Veronica's Bird

by Veronica Bird

  It does highlight, does it not, the changes which have undergone the Service, especially since the end of the Second World War? Time and again, we hear, of prison governors speaking out saying, ‘…. There needs to be much more intervention into that rung of society who have never had a chance in life. We need to reach out to them much earlier to prevent a boy or a girl entering upon a life of crime.’

  The first urgency, therefore, surely is to divide those who must be contained at all costs. The second group, those being men and women who follow a life of crime for no other reason than they had few other options in their short lives, could be looked at differently.

  In the first category, we have people such as Frank Mitchell, the Mad Axeman, who escaped from Dartmoor never to be found. (much later he was found. He had been murdered by the Kray Twins). He had always been a thorn in the side of authority and had been birched and given the cat- ‘o -nine tails, as if this country was still living in the eighteenth century. It made no difference, and he continued to terrorise the staff until, one day he disappeared into the mist.

  There were committed IRA prisoners who were never going to change their political beliefs; the Ripper comes to mind though in this case he would need to be protected from the public, an ironic twist of fate. And there was Charles Bronson who Veronica was to meet, a man so dangerous he must be contained in a special cell with open grilles so he can be monitored at all times of the day and night. Such people, unfortunately, need to be kept away from the public, as there is no knowing how they will react to any set of arising circumstances.

  This leaves quite a high percentage of the remaining prison population. Some psychiatrists venture to suggest eighty percent of prisoners should be in a mental institution; you can argue that statistic for as long as you like, but, there are many, surely, who could be re-trained as plumbers and electricians or plasterers; or what about software designers, engineers or working on a farm in the fresh air and sunshine? God knows, we need plenty of all these and there is a nice living to be made, independent of officialdom and free of a cell measuring twelve feet by six feet, providing you pay your taxes, of course, and there we go again!

  Yes, you say, impatiently, this is being done already and has been for years.’ We train, we help with housing, but they still re-offend.

  I need to return to the Dartmoor theme. Harold Webb known to his fellow inmates as ‘Rubber Bones’ for the speed he could slip a pair of handcuffs and to the delight of the newspapers, escaped down a heating duct just a few inches’ square such was the urgency of getting away to join his true love, Joan Kinsley. He declared he would give up his life of crime if he could be sure she would be waiting for him. ‘I’ll go straight if…’ is a familiar story.

  Is there any truth in these pleas? Can we trust a felon to go straight if only we were to give him or her a new way of life? Should we, could we not spend the £65,000 it costs to arrest, charge and imprison one criminal for a year on changing the way he or she thinks, possibly at home, if they still have one, of course. It costs a further £32-45,000 a year thereafter, which for a sentence of five years averages a staggering £225,000 to hold that person safely out of reach.

  It is a very small percentage of our island population who have ever set foot inside a prison, nor have they any desire to do so. The message coming out of prison is a deterrent itself for most of us; being shut up, locked up for long hours of each day is enough to keep us on the straight and narrow. If we do end up on the wrong side of the wall, it is likely to be through stupidity, not ignorance of the law. I spent a few hours in Pentonville prison in close contact with prisoners and their environment; I have no desire to repeat the experience.

  At the very top of my wished-for list is the word: rehabilitation. Surely, the whole aim of prison is, in the end, to reclaim the prisoner’s ability to live in society without the urge to steal, maim, kill or strike out blindly at his neighbours? If we fail, and we do, often, to achieve this aim, Prisoner 4242 will be back one day casting a surly nod of recognition to the Prison Officer as he arrives at the Reception desk.

  Is there some good in everybody which we might tap and build upon during the last months of his or her term? After all, they have almost served their sentence; they will soon be free. They can look ahead in a few months to being a free man again, ‘I’ve served my sentence, I’ve paid my debt to society. How about a clean slate?’ It is surely time to see if we can prevent a man, or a woman from re-offending. It is a question I first asked myself at the beginning of this part of the book.

  Veronica is very aware of the effects of prison on prisoners. She is experienced in handling those who were also mothers with babies. The influence on the child, who is not a thief, but is there because the mother has her own rights, begins as soon as her kid is old enough to understand. The child grows up surrounded by foul language and other mothers of similar attitudes. When they are eventually released, they can often end up in a less comfortable, more problematic life in the free world. To a young child knowing no other, it can be a harsh reality where the best and safest accommodation is right back there in Styal. There is also the danger of a mother rejecting her offspring in the struggle to find a new partner or, failing this, move into prostitution to make ends meet. The growing youth might well feel it is safer, warmer and better feeding, back inside. The cycle begins all over again.

