The killer of Muriel McKay, Nizamodeen Hosein, cradled McGee’s head in his arms. I might be cynical – that’s what prison does to you – but I couldn’t help but wonder whether ‘Nez’ was looking for a good report and early parole. Hosein had some history: he and his brother had tried to kidnap the wife of Rupert Murdoch and had mistakenly made off with the wife of Murdoch’s deputy chairman instead. Hosein and his brother didn’t get the £1 million ransom money they wanted, so they executed Muriel and fed her to pigs on a Hertfordshire farm.
As Hosein held McGee in his arms and screws tried desperately to stop the flow of blood, Fred – a lifer who’d been reckless with a shooter – inched his podgy frame along the landing, and he stopped to chat to Charlie and me as he went past. We knew Fred well; he always just concentrated on his own problems.
‘He’s taking a fucking liberty there,’ said Fred. ‘Taking a fucking liberty.’
We agreed. ‘Yeah, you’re right. It’s a fucking madhouse in here.’
‘Taking a fucking liberty,’ Fred went on. ‘There’s blood all over my cornflakes.’
‘You what?’ Charlie turned around in disbelief. ‘For fuck’s sake, there’s a geezer dying down there.’
‘Not my problem. Look, there’s blood in my cornflakes.’
‘Well, if you’re so worried, you can have mine,’ Charlie offered. ‘Can’t be bothered with breakfast after seeing that.’
Pandemonium continued downstairs, and we were ushered into our cells.
Half an hour later we were unlocked again and Fred appeared at Charlie’s cell door. ‘Is it still OK to take your cornflakes, Charlie?’ He hadn’t forgotten the offer from one of England’s most notorious criminals.
Back at Maidstone, Herbie the hippy brought in opium. His drug connections got him inside in the first place. There was more gear in that nick than there was outside. Everyone was tripping every weekend. They were all out of their nuts. If they weren’t tripping, they were all pissed up in the cells. As long as there was no aggravation, the screws didn’t worry.
I remember at Maidstone being friendly with one guy who was doing bird for killing his wife. Most murderers were in for killing their wives. This man’s old woman had been a prostitute. He was a lovely man, a gentle soul who’d gone out to work every day and all that. But she was having it away with every Tom, Dick and Harry. When he came home one night he pulled her about it, and accused her of going with different men; the information had come from the neighbours. Then, after he was in bed, he jumped up, stabbed her, and chopped her up into little bits.
To get rid of the evidence, he started to take her out in his lunchbox and bury parts of her all over the place. And when, finally, the police knocked on his door because people hadn’t seen her, he admitted that he’d killed her. The young copper who was interviewing him asked where the body was. Well, he took them to a place, lifted up a stone and pulled her head out. The copper who was handcuffed to him fainted. But he got manslaughter when they heard about all she’d done and all the provocation.
There was a cell thief at Maidstone who nicked stuff and left notes signed ‘Robin Hood’. One day, Robin Hood went into Bobby Abbs’s cell and stole his tobacco. Bobby had been nicked on drugs charges, but on this occasion he was concerned about the loss of his legal substance. The note left said: ‘Ta mate, Robin Hood.’
Bobby Abbs came out onto the landing and yelled, ‘He’s nicked a quarter ounce of my tobacco. Robin Hood’s been here.’
‘Well, you can’t catch him,’ I said. ‘He’s done and dusted and he’s gone. Just keep your cell shut in future.’
So Bobby went to go for a shower. His family made sure he received the best toiletries from home. He looked for his bar of soap – Imperial Leather with that distinctive red wrapper – but only the wrapper remained. Robin Hood had nicked the soap as well.
Then there was a guy called Woodbine Willie. He and a bloke called Johnnie the Aussie were a right pair of oddballs. They’d made a safe in a locker, all out of solid wood, and hid their stuff in there for Christmas.
But Robin Hood found out that the safe had a plywood back. So he ripped the back off and nicked all their goodies. This sort of thing would be talked about for weeks, we were so starved of anything interesting to think or talk about.
Also at Maidstone there was Dukey Osborne, who was a friend of the Krays. He used to stand on the landing on reception day, watching the new geezers coming in. He used to go, ‘Coo coo, little chickens, little chickens.’
He always had his shorts on and he would invite the kids up to his cell, get them stoned, and the next thing they would come out with sore arses. He never tried it on with any of us lot, but he got all those kids who came from the sticks; it was like Christmas for Dukey.
During visiting time, after all the searches, we would talk about the same old things with the people who came to see us. We could catch up on family events, and check on the health of aunts and uncles.
We would also spy in the visiting room, because you could always pick out the wife or girlfriend who was on the brink of leaving her man. For a start, they would gaze around the room, instead of looking at the geezer who was being visited. Also, those women were always the first to leave the room.
Of course, we knew who the prisoner was and could tell that he would be receiving a ‘Dear John’ letter saying it was all over. Then we would see the bloke in tears, reading the heartbreaking note from the wife or girlfriend.
