This was a feature of prison life which I had often noticed. Since tobacco was the common currency, the attitude of each prisoner towards it provided a faithful reflection of the attitude to money which he had had ‘outside’. The miser hoarded his ‘snout’ as carefully as though it were a bag of gold; the cadger devoted all his ingenuity to borrowing other people’s fag-ends; the spendthrift smoked like a chimney all through the week-end, and then went without until Friday; the financial wizard created a commercial empire based on a capital of two ounces and an interest-rate of 50% per week. Men fought over a cigarette as they would have done over buried treasure. They sold their food for ‘roll-ups’ and used them to bribe prisoners in privileged positions: a clean shirt cost two cigarettes, a pot of Marmite stolen from the hospital a quarter of an ounce.
There were two further subjects which occupied men’s minds. One was the possibility of escape; the other, that of being posted from Wormwood Scrubs to another prison.
There were many among us who were condemned to spend another three, five or seven years in gaol, but I never found one who could accept the fact in the sense of settling down to a permanent, monotonous routine which would not vary during the next thousand or two thousand days. They simply refused to believe that in, say, 1960 they would still be sitting in this dark, smelly place, still watching the dart-players and wondering whether their cell-floor were clean enough to pass muster. When I first went to the Scrubs there was some hope for these men, because the policy of the Prison Commissioners appeared to be to move long-sentence prisoners to Wakefield after they had done eighteen months of their sentence. Listening to them talking about Wakefield, one would have imagined that they were discussing Paradise. There would be no more chivvying about; there was talking and even music in the workshops; the cells were left open until 8.45 p.m. so that the prisoners had a choice of ‘associating’ or working alone, as they wished; above all, it was possible at Wakefield to learn a useful trade. The insistence of these men that everything would be all right if only they could get to Wakefield was pathetic, and I watched it gradually become hopeless. The period served at Wormwood Scrubs by long-sentence men became longer and longer; first it was two years, then two-and-a-half; Wakefield was full up, and the men at the Scrubs would be left to rot.
I do not wish to seem sentimental about the treatment of such prisoners. The great majority of them, although first offenders, had committed some crime which gave Society every excuse for locking them up. We are always being told, however, that the purpose of imprisonment is not so much retribution as reform; not revenge, but cure. Leaving moral considerations aside, this attitude has much to commend it from the practical point of view. Every prisoner eventually gets his release, and it seems only sensible to try and fit him for a better life when he gets out. It is useless to put a man away for a long period, do nothing to change or improve him, and piously hope that by the time he is released he will have magically transformed himself into a good citizen. Men do change in prison, but seldom for the better.
Going to gaol is, in itself, a powerful shock. Suddenly, in the space of a few hours, a man’s whole life is changed; he loses friends, possessions and free will and finds himself alone in a hostile place, wearing clothes designed to rob him of his last vestiges of self-respect and eating food which, for the first few days at least, makes him feel ill and depressed. Whatever values he may have had are destroyed; whatever faith he may have had is shaken. If his life is to be rebuilt, the process should begin at that moment.
Since Wormwood Scrubs is sometimes described as a ‘hospital’ prison, it is perhaps necessary to explain that the hospital block, which contains about 120 beds, is a completely separate entity which serves most of the prisons in England as a treatment centre for minor operations. In contrast to the rest of the prison, which has been condemned as unfit for habitation for many years past, the hospital is new and spotlessly clean. The Principal Medical Officer is an agreeable Irish psychiatrist named Dr Landers, whose office is expensively furnished with deep-pile carpets and contemporary style chairs and desk. Prisoners approach Dr Landers for an interview, having previously removed their shoes, in their stockinged feet across a gleaming expanse of polished tiles. After I had been at Wormwood Scrubs for three or four months, he sent for me. I found him sympathetic and courteous.
