuck in a sort of U bend. That’s why we also had in-cell association, which meant they could mill about, but we wouldn’t have them out on the landing chatting at night. Two hundred lags doing that at once – bedlam. You’d shout, ‘Get off the landing’ or ‘Get behind your door,’ and they would.

  We were strict though, I’ll tell you that. On the twos, there were forty cells, twenty each side. The bottom end had a dozen for the orderlies, or cleaners as we called them, mostly doubled up as they weren’t thought a risk. Orderlies are model prisoners. They’ve got jobs to do in the day so they’d be on the landing cleaning, get a lot of gym, generally be out of your face. Down the wing on the left-hand side was where we kept the basic regime lads.

  Prisoners come into jail on the IEP system – incentive-earned privileges. They start on standard regime, are put in a cell, given a TV and away they go. If they manage three months warning-free, they can apply to be an enhanced prisoner, which lets them spend more on their prison canteen every week, i.e. groceries like powdered milk, tea, chocolate and biscuits. They pay for these themselves to a spending limit, out of accounts topped up by their family, perhaps, or with money earned at work. Nine shifts would earn you around £6.50. Once sentenced, a prisoner is obligated to work, and would either apply for a job or get given one, for which they would get paid. But in reality at Strangeways there weren’t enough jobs to go round so inmates with money coming in from their family wouldn’t have the incentive to apply. We had about 300 spaces in the workshops, and a small number of orderlies on each wing, who’d clean or man the servery. There were also about 80 to 100 spaces in education,

  On top of their wages, there was ‘bang-up pay’, which every prisoner gets whether they are working or not – it used to be around £2.50 a week. As they weren’t yet guilty of anything, in Strangeways remand lads could spend £40, sentenced cons £24. An enhanced prisoner had maybe a fiver more. Extra visits too. A standard prisoner got about four visits a month, enhanced prisoners a couple extra. Remand visits could be daily. If you’re on a long sentence, two more visits is a big deal. At an hour per visit, instead of four hours in your family’s company, you had six.

  Enhanced prisoners could also apply to have PlayStations sent in, a reward that would send some newspapers and members of the public crackers – ‘Holiday camp, blah blah blah.’ Well, they are model prisoners, so if every single prisoner had a PlayStation I’d be content: it would mean my jail was running sweet. No con is on them twenty-four hours a day – a couple of hours at the weekend maybe. It’s not the massive issue it’s made out to be. They need an incentive to behave, which is better for staff – civil servants remember, average people.

  Below standard regime was ba
sic regime: corned beef clobber, no telly, restricted time out of their cell. On K Wing, that meant two hours a day, an hour of which might be on exercise. A standard routine, by comparison, was a couple of hours morning, afternoon and night, though that could vary at weekends, say, and different wings had different times. A normal prisoner got a maximum of two warnings before being reduced to basic. Bertie and Spongebob were very good: if someone got caught eating or drinking on the landing, which was not allowed, only in your cell, they might let him off. If somebody was in a fight, however, or robbed or smashed something, was abusive to staff, they’d be warned.

  About forty staff worked with all the alpha males locked up on the wing. We probably had twenty-five really, really good staff and fifteen not so good ones, but it worked. It was a tight-knit team.

  Feeding time was a sight to behold. People visited from other jails just to watch. We dished it out on rotation. Monday, we might start with the twos, Tuesday threes and so on. One hundred and fifty portions of sausage and chips, forty curries, twenty vegetarian options, first come, first served. At Strangeways, they’d then eat in their cell.

  We unlocked one at a time, half a landing at a time. Prisoners would walk down via the stairs at one end, collect their meal, then come back up the staircase at the other, a one-way circular system we were very strict about. No one came up the wrong way. Two hundred prisoners fed in thirty to forty minutes – we didn’t fuck about. With food involved, the servery could be a real flashpoint. Everyone gets the same portion. The lads on there do it fair but if some intimidating gangster comes on – ‘Give me more chips . . .’ – it can escalate fast. If he gets more chips there’s ten lads after him who’ll want more as well and then you’re fucked. We had situations where lads had to be restrained but it could be fun. At dinnertime you’d get to have conversations with prisoners and rip the piss out of each other.