There was a guy called Frank – yet another Frank – in Parkhurst who preyed on the victims of failed romances. He wore a headband, and looked like an Apache. He had a dark complexion, but it was no tan; it was grime. He hadn’t washed for five years. We called him Dirty McSquirty and he smelled so badly that we suggested that he should have his own wing of the prison. He was a strange character who dyed his hair with black shoe polish.
Anyway, he’d perfected his message to rejected, virtually suicidal prisoners: ‘Your woman has just left you, but there is a bright side. You’ve still got your wedding ring, and we can trade it in for some gear. You won’t want to wear the ring, as it will only bring back memories.’
After Frank’s stunt, I usually stepped in. As I was the prison ‘banker’, I offered cash for the ring, and then Frank would seek out the local drugs dealer. He would buy some puff and take it back to the heartbroken prisoner’s cell. Frank and the miserable prisoner would then get stoned and try and work out why their hopeless lives had disintegrated.
Frank had a budgie called Boy Boy and the bird used to fly up and down the landing, performing tricks before flying back to a beautiful cage. Boy Boy was ‘doing his bird’ too, I suppose.
One time, some of the guys ran out of puff and needed to get some money. They sent Frank out to see if he could fix a deal with the IRA, as they usually had some drugs. But when Frank was gone, they wrung Boy Boy’s neck.
They laid Boy Boy on the bed and, when Frank got back, they told him: ‘Frank, something terrible has happened. Boy Boy got caught in the door when it shut and he’s dead. We’re so, so sorry, Frank.’
With Frank in tears, they suggested: ‘There is one good thing. We could sell the cage to get a bit of puff!’
Frank went along with the plan to sell the cage as he needed some puff, too. That’s what it was like in there.
Frank had a point, though: continuing a relationship with a long-term prisoner is pointless. At Maidstone prison I came across a fellow called Richard. Richard was a lovely guy. He was a ‘happy hippy’ and had been done for drugs. Because of that he was disowned by his family.
Richard’s wife wrote to him all through his sentence; he went down for seven years or so. He was making plans for when he got out; the two of them were going to sail off into the sunset and all that.
A week before Richard was released, his wife told him she’d been living with a guy for three years. Her intentions were honourable. She’d thought that if she stuck by him it would get Paul through his sentence. That night he got his bi
t of puff, went into his cell and hanged himself.
All the prisoners felt really guilty because we didn’t know what had happened. At first, we thought it was something one of us had said. Richard’s death caused a ripple effect through the wing. You could feel the atmosphere. It was really bad. We had a church service for him and they played ‘Starry Starry Night’ and all that. A guy played it on the guitar.
That’s why, when you go to jail for a long sentence, the first thing you have to do is get rid of your wife or girlfriend. You have to dump them, because you can’t lie in bed at night, driving yourself mad, wondering who she’s shagging or whatever she’s doing. You just crack up.
It’s best that they have their freedom, and you can get your head around surviving the sentence. After all, she didn’t commit any crime. It’s not normal for women to spend all that time with the kids on their own. People have needs, and most women definitely have physical needs.
When I heard women come up to their guy and say, ‘I’ll wait for you,’ I always thought it was a load of bollocks. You have to be kind to the person you’re leaving behind. As I said, if you are a gentleman, you will end the relationship there and then. That’s what I did, and it worked for me and my then partner. The ones who will stick by you are your family such as brothers, sisters, mums and dads. If you’ve got a bird and you’re looking at a long sentence, park her up, otherwise you’ll go stir crazy. If you get out and your wife is still about and you are still in love, then you can start again.
Soon after Richard’s death, another prisoner hanged himself – probably because of all those thoughts in his head. He was found hanging in his cell. The screws went off to get a body bag and the idiots left his cell door open. When they came back, his radio had gone, his bedding had gone and his tobacco had disappeared. The vultures had been in. The trainers on his feet had been taken off while he was still hanging; they even took his trousers, so he was hanging there in his underpants. They took the fucking lot! Bless his heart, he was taken away in the body bag and disposed of.
I often hear people say prison is like Butlin’s. Well, I think Butlin’s should sue. That’s what the public don’t see: the heartache, the crime and the violence in prison. The public think that everything is all right because someone is locked up and there will be no more trouble. Crime doesn’t stop in prison.
No one would have shed a tear if the Yorkshire Ripper had topped himself. In fact, everyone would have cheered. And I’m sure no one is waiting for him on the outside.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A SOLITARY VOICE
I’VE ALWAYS LOVED poetry, and decided to put my thoughts down in verse. Much of my inspiration came when I was in solitary confinement.
They were still moving me from prison to prison and back again because that’s what they did with dangerous, subversive people like me. On one occasion, I was ghosted from Albany to Bristol prison, where I was in total lockdown. They gave me that treatment after the incident with the governor. It meant I was isolated from all other prisoners; when they opened my door for exercise, the prison was locked down. I used to exercise mostly at night, walking around a yard on my own with prison officers on each corner and two dog handlers patrolling me. No one spoke.
Total lockdown was seen as an extreme punishment, but I loved it. I could read all the books I wanted, and didn’t have to listen to all the usual bollocks going on in the main prison.