  One more element should be mentioned. A large proportion of prisons are run on humane grounds, well managed and sensitive to the very reasons I have set out above? There are a few, as in all life, that are rogues, which the media love to publicise, and it makes good copy for the Mail and the Mirror, but they are in the minority. Let us remember there is a chance that a prisoner, released, will not re-offend if strong support is provided, particularly towards the end of the sentence. What then, of prisons which do not have this softer approach? Often in the past it has been a boot camp attitude, what was called a short, sharp shock. But, like a cricket ball struck hard, it can go off at all angles, often into the hands of evil men, waiting for the opportunity of taking on a recruit to do their dirty work for them. It creates bitterness towards a cruel system, a need to kick back at society which has let them down totally. There is a greater chance of driving a fragile mind deeper into the system rather than be able to pull back from the chasm. The contrast between the two approaches becomes such a gulf it makes little sense.

  This really requires the arrangements to be fair to all. If all offenders knew without a shadow of a doubt, they were going to be treated humanely, when they get out, might some not consider giving the real world a second chance, and go straight? Perhaps not, you will say. It is difficult to unscramble an egg and the evidence is there for anyone to look at.

  The heroine of this story, Veronica, was able, against all the odds, to turn one of the country’s prisons, within a single year, described as a ‘basket case,’ into a calm, well ordered place in which her prisoners could work out their sentences in something approaching amity. Riots became a thing of the past, attacks on staff were minimised. She could be alikened to a Headmaster or Headmistress of a large school. Replacement of that single person in a poor or non-performing school can turn the establishment around in months. You can see the same thing with an incoming hotel manager or the newly appointed Commander of a ship. It is the individual who connects with the people which counts. And it is that individual who builds a team around them who believe in the same principles. This works. It is applicable to the Prison Service who, no doubt has a just cause for claiming their job is extraordinarily complex today, which it is, but, my own discussions with Governors show they are rising to the challenge.

  All of this may still turn you off. ‘What on God’s earth can I do about it…and do I care anyway? The government’s dealing with it…and I’ve paid my taxes. Get a life, can’t you? I can’t help you.’

  But, Veronica wanted to help. She said at her first interview she ‘…. wanted to help the less fortunate than myself,’ T
his was at her first interview when she was one of the least fortunate people in the north of England, indeed it would be difficult to find someone less fortunate. She made this her mantra at a time when she had her whole world packed into a small overnight bag. It was not only her physical possessions, but her lack of mental width which she had to overcome, notwithstanding the fact she is an intelligent individual able to think on her feet in conditions of extreme stress. It was a fact, when she began her career, she couldn’t recognise a condom lying on the Sergeant’s desk in front of her, yet she could understand, immediately when a sobbing youth claimed he was innocent of the crime of paedophilia.

  Veronica’s world has been a closed one, almost as if she needed the comfort of prison herself. An umbilical cord for the foetus? Her father and brother-in-law had kept her chained to their persuasions in life – both self-centred and greedy for themselves – leaving her little time to become streetwise.

  It came through sheer hard work and determination and a desire to better herself. There was an awareness she would have to come into contact with the most hardened and dangerous criminals being held within the system and, from all reports, she found a way to communicate with them, a method not understood perhaps by other officers who viewed the job solely as a job.

  But, at such a cost. Veronica, locked away, saw little of life outside the stone walls and security fences. Theatre, cinema, reading, building for the future were not for her to enjoy.

  How is it that such a diminutive lady with such a slightness of figure could talk sense to Charles Bronson, a man who needed up to six burly officers to escort him back to his cell? Did this man recognise another tortured soul albeit in a completely different form?

  This cry of ‘it’s not fair,’ will be levelled at me I’m sure. ‘It is not showing bias surely, to imprison criminals?’ you will say ‘Think of the victims’.

  Of course, it’s not fair; life is not fair and never will be, no matter how hard we work at getting a balance into our day to day lives. Remember, many of these offenders never had a chance in life either; it wasn’t, and it is not fair to them. As another Prison Governor said. ‘Change,’ he declared with some vigour, ‘change will not come until we change the system and tackle the real source of the problem.’

  This is Veronica’s mantra. We cannot go on locking people up without realising what we are doing to them. To all these lost people, we have to give them a new chance in life.

  I am not making a case for removing prison as a means of dealing with crime. What I am trying to clarify is contained within the last few words above. We must realise what is happening in the minds of this inactive population, almost one third the size of Barnsley. We carpet the cells, we give prisoners their own cell key; a flat screen television; we can give them a choice for lunch and we can give them their human rights, but for all this, there is no apparent contraction in the re-offending totals. Nevertheless, the nettle has been grasped, there is a greater understanding of the issues and there seems to be a determination to remain in control and on top. Meanwhile I do not pretend to know how to offer a solution; I just listen and try to understand and hope to communicate these issues to someone perhaps, who might read this book, who can come up with a better idea than the one we live with daily.

  *

  At the end of Veronica’s story, her ‘bird’, I hope you have been as impressed with the end of her story as myself; certainly, Veronica’s life has become smoothed out as she cast her old existence into a cardboard box along with her other memories. There were always going to be poor odds that Veronica was going to make it in life. She could have so easily succumbed to continuing to work in the market at a pittance. Instead, came that day when she met a friend who told her ‘…. you are nothing but a little slave’. At that moment in time, Veronica grabbed the nettle; it was now or never, she seemed to say to herself, and she took it. It was Veronica’s tipping point in life.