We discussed my case, and the possibility of medical or psychiatric treatment, at some length. The Prison Doctor at Winchester, I was not surprised to hear, had expressed the opinion that I was not a suitable subject for treatment. There was a certain irony in this fact, because the psychiatrist who gave evidence at my trial had said that the chance of a successful cure, ‘outside’, was good. It thus seemed that I had been removed from an environment in which something might have been done for me, and placed in one in which nothing could be done.
Dr Landers, in any case, was not one of those who claimed that there was a psychiatric ‘cure’ for homosexuality. ‘The Freudians,’ he explained, ‘may think there is, but we’re all Jungians here. If a man is so obsessed by his homosexual state that he develops a neurosis about it, we can allay that neurosis and teach him, so to speak, to accept his condition without any severe feeling of guilt; but that’s all we can do.’
This sounded like an admirable service for those who were in need of it, but it seemed very strange to me that a man should be sent to prison in order to reconcile himself to the condition which had caused him to be sent there.
‘I don’t think that’s quite what I need,’ I said.
‘But you have said, if I remember correctly, that you are willing to be cured?’
‘Yes, but if there is no cure, surely the question does not arise? Or is there some other method? What about glandular injections, or hormone treatment; is that any good?’
Dr Landers pursed his lips. ‘I most certainly wouldn’t recommend it,’ he said. ‘We have tried courses of injections on a couple of sex-cases here, but the results were far from satisfactory. One man came back quite shortly afterwards with a further conviction, and the other has undergone physical changes of a ... a somewhat alarming nature. I am afraid that research on those lines is not very far advanced yet. It may do some good, but really we don’t know enough about it.’
‘Well, is there anything else you can suggest?’
‘The only thing that might answer, in your case, is a course of analysis and psychotherapy which would, of course, be a very lengthy business lasting perhaps years. Even if we had time, I rather doubt whether it could be carried out satisfactorily in prison. You might, perhaps, consult a psychiatrist about it when you are discharged.’
We were back where we had started. If I had not been sent to prison, I might have been cured.
‘There’s just one thing,’ I said. ‘Supposing that I could afford a course of psychotherapy and so on; supposing I found a psychiatrist who was prepared to give it; supposing, even that it worked. What sort of person should I become?’
Dr Landers laughed. ‘A very different person, I’m afraid,’ he said.
‘That’s just what I’m afraid of, too.’
‘Your whole personality would, of course, be altered.’
‘But that,’ I suggested, ‘might not be a good thing? I’m a writer. For better or for worse, my work depends upon the sort of person that I am.’
‘Precisely.’
‘You see, I might spend years in having this treatment, and discover in the end that I’ve become a completely normal, respectable member of Society, but that in the process I’ve lost all my individuality, and in fact everything that makes it possible for me to earn a living.’
‘That, of course, is something which you will have to bear in mind.’
I went away from Dr Landers reflecting that he had, at least, been commendably frank.
On fine evenings after tea we used to spend our Association period sitting out in the exercise yard, watching two teams of prisoners playing cricket with an old tennis-ball. We were allowed to
take our jackets off, and I found it relaxing and pleasant to sit in the sun with a group of friends, even though the air, as usual at Wormwood Scrubs, was filled with invisible particles of coal-dust which drifted down and covered our faces and hair with a fine greyish film. Sometimes we succeeded in getting one of the newspapers which were issued each day in the proportion of one to every ten men, but usually we just sat and talked.
One evening Dan was telling me about a gang of pickpockets who used to operate in Petticoat Lane on Sunday mornings. They had an ingenious and successful technique. One of the gang, specially chosen for this accomplishment, would collect a copious mouthful of saliva and squirt it on to the coat-lapel of a passer-by. Another would draw the victim’s attention to this and start vigorously mopping at it with his handkerchief, while a third, approaching from behind, would relieve him of his wallet. I accused Dan of making this up.
‘No, straight, Pete, they done it for years. Charlie, you remember that lot, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Charlie. ‘Known as the Gob Mob, they was.’
