It does show there are kindnesses shown on both sides of the fence. It never ceases to amaze me that although prisons are collecting centres for those of us who ignore the laws of the land, or are just incapable of keeping their feelings in check, there is an inner goodness inside many of these wretched prison dwellers, which needs us to re-examine the whole principle of locking up.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BROCKHILL – A BASKET CASE
I had now been in the Prison Service for thirty years. I have no idea where the time went as I spent days, years, dealing with hardened criminals and those, who patently should never have been sent inside in the first place. My reputation for never having to raise my voice, ‘always speak quietly to them,’ was advice I constantly doled out to my staff.
‘If you treat them with respect, you will get respect in return,’ I would propose, and it usually worked. My philosophy of never wanting to know why a particular prisoner was incarcerated in my prison, continued.
Maybe it was that reputation for keeping calm, to ensure that peace reigned, had worked its way up to Headquarters?
I was asked to go and visit a prison in Hull with a view to taking it over. I made a trip down to Wolds prison, made an inspection and arrived home ready for the weekend to learn, ‘…. there’s something far more pressing Veronica. Brockhill. Do you know it?’
‘Brockhill?’ for God’s sake, everyone in the Service knew of Brockhill! It had previously been a male only prison though now for females. Brockhill was in Worcestershire, a pretty county with nice countryside, but a dreadful prison. What I did know about it was the layout was similar to Pucklechurch, but there, the comparisons ended. I cleared my throat and managed to reply. ‘Er, yes. I’ve heard of it. I’m going on holiday tomorrow Sir. Let me think about it while I am away.’ I assumed, correctly as it turned out, he wanted me to go to Brockhill. He would not have raised it otherwise…. but Brockhill!
There was no doubting the frustration in my Superior’s voice but there was little he could do about it. He knew I had to feel comfortable if I was to accept the post, taking on the worst prison for women in the country.
So, I went on holiday but was unable to get away from the long arms of the Service, for I received three more calls asking if I had made up my mind…. yet!
‘Have you been able to visit?’ They knew I hadn’t, as I was still on leave.
‘It’s a mess, Veronica, a right mess,’ was the nearest expletive I could put down here on paper.
Brockhill was a failed prison. There had been no money to improve its infrastructure, no maintenance on the buildings. The place looked abandoned and I was to learn quickly, staff morale was at rock-bottom. It consisted of a mixture of buildings, all poor in design, materials and construction. Newer cells had lavatories and hand basins in the cells. Quite a mixture of the old and the very new. When I got back from leave, something struck me straight away. Brockhill had nowhere to go but up. I would be working with a women’s population again which had always proved worthwhile, and I had bags of experience in dealing with female issues.
I was in. I made up my own mind on the matter. I rang up and confirmed a start date. Sir David, later Lord Ramsbotham (Chief Inspector of Prisons) made comment to me, ‘…. it’s well past its sell-by date. Just hold on to it tight Veronica for a year, then we will find something better for you.’
‘But Sir, I’d like to have a proper go at it. Give me a year and I’ll turn it around.’
Sir David studied me as if I needed to lie down quietly with a cold compress on my forehead. He almost said but didn’t, ‘there, there,’ but instead he replied with a shake of his head. ‘There’s no more money for this one Veronica. It’s just a holding situation.’
This got my back up. Was such a facility all I was worth? Now, I’m a quiet sort of person up to a limit. I learnt my place in life a long time ago but I also knew what I could do, what I was capable of and I was certain I could do the job, with or without funding. All at once, ideas began to burst into my head and I wanted to get on and show him what I was made of.
‘Give me chance Sir. I’ll turn it around in the year, I promise.’
A long, pregnant pause ensued. ‘Well, I’m impressed with your belief. Alright, you’ve got your year but I have to tell you no-one has ever turned around a prison in such a state before. Certainly not in a year. And Brockhill!’
‘Quite so, Sir.’ I clamped my lips together and smiled to reassure him.
