Veronica's Bird

by Veronica Bird

  The Board member’s cheek twitched behind his papers. It was the end of my six months in the other world in which I so rarely trod. I learned a great deal; I believe others also learned how we operated and what we were all about. It was good, two-way traffic and the Service was able to hold its head up high at the end of it.

  An envelope dropped through my letter box whose back bore the familiar emboss of the portcullis surmounted by a coronet. The letter was jointly signed by Dame Angela Rumbold and Elizabeth Peacock. It invited me to become a member of the Westminster Dining Club. This meant joining a group of four hundred and fifty women all of whom were in influential positions in all walks of life. They met two or three times a year to promote a better understanding of opinions on current issues.

  The idea was very nice. The cost was very high, even for one lunch a year but there was a further carrot as it was likely, members would be invited to No.10 Downing Street to meet with the Prime Minister, John Major at the time, and others of influence, who just might be able to help me in the Prison Service. I wrote back, accepting and, realising I was being viewed as a person who had the ability to put a different slant on prisons to other women who almost certainly would not have the slightest idea of what my working life was all about. The promises came good.

  Five months later I received an invitation to attend a Reception at 10. Downing Street to meet The Right Honourable John Major.

  Walking through that much-photographed door where so many famous people had been before me, I continued up those stairs with its portraits of past Prime Ministers, onto the landing, where I waited until my name was called. To a small, Yorkshire lass from a two-up and two-down in a threadbare dress it was, simply thrilling. I shook hands with my Prime Minister and received his ready smile. Later, I was able to share my love of cricket with him when I was invited to Headingley as a guest of honour at a lunch with Dickie Bird and Michael Parkinson. I remembered Michael from the days when he would call at Fred’s shop at lunch-time to buy a piece of fruit and would always stop for a chat, always interested in what I was doing. I found we shared many other interests in sport which had been born in Ackworth school an aeon earlier.

  I still wonder where I might have landed up if Fred had not taken me away during that fatal and awful year of 1959. Leaving Downing Street that day, I shook my head wondering if it had all been a dream. Little did I realise I hadn’t even scratched the surface of my new life.

  *

  Soon after I completed my secondment I was sent to London as an evaluator for the Contracts and Competitions Group. There were massive changes afoot in the Service as the Government began to contract out the running of prisons to private companies which led to the reason for my secondment. Familiar names such as Securicor, Sodexo, Group4, Premier and Serco were making their bids to manage Buckley, and my job was to check the required staffing levels these companies were suggesting would be sufficiently safe, and value for money. Their figures along with a great deal of padding, were contained in large, very weighty boxes which were carried in, one by one. (never mind the quality, feel the width). There were ten boxes and an awful lot of paper. To make it worse, each bid described the everyday actions in differing terminology so it became almost impossible to compare handcuffs with handcuffs. For example, one company might call a working area, The Main Gate. Another might describe it as Reception. Both titles, to me, had separate and well-defined tasks; prison officer grades too, did not match present day descriptions. Call confused.com perhaps?

  G4S decided they did not want to contaminate their staff by bringing in well-trained and experienced Prison Service personnel. By contaminate, I mean they did not wish to take on the militancy of the Prison Officers Association with its bad practices such as sick leave which, at the time was higher in the Service than in any other profession. This, as you might well appreciate, was a recipe for a cock-up. In a prison, it is experience which is an essential ingredient of the jig-saw which makes up a well-run prison – there is no ready alternative to it.

  When Buckley opened, on time, staffed by G4S, one prison officer, who had been instructed to carry out a job on the security mesh fence, leant his ladder against it while he went off to get some tools. Four prisoners found it very convenient to use the ladder to escape. ‘Red’ and ‘face’ are two words with which this officer, I am sure, would agree were applicable. Compounding the whole farce, the newly trained staff exited the prison en masse to try and catch the prisoners as if the tower of Babel had collapsed around them. This left the prison dangerously unattended. Controllers, therefore, appointed at the time of the awarding of the contract provided great value and sense in bridging the chasm between take-over and being able to run the prison with as much competence as the Prison Service itself. Guess who was appointed to do just that at Buckley?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  BUCKLEY HALL – IN CONTROL

  Those in charge, those who were experienced in running prisons, knew from the start it would never work. To allow unskilled private companies to run our establishments, built up over many years of learning at Her Majesty’s pleasure, was not a sensible idea however much the Government of the day believed they could save from their budget. Thus, it was wisely determined, that control must never be lost entirely, and each prison would have a Controller installed who would monitor the progress of the contract, provide advice and carry out statutory duties which a private prison director did not have the powers to execute.

  As a Controller, newly appointed, I was to be the eyes and ears for the Prison Service reporting through to London Headquarters. A spy in the camp you might well think, but it was impossible to allow handovers to private control without some form of supervision or, at the very least, experienced advice being close at hand. It had been agreed that a Director of a prison would not have the full powers as could be found with a Prison Governor.