I had started writing poems at Albany and continued at Bristol, Maidstone and Parkhurst. I drew inspiration from many sources. One day I was in solitary, enjoying a book by Tom Sharpe called Riotous Assembly. It was a send-up of South Africa’s apartheid system. The book was so funny that I rolled around the bed, laughing, tears rolling down my cheeks.
The principal prison officer and two of his bully boys opened up the cell and said, ‘Are you on fucking drugs or what? You’re in solitary – what have you got to laugh about?’
‘He’s fucking mad, this one,’ one of the other guards hissed. ‘He takes hostages and causes sit-downs and riots. We need to keep a close eye on this bastard.’
My reputation was well deserved. Apart from the ‘hostage’ drama with the governor, I organised a massive sit-in all over the country from my cell in Maidstone. It was over conditions such as visiting and food.
Then there was the Albany riot of 1983 when they wrecked the place, set fire to wings and all that. More than twenty prisoners were charged with mutiny and did more bird to draw attention to their poor conditions. I’d actually been helping to plan the riot before I took the governor hostage. I was moved away after that, but would have taken part if I’d been there.
I was still laughing as I continued reading my book, and the poems just flowed. I had to write them with a pencil on sheets of toilet paper. Then I smuggled them from the solitary confinement block in the wrappers of Mars Bars and Crunchies. I slipped the wrapped-up poems between the cheeks of my arse, so that when they rubbed me down for a body search they didn’t find anything.
I would return to the main prison, after my stints in solitary, and write my previous works down on real paper. I still have those poems today. When I read them now, my mind travels back to every incident, exactly as it happened.
I’ve always been inspired by Kipling’s poem, ‘If’. He wrote it in 1895, but the work is as relevant today as it ever was. You could say that I kept my head when all about me lost theirs and blamed everything on me. I trusted myself when all men doubted me. I made allowances for their doubting. I was lied about and hated. But I didn’t deal in lies and I had a dream. I endured years of nightmares until that dream came true.
The vicar came to my cell in Bristol and he went: ‘How on earth can you stand this total isolation? I couldn’t do it.’
‘Don’t you like yourself, vicar?’ I asked him. ‘I like me. I like my company. Also, I can read all I want, and I have a nice, warm heating pipe here that keeps me snug. Your establishment has played all its cards, but I haven’t even begun to play mine yet. I ain’t broken.’
My message to the authorities was, ‘So you are all fucked. What can you do now? Put me in prison? I’m already in prison. You have nothing else to threaten me with. It’s not what you can do to me any more – it’s what I can do to you.’
THE ONE WHO LOCKED MY DOOR
I have seen dark souls within these walls
Each man’s sins made the cross he bore
Yet no darker soul did I ever see
Than the one that locked my door
I have seen men’s souls cry out in pain
I have seen men beaten to the floor
I have seen men stripped and abused
By the one who locked my door
I have been to the place they put us men
Who refuse to bow and crawl
Our honour is written in the red of blood
Written on those four walls
There is no level they will not stoop
They torture men night and day
I have watched them abuse the food we eat
And beat men whilst they pray
I have seen the chaplain give sacrament
To men beaten beyond repair
Kneel down and pray to our Lord
And pretend the blood was not there
But our dear Lord was one of us
And he will keep the score
And he will judge those blackest souls
The ones who locked my door.
The vicar was totally gobsmacked. He deserves his starring role in ‘The one who locked my door’. But I wasn’t being rude to a nice guy – he knew about the violence that was meted out to prisoners and turned a blind eye to it; he just carried on with his religious business as usual. I was never beaten up, just kept away from everyone. I thought that if ever there was a complete hypocrite, that guy fitted the bill.
That experience made me wary of vicars and anyone religious, but I became interested in Buddhism. One regular visitor, a lovely Buddhist monk, An
ju, is one of my best friends today. He followed me from prison to prison to teach me Buddhism. He used to come in and I would say, ‘Hello, skinhead.’ I really loved the guy. He was the gentlest person I ever met. He would say, ‘Don’t let them get under your skin. Don’t get angry with them. Just look at them as colours of blue. That way they can’t wind you up.’
I was a volatile person, hating everyone, but the monk helped me control my anger. He opened up my mind to get beyond that anger.
Anju went on to become spiritual adviser to the King of Thailand. He was also awarded an OBE. That made me smile, because to a Buddhist it meant nothing! They aren’t into accolades or anything like that. Prison showed me brutality; Anju showed me humanity.
Lynn, the prison librarian at Maidstone, was fascinated by my poems, especially ‘The one who locked my door’.
‘This is deep stuff,’ she said. ‘Where did you write this?’
‘That was written in solitary in Albany. That was when they were kicking people to pieces in there.’
‘You should have your poems published,’ she told me, reading through some of my other work.
I made some enquires and talked to Tony Benn, the government minister, who was in contact with me all the time I was inside. Later on, he was to champion all of my campaigns to educate and rehabilitate prisoners. He wrote a foreword to have the book published, but the prison took it away and wouldn’t let me take the project any further.
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