‘The things one learns in prison!’ remarked John. ‘Did you know that women shoplifters wear a special kind of knickers called “oyster drawers”? Jimmy told me.’
‘Why “oyster”?’ I asked.
‘I haven’t the faintest idea, unless it’s because the elastic makes them snap shut after they’ve popped whatever-it-is into them. Jimmy, why “oyster”?’
‘I don’t know, we always calls shoplifters “oysters”.’
‘Not “oysters”,’ said Dan. “Hoisters”.’
‘Oh, how disappointing.’
‘It sounds like one of those frightful arguments that go on in The Times correspondence column,’ said Basil. ‘By the way, has anybody seenThe Times?’
After some investigation, Vic was discovered sitting on it. Basil spread it out on his knees and became engrossed.
‘Have you heard Cokey’s latest word?’ asked John. Mr. Cockayne, in the course of his frequent speeches to the prisoners, was fond of introducing some striking and polysyllabic expression, which never failed to become a ‘catchword.’ He was standing outside his office this morning, trying to attract the attention of the screws on the landing, and of course as usual they all went and hid in the recesses as soon as they heard him bawling. So he went and got the ship’s bell that they wake us up with and stood there bashing it backwards and forwards, clang! clang! and no-one took a blind bit of notice, so finally he threw it on the floor and screamed at the top of his voice: WHAT DO YOU THINK I AM, A BLOODY CAMPANOLOGIST?’
‘I say, Peter, have you seen this?’ Basil flung The Times, a crushed bundle, into my lap. The names of the members of the Departmental Committee on Homosexuality and Prostitution had been announced, and The Times leader was addressing them in remarkably plain terms:
‘The official committee to inquire into homosexual offences and prostitution will need unusual courage and unusual common sense.... The crucial question before the committee is not whether homosexual relations are sinful, but whether the law should punish them as such.
‘It is agreed that the law must interfere with sexual behaviour in three main instances—where there is assault, where advantage is taken of children or others incapable of giving valid consent, and when there is public indecency. Where relations between persons of the same sex are involved, however, the law goes farther. It punishes severely purely private relations between consenting adult men.
‘This state of affairs is not merely anomalous. It is widely held to create conditions in which blackmail and provocation can flourish. There is certainly ground for believing (with the recent report of a group of Churchmen) that the state of the law and the publicity attending trials tend to create and maintain “an aggrieved and self-conscious minority” more convinced than ever of the rightness of their ways.
‘Forty years ago Havelock Ellis pointed out how strict enforcement of a similar law in Prussia was, by publicity and resentment, greatly enlarging such a minority, whereas in England the problem was dwindling—though it could never wholly disappear—because the law was tacitly falling into desuetude.
‘Merely to let the law moulder is never a wise course. At the same time, recent attempts to enforce it, where no minors and no public indecency were involved, have compelled the community to examine the question how far it is now justified.
‘The answer which the committee has to give, at once humane and just, cannot be easy and is bound to be controversial. But it is socially necessary that it should be given.’
New subjects for discussion were so rare that all my friends read this article as eagerly as though it personally concerned them. Basil said: ‘You know, it really looks as though you’ve won your battle. With the Church of England, The Times and Sir Robert Boothby on the side of the angels I don’t see how the law can help being changed. It’ll be a curious feeling, won’t it, having being convicted of a crime that no longer exists?’
‘Do you think they’ll let you out before your time?’ asked Dan.
‘Not a chance,’ I said. ‘You have no idea how long it takes for these things to happen.’
A defaulting insurance-broker, who had been eavesdropping on the conversation, observed in fruity tones: ‘The law will never be changed, in my opinion, as long as we have a Queen on the throne.’
We ignored this. ‘Can’t think why it’s a crime anyway,’ said Vic. ‘I never thought about it much till I came in here, but even I can see the difference between someone like Peter and someone like that horrible Molly.’ Molly was a male prostitute who entertained one or two of the ‘D’ Hall warders in his cell at night. ‘Not that Molly does much harm, mind you. The people I hate are the ones that goes after kids.’