  This is one of those feel-good stories you want to come right on the last page if not before. This was true for me also. It is a story of a real-life Cinderella, whose glass slipper brought her out of the misery she had lived in for so many years, into a world of respect and responsibility even if she did not collect a Prince on the way past GO.

  I interviewed Veronica over many months. She is a good communicator, apt to making mental notes which she files away in her head until later, she returns and proffers the result of her research with a smile of reassurance on her face.

  This story has not covered her siblings’ involvement, save Joan, her eldest sister, and her husband, Veronica’s loathed brother-in-law. Her brothers and sisters are only distant footnotes to be called upon from time to time to clarify a point. They had no connection with the prison service. Because there was so little contact between them during their working lives, none of their activities would divert Veronica’s own telling of the story. They are all surviving, other than Jack who died far too young, air-brushed out of history as cleanly as a high tide on a sandy beach.

  Fred Ward was a man of his time. He was skilled at his trade, understood thoroughly what his customers wanted, and built up a small empire before the Supermarkets moved in to undercut his prices. His name repeats itself all too often in the early part of Veronica’s life as he ferreted around, unable to leave anyone he knew, let alone her, to get on with their life without continual interference.

  Fred is dead now. Joan lives on at the grand age of eightyseven. She is in much closer contact with Veronica these days and indeed, they have liaised with each other, over the detail of this book. That, in itself, has to be a happy ending

  It is ironic, is it not, that Fred and Veronica’s father, George Bird were the instruments which drove Veronica like a trembling doe into the Prison Service. That doe, that Bambi, would grow as a result, into a nine-point buck of a Governor, holding safely, some of the most wicked people in the country.

  It wasn’t long before the questions began to flutter around my keyboard. The fine points of detail were answered quickly, and accurately but, as if they were flour lumps in the bottom of a sieve, some refused to pass through the grid. One remained obstinately. It was a question to myself, arising from Veronica’s story, a question which would tickle at my conscience for a long time. It continues to do so.

  Why do we lock up those who, palpably, should never be in jail?

  POSTSCRIPT

  It was several years after she had retired when Veronica learned the news Fred Ward, now in his eighties was very ill. She had been told he was dying in Barnsley Hospital, so she rang up his nurse and explained it was difficult for her to get away and drive up at a moment’s notice, for an evening visit. They agreed she could come and visit during the morning.

  Veronica did this deliberately as she had no intention of upsetting any of Fred’s family by being by his bedside if they were to call, so she seized the opportunity offered, arriving early the next day filled with the need to see if he was remorseful in any way for the years of abuse he had given.

  She found him lying in bed and could see he had recognised her.

  ‘Hullo Fred. It’s Veronica.’ It was pointless asking him how he felt. He knew he was dying and so did she. Fred did at least nod his head though neither pleased nor angry with her presence by his bedside.

  ‘I want to ask you Fred, are you sorry for all those things you did? Do you regret removing me from Ackworth at the time I was due to take the most important exams in my life? Especially as there was no need.’

  He turned his head slightly but the word ‘sorry’ was not in his lexicon.

  ‘You almost destroyed me, Fred Ward-’ she stopped. What was the point?

  ‘It doesn’t matter now Fred.’ Veronica patted one of his limp hands but he turned away to stare out of the window. Maybe a thousand apologies were boiling under the surface, but he just couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge the facts.

  Veronica must have left the ward with very mixed feelings. She knew she would never see him
again. He was flawed, but he was also a human being. Just someone else who had turned off the track as so many of her prison inmates had done. She was so familiar with the pattern it was part of her life.

  Perhaps Fred could not help himself; there is a possibility, I suppose, he became sucked into his obsession of her that he was quite unable to find the exit to climb out, even when it was clearly marked by a green running man? He must have seen Veronica’s father’s brutal way of life on numerous occasions, and felt he could get away with it, especially and most conveniently, when she came to live under his roof.

  There is no way to say it other than by removing Veronica from Ackworth was an act of pure evil, for he did not have to use her in the market. He would have been able to find a replacement but that would have been more expensive. Her fees were paid each term by the school, and she was quite prepared to give up all luxuries so she could continue to work for her exams.

  Whatever the rights and wrongs of this case are, it would be fascinating to speculate on seeing where Veronica’s career would have taken her if she had been allowed to remain at school. If her father and brother-in-law had not had those streaks of cruelty within them, she might have plotted a course in life with a husband and children, spending time on taking them to the ‘flicks’ or a picnic on a Sunday afternoon.

  Who knows?

  Maybe it was the very fact she made a conscious decision to withdraw into herself and behind bars which allowed her to understand the Prison Service as well as she did. In the end, there are many ex-prisoners who will be forever grateful to the woman who brought a light into their lives during some of their darkest moments.

  There is an epilogue to this postscript It arrived on my desk as I was reviewing the first draft of the manuscript.