It turned out it was a lot worse than I imagined it was. My heart sank when I saw three hundred women prisoners who were all wearing men’s’ pyjamas at night and track suits, too large for them, in the day. Brockhill had previously been a male prison and all that had been done for its conversion to women only, was to remove the men and replace them with female versions. Everything else had remained.
The walls had been painted in dark-green, Hollybush I believe it is termed, tiles were missing and floors were clogged with heavy dirty wax from years of application. Underneath the grime was a modern prison subsumed under a lack of care and an absence of communication between the previous Governor and his staff, for he had had no experience of working with women. As I viewed the depressing scene, it was indeed a low mark in my life but I had made my bed and I had to lie on it.
But, I had experience of working with women, I countered, lifting my head and recognising my experience. I brightened for the first time since arriving. I had to start somewhere, so I began with the Young Offenders, those aged fifteen to twenty-one years old. Eighty-two percent of our inmates were under twenty-seven years old, a difficult age group to control.
We had some spare cash in the books with which we bought duvets and curtains and we bought in enough paint so we could lose the green mire which dominated everything. I begged the use of a powerful steam cleaner from the male prison next door which, eventually and after much effort cut through the blackened surface to expose the original wood floor in all its glory. The dining room simply sparkled as light began to pour into the gloomy corridors transforming the prison into a much more acceptable place to last out one’s sentence. Lastly, importantly for the women, I put them all in clean clothes magnificently provided by the W.I. Now, they looked like women, rather than pantomime clowns in trousers too big for them. To paraphrase those immortal words, ‘one small step for man, one giant leap for Brockhill.’
Another issue was to find work. Prisoners had been spending their time on the landings with nothing to do all day. With a clean dining room, they were able to move back in to eat rather than, as before, take their meals in their equally dirty cells. The women found jobs laying up the tables, washing up in the kitchen and getting involved in all the activities which the spanking new room demanded. They could mix and chat, occupied, forgetting the deadly boredom of the previous regime. Morale rose.
What was equally fundamental, was to ensure my staff could see there was effort being put into their lives as well. I created what I called a rest room, stuck a television in so they had something to watch while they ate their lunch. Before this, staff had hunched up on a landing with a cup of coffee. This really had been a ridiculous state of affairs and I could well understand why morale had been so low. Nor was it necessary: brains were not needed to see what was wrong and then to right it…. quickly.
Next, I looked at improving the education facilities, upgrading health care and very soon the Category B prisoners began to take a pride in themselves. This was heightened when the W.I. again, brought along nighties and more clothing. We had not only removed the strait jacket of the uniform but brought a personal care into their lives which, converted, turned into a large number of smiles. The women began to look like women again, and they knew it.
The Chief Inspector was due for an interim visit having heard how we were doing. I decided it would be nice if we filled up all the dead planters in the front, colour to brighten his arrival which we did with bought in flowering plants. The next morning, we found that the blo
ody rabbits had eaten every one of them and we hadn’t even had a chance of taking a pot-shot at them for jugged hare.
It was a warming note to see morale rise, particularly as I knew that the staff were more male in numbers than female. This had come about as it had been a male prison earlier in its life and staff had stayed on. Without my staff, I might have stumbled in front of the man to whom I had made a rather rash promise. Instead, I could report we had no need for more funds and the threat of a major disturbance disappeared below the horizon.
One year in, I attended a Prison Service Conference at which the Director-General addressed us all from the platform.
‘Why is it,’ he asked, his eyes boring into our heads, that Veronica here, can turn around one of the worst, if not the worst prison in the country in just one year and you need three to four years, plus,’ he looked at me for a moment and smiled, ‘plus, you always ask for a wodge of cash at the same time? She didn’t claim a penny.’
He continued. ‘I have rarely visited an establishment where the relationships between staff and prisoners are so self-evidently healthy.’ He grunted to himself in agreement with his own words.