  Buckley Hall was the third private prison in Britain. Normally, it took twenty years to plan build and open a prison – I have no idea why – but here, they knocked down an old prison and built a new one on the same site, pre-fab in style, in ten months. It was a near thing for Michael Howard, the Home Secretary in 1994 as he had informed Parliament that he was going to have Buckley opened for Christmas. He forgot, or was quite unaware of the clause, ‘Inclement weather’ in the contract and slippage on the end date loomed as the weather never ceased to stop raining. Nervous, the powers that were, sent me down to the site to see why everything was getting bogged down…. only for me to find that everything was becoming bogged down. I was acutely aware of Mr Howard’s eyes boring into my back. Provided with a hard hat, Hi-Viz jacket and gumboots several sizes too large, they enabled me to stride off across the site to find out for myself what the real problems were, which, I hoped, would allow me to send a positive report back to those waiting for an optimistic reply.

  The problem lay in the unarguable fact the site was waterlogged – unarguably. I could and did report back this detail but did not add the rider I had become stuck in the mud. I mean, stuck. Immovable. Bonded to the earth. It was embarrassing or perhaps excruciating, for eventually I had to be hauled out vertically from the mire, mud dripping from my heels, by two large navvies who, gleefully, returned me to terra firma amply aided by their sniggers. There had been a suggestion, unkindly, that a crane should be used but, in the end, that was not found to be necessary. I did not go back to fetch my gumboots which remained forlornly in the mud like two of Titanic’s funnels sinking into a brown Atlantic.

  We brought in nine trustees to help with the final kitting out and who were then able to move in as the holiday arrived. It permitted the Home Secretary to report back to Parliament, he had kept his word. A small irony there for it had been the co-operation of the prisoners which had made it all possible.

  It was very soon after I moved in as Controller to Buckley that I was approached by a prisoner who I had never seen before.

  ‘Good morning Miss Bird. Do you remember me?’

&n
bsp; ‘No, I don’t think so.’ I didn’t think, I was sure.

  ‘Well, I remember you, very well.’

  I wracked my brains, trying to recall his face. Most of my memories were of women’s’ faces. ‘Sorry.’ I shook my head.

  ‘My Ma told me all about you. You used to push me about in my pram around the yard. You fed me. I was born at Styal, in the hospital. Ma is Elsie.’

  Dawning arose. This fully-grown prisoner who I had bathed and fed as a tiny baby had completed a full circle. Now he was in prison, an adult, reminding me of all the years in between. He was one of the prisoners at Buckley who looked after the carpark and gardens and attempted to use this relationship later when he was a few days away from completing his sentence. He wanted to be with his mates on the last days, not trimming grass and cutting edges.

  ‘All my tools, Miss Bird. Some buggar…. begging your pardon ma’am, has stolen them all. I will have to stay inside won’t I?’

  I eyed him balefully, but, having no tools in sight, I let him go and began an investigation into the loss. It wasn’t until after he had left, that I was told he had got rid of them himself. It did not surprise me. Many prisoners could be very devious and cunning to suit themselves just to make their lives a trifle more bearable. And how sad was it, the man had continued the life of crime which his mother before him had led him into?

  Although I was not running Buckley as a Governor, I could feel the mood in the prison was beginning to change, and it was not for the better despite it being a new facility. Yes, G4S was, slowly finding its feet, as the staff came to terms with the routines of the day which were essential, but there was no doubt about the tense atmosphere which was one notch away from a riot. From my experience, I could feel the mood rising. The rumour mill reached out to London.

  One night when I was clearing my desk for the night, the Area Manager for the North-West walked in unannounced. It was nine in the evening.

  ‘I want to carry out a full inspection Veronica. Now if you please.’

  As we proceeded down corridors at a pace to begin with, my Area boss would suddenly stop as he met any staff he saw. He would ask them the same question.

  ‘What is the name of the Director, when did you last see him and what is the name of the Deputy Director?’ He was met with blank stares and mumbles.

  ‘But, you know who this is?’ He jabbed a finger me.

  ‘Oh, yes Sir. It’s Miss Bird.’ While I liked the answer, our man apparently, did not. He pursed his lips which, by the end of the tour ended in a thin line. Deeply concerned we left the prison.

  ‘I’ll be here tomorrow Veronica. Set up a meeting for 7.30 with these particular members staff.’ He handed me a list of senior staff he needed to see in the morning. That includes the Director and his deputy… whatever their names are,’ he added. And with that, he left.

  The next day, the assembled staff were as tense as the prisoners had been. He moved quickly into gear.

  ‘This place is filthy. You,’ he turned to the senior staff, ‘are contracted to ensure it is kept clean. You are failing in your duty. You are contracted to provide work. You are not. Have you any idea how dangerous it is, not to provide our inmates with work. Idle hands and all that. Do you really think you can keep the lid on this volcano by not providing work?’

  One of the staff attempted to interrupt but the Area boss was in full flow. ‘You are contracted to keep prisoners unlocked for specific periods of the day. You are not doing so. Provide work for prisoners…. you are not doing so. I suggest we start with the basics and move up from there. Then our felons inside can complete their terms as humanely as possible. Listen…and learn.’ He turned to me. ‘You are going to have to get into this one Veronica. We cannot leave it like this. Find some work for them and apply some of your Yorkshire cleaning and get the place clean.’