‘Like me,’ said John.
‘No, not like you. Yours was sixteen, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes, but I didn’t know, and he looked much older.’
‘There you are, you see. You was caught in just the same way as all these blokes who are in for doing a girl under age. Some smashing tart comes wiggling up to them in the boozer, all nylons and high-heeled shoes and paint an inch thick on their mooeys, and says “Hello, handsome; buy me a small port?” Well, nature takes its course, and the next time they sees her she’s in the witness-box, wearing a school tunic and all innocent like. Diabolical liberty, I call it.’
‘And that, of course,’ said Basil, ‘is precisely what’s going to happen all the time if the law is changed. I wonder what the age of consent will be?’
‘If you can die for your country at 18 you ought to be old enough to make up your own mind,’ said John. I thought it should be 21, because I doubted very much if anyone could be ‘corrupted’ against their wish or led astray after that age, whereas some men, at 18, were still impressionable adolescents.
‘I wasn’t,’ said Dan.
‘No, but then you weren’t at a Public School,’ Basil pointed out. ‘The working classes grow up a great deal quicker than we do, you know. That’s why it’s such awful nonsense for judges to pretend that the better-class man is the more guilty of the two, in a case like Peter’s or John’s. I’m quite convinced from what I’ve seen in here that homosexuality isn’t so much a vice of the idle rich as the working man’s favourite hobby.’
‘Good God!’ said the insurance-broker.
‘Yes, even with a Queen on the throne,’ snapped Basil. ‘In any case, there have been plenty of queer Kings of England. What about that William Rufus? And Edward the Second? And did you know that when Elizabeth was succeeded by James the First some naughty Bishop said “The King is dead; long live the Queen”?’
At this moment the cricket-match ended, and a warder shouted to us to return to our cells. We picked up our chairs and walked out of the sunlight, into the stinking gloom of ‘D’ Hall. Dan and I lingered behind for a moment before going up the iron staircase to our landing.
‘I didn’t like to say too much out there,’ said Dan, ‘but I’m so glad about what t
hey put in the paper. You’re going to be all right, aren’t you? That makes me happy, too.’
‘Thanks, Dan.’
He fumbled in his pocket. ‘Here, I’ve got something for you. I pinched it out of the garden while the screws wasn’t looking. Make your cell a bit more like home.’ He put something into my hand, and we climbed the stairs.
‘Goodnight, Pete. See you in the morning.’
‘See you in the morning.’
When I had shut my cell door, I looked at Dan’s present. It was a sprig of lavender, and its scent filled the air like a song. I sat down at the table, holding the lavender in my hand, and thinking how strange it was that these small grey leaves, grimy with the dust of prison, should smell so clean and sweet.
Next morning, Dan was waiting for me, as usual, on the exercise yard. He was wearing a clean shirt, a tie which he had made himself, and a pair of trousers with a crease in them, achieved presumably by putting them under his mattress.
‘Whatever’s happened to you, Dan?’ I asked. ‘Expecting a visit?’
‘No. I been waiting for a visit for the last three weeks, but it don’t look like they’re bothering to come. I just got sick of being scruffy, that’s all.’
‘How much longer is it now?’
‘Twelve months in December. Pete, I’ve been thinking.’
‘About going out?’
‘Yes. I can’t stand no more of this. I’m going to find myself a job, and begin all over again.’
‘What kind of job?’
‘Well, I can drive a lorry. It won’t bring in much, I know, but I got to get used to that. I can make do with a few quid a week, if I make up my mind to it; not going after the big money no more. It ain’t worth it. I see that now. The penny’s dropped. You know what I’m like, Pete; you or anyone else could argue their heart out trying to make me go straight, and it wouldn’t do no good, I’m funny that way. It’s not that I don’t appreciate it, but I just won’t be pushed around by no-one, not even you.’
Against the Law Page 17