Now it was my turn to feel the eyes boring into the back of my head. There was bound to be some resentment at the big boss having singled me out for praise. It would make their own tasks that much more difficult, and I am sure some of their issues were intractable. But, as the saying goes,’ it isn’t rocket science,’ it is simply using whatever resources you can grab hold of, and then leading your troops together into the fray.
We started up a ‘listener’ service to watch for potential suicides and my own interest in the subject enabled me to attend a Conference on ‘Suicide in prisons’. I managed to take with me two redbands, trustee prisoners. At the bar, the night before the Conference began, I bought them both a couple of drinks which went down very well and they reciprocated with money they had been given. This was their first taste of freedom and it did taste good, I could see it on their faces. Their first comment, however, on entering the hotel was to enthuse about feeling carpet beneath their feet again….and proper cutlery. Two things in life we take for granted without a thought. It is much harder working your sentence than some may think, when you are outside the walls drinking a gin and tonic in the evening sun with your bare feet pushed into a grassy lawn.
Helping my staff to enjoy better facilities and conditions paid off in a most unexpected way. I had been involved some years earlier to help and advise on nominations for the Butler Trust. The issues had boiled down to one big problem. One of my Prison Officers’ key tasks in Brockhill had always been to take prisoners to Court each day. They had not considered instead, of checking first to see how many staff were needed to man the prison and go on from there. This was changed quickly allowing my officers to have a much more ordered life around which they could build their family life.
Happy again, they turned their attention to, of all people, me.
RA Butler the reforming Home Secretary from the late fifties and early Sixties had given his name to a new Trust, which, every year recognised the outstanding work of Prison Officers. It had, over the years become the most prestigious set of awards in the country and was held annually, headed, naturally, by Princess Anne the patron. It later become my job to help arrange the Award ceremony and to lead winners to their seats and tell them to be ready to go forward when asked. There is always huge anticipation in the audience, for prisoners as well as staff can nominate the winners. Usually, about three hundred and fifty staff are put up for the awards with ten of these winning one or other of these honours and a further twenty would be commended. The ceremony was normally held at Buckingham Palace or St. James’ Palace depending on the availability of the room. There’s excitement and evident pride. This was the best day of the year for the Prison Service.
Imagine, therefore, my own surprise when in Millennium year, undoubtedly as a present from my loyal staff at Brockhill, I received notification I had been awarded the Butler’s Trust, the first Governor to do so. I learnt my own secretary had organised the application with another member of staff.
This was a day of happiness. The award was presented to me by the Princess Royal in Buckingham Palace surrounded by more gold cherubs and red carpet than the Oscars could dream of. A splendid lunch with the feel of crisp damask, cut glass and silver came with a printed menu in French, of some elegance. So much so, I was clutching the menu tightly as I left the Palace and walked across the forecourt to the main entrance. Seeing me leaving, dressed to the nines, (the hat gives it away I think), I was approached by an American who must have realised I had been at the Award ceremony. I showed him my menu.
‘Say, Ma’am, I’ll give you two hundred dollars for that little ‘ole menu.’ I shook my head.
‘Guess I could go to two hundred of your English pounds’ sterling.’
I shook my head again.’ Not for a thousand pounds.’ But I did allow him to take photographs which drew a gaggle of Japanese tourists anxious to know why there was such a commotion around ‘liddle ‘ole me’.
What would George Bird think of his daughter now, I wondered?
My staff were equally delighted. Together we had turned Brockhill from a basket case into a model prison.
My work in the Butler Trust did not end with me winning one of the awards. I became, as the airlines would declare, a frequent flyer to the Palace, allowing me to get to know my way round inside the furlongs of corridors until I could confidently tell arrivals where the royal loo was. This was more important than you might think, for nerves were often stretched to breaking point and a lavatory became paramount in the lives of some award winners.