  Saying that to a Yorkshire lass is like giving ice cream to a child. ‘Yes Sir.’

  The news got out to the prisoners. G4S (now reverted to HM Prison Service) found them work and the prison began to shine again. You might believe my Area Manager had been too hard on what was a brand-new prison, still finding its way. But Buckley was not a low category site. It held a criminal who I found more dangerous, more scary than any others I have met before or since I entered the Service. While the private companies began to understand, and comply with their contracts, and grew professional in their conduct, it took longer for them to understand the mind of the very dangerous criminal. And such a man was being looked after by them.

  This man had kidnapped several women, hiding them in the boot of his car. Arrested, tried and sentenced, he never admitted his crimes nor showed any remorse. As Controller, it was one of my jobs to approve any home leave. With this challenge to my authority, I could find no circumstances in which I could grant him his leave.

  As he came to the end of his full sentence, having had no reduction whatsoever, I took an enormous, but justified risk (in my opinion). I sent him out with a Prison Officer to have a cup of coffee in town to begin his readjustment into the real world. It was not a success, but not for the reason I had thought. He simply could not stand the noise and bustle around him in the café. Even the clamour of cups and the constant twitter of coffee talk irritated him and they left, the Prison Officer getting him back safely to his cell. It was curious, for prison life is full of noise; it must be his ear was attuned to one set of noises only. Anything else was alien and thus disruptive to him.

  I had to try again and found a hostel willing to take him on and, with his release he finally found a real life. The end of this story is more upsetting. One day, acting as a good citizen, he went to the aid of a man being attacked in the street and was killed for his efforts. Before this tragic event, I had received a card from him, thanking me for trusting him. It is a bizarre world we live in. Sometimes things just don’t seem to add up.

  *

  I have described the regular visits of government Ministers, all of them meeting the benchmark of high intelligence and an interest of getting under the skin of their appointed job.

  At Buckley, we had another, a Prisons’ Minister and a woman to boot, my first as a visitor.

  Buckley had had a series of issues as it settled down; fires, fighting and escapes all were logged into the record. The idea of contracting out the management and day to day running of Her Majesty’s prisons was beginning to attract a great deal of publicity and Ann Widdecombe needed to find out why these problems kept coming across her desk.

  She arrived with Liz Lynn the MP for Rochdale which fell within her constituency. As a member of Parliament, she was one who did not agree with the contracting out of prisons. I gave the two of them the statutory coffee and biscuits before the tour and briefed them on what I saw were the main issues.

  Ann Widdecombe appeared nervous – this was only the third or fourth prison she had visited, and I had been advised by the Director-General, this was new territory to her. He advised me it would be my responsibility to get her moving on the tour as she would not move until she was led.

  As we progressed she wanted to know just how prisoners had escaped over a fence, climbed up onto the hospital wing from where it was a simple matter to raid the drugs cupboards. The Director of the private company was hard put to answer the barrage of questions (I don’t think he had got up to speed with one his most important properties he was charged with managing) so I had to fill in the gaps.

  It was later, during our rounds when I had been freed from attending, needing to sort out some important papers, a prisoner rushed into my office. ‘Miss Bird! That Minister of yours, and the MP, Liz something or other. They’re having a punch-up!’

  ‘A punch-up? What do you mean, a punch-up?’ Prisoners were prone to hyperbole and this sounded like one of those moments. I still felt I should go and investigate, which I did, but it turned out, the two women had been having, what is called in government circles, a robust argument on principle which, I was assured on my return, was resolved
.

  Ann Widdecombe quickly expanded into her role, no more nerves, visiting every prison in the country and not all by prior arrangement, especially when she believed something was far from the actualité. It was a sign of the strength of character of the lady. At one establishment, she arrived demanding to see the governor, only to be asked by the gate-keeper, ‘Who are you?’ To which Ann Widdecombe did not provide a sufficiently strong enough reason. Calmly yet probably forcefully, the Minister for Prisons told the man to pass on her message to his Governor, ‘if he was there,’ to be told she should wait in her car until the message had been relayed. Not unexpectantly for the Minister, the Governor emerged from his place of work, at the double, hastily patting his hair in place and straightening his tie.

  Ann Widdecombe was always supportive of the prison staff she met. She was well aware, as a government Minister, of the tightness on funding – and we never had enough – but always showed her concerns and understanding of the difficulties we all underwent on a daily basis. She remembered me when I received my award, sending me a congratulatory letter which I appreciated very much.

  We finished that year with a big surprise for the staff. They had been arranging a charity event which was to be held in the Visitors’ Hall. Some sort of main attraction was needed to pull it all together and, as luck would have it, it was one of our prisoners who succeeded beyond anything the staff could arrange. This prisoner had contact with Manchester United Football team; what the connection was I was never able to find out and I felt it was better that I did not enquire.

  David Beckham and Paul Scholes, I remember well, but the whole team came, giving of their time along with a signed ball and shirts to auction. It was odd in its way, seeing these superstar footballers mixing cheerfully with tough prison officers in the middle of a hall designed for prisoners to meet their families. I imagine the anonymous prisoner who had arranged the entire event had a few relaxations and additional benefits provided for some time.