The Committee was like a well-oiled machine, for we had enormous support from two stalwarts in the shapes of Terry Waite and Trevor Brooking. Terry was another giant who towered over me. His always, calm voice, belied the terrible time when he had known what it was to have been locked up in a black hole in Beirut. But the Lebanon was a far, far different prison to one we could offer. I simply could not imagine, even with my experience, how he had sustained himself in the long darkness and kept his mind from falling off a cliff. He and Trevor between them, with their abilities, ensured the Butler Trust Awards built, year on year to the ceremony it is today.
On my return, it was to find an 83-year-old woman had arrived, sentenced for non-payment of the now, disastrous and ill-thought out Poll Tax which finally caused Margaret Thatcher to lose office.
It had become fashionable, with some scattier people, to prefer jail to paying the tax and in this case the judge had decided it should be prison no matter what age she was. The lady in question only stayed with us one night as a good citizen paid for her fine and she emerged from the prison gates to a waiting Press. Asked what the food had been like inside she smiled. ‘Well, I’ve never had pizza before and I must say I found it rather nice.’
Somehow there has to be room for flexibility whereby a judge can stand back from the idiocy of such sentencing and say, ‘Don’t do it again Mabel,’ rather than waste Her Majesty’s time and money on such a case.
*
When I left Brockhill in 2000, my staff gathered around me to say goodbye. They told me in no uncertain terms, ‘…don’t give all of your life to New Hall as you did here. Get out and enjoy life.’
The truth of it is, that life flashes by at such a rate, one only has to blink one’s eyes and there is a new job to come to terms with, a new promotion to celebrate (Governor 2), being dangled, new ideas needing more changes. Fast it was and faster it became. I was happy and content with my life albeit one that challenged the accepted norm of a family, children, weekends together and building sandcastles on some beach in August. In the end, every one of us must do what we want to get the most out of life.
Almost repeating word for word, a previous request, my Area Manager commanded me one day to, ‘Get up to New Hall, Veronica. Sort that bloody lot out. It’s a bloody mess’… and a lot more like that.
Happy he wasn’t. Now where had I heard that before?
The idea of going back to Yorkshire was a nice one. Retirement was only a couple of years away and I had every intention of remaining in the county after I departed the Service. As I liked to do before I took a job, I travelled up to Wakefield to suss the prison out, a long journey but I knew it would be worth it so my mind could be settled as to how I could tackle the job. There was a need to list the problems before my arrival.
On that day, I found some of the staff outside the prison boundary (ah, ‘bloody mess’, I see), shoulders hunched, hands in pockets whereupon they proceeded to tell me that Prison Officers were taking industrial action across the country. I had no option but to turn around and drive all the way back. I could not get into the prison. Back in Brockhill I heard from a colleague the prisoners at Newhall had gone without their breakfast (a very dangerous situation to allow). Luckily, experienced prison officers recognised the danger signs and went back in to provide breakfast, rather later than normal, but putting the lid back on the pressure cooker. By lunch the action was over and, for the second time my car took me back, the now familiar route. I was starting a job without having made that first inspection; I had no brief to guide me.
It was one thing to be promoted to Governor 2, a level at which I was fully in charge of the prison so, no-one sat above me who I could talk to and seek experienced advice. Being unmarried and with not even a partner to toss out issues at night, it was a bigger leap than normal. As I steered my way north, news had been passed on to me that, this time, the young Offenders at New Hall had begun to riot in their wing, smashing their furniture and destroying anything which could be removed. ‘Déjà vu’, ‘seen it all before’ and ‘so what’s new?’ might have passed through my mind if I had had time to think. Instead, I rushed to Command Control which, the Deputy Governor, with foresight had seen fit to set up in my absence, and grabbed the reins. By lunchtime, (again) all was back to normal though the young female Turks in their cells were now bereft of their desks and chairs. My new staff went, thankfully, off to lunch leaving me at my desk to munch a sandwich. I had hardly had time to pull a biro from my bag when a member of staff popped her head round the door.
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