Happiness is Door Shaped

by Ray Deveroux

  New Year’s Eve

  It was coming up to New Year and everyone in management was panicking. It seemed like the whole world was in a panic. Life, to some was going to end at the stroke of midnight in 1999.

  The prison wanted volunteers for New Year’s Eve through the night, in case the world did come to an end. They had been told, like the vast majority of the population, of computers crashing and systems failing and they didn’t want to take any chances. However, since it was a momentous occasion, there were very few volunteers. Mick and I had wives that were working that night. Mine worked at the local hospital, so it didn’t matter to us; we both had our names down first.

  When the management decided to encourage more staff to volunteer by offering a £200 bonus, they were overwhelmed by the response. Names had to be drawn out of the hat for places on those shifts. Because Mick and I already had our names in before the cash incentive, we were excluded from the draw. Obviously, we were still glad of the extra pay! Extra dog patrols were also put on. You couldn’t move for the bodies lying around. We were told not to interfere with the detailed night staff, they would carry on as normal; we were there as back-up Officers only.

  At about ten to eleven that night, Mick and I had been told to go down to one of the wings. A dog patrol on the outside had notice a strange silhouette against one of the cell windows. Could we go down and investigate? Mick wasn’t too happy; he was busy watching replays on videotape he brought in of his beloved Hull City. I wasn’t interested in watching twelve grown men kicking a bag of wind. Football isn’t my sport. To be honest, I was glad. I needed something to do; the staff room was packed with snoring and farting prison Officers earning an easy £200.

  So Mick and I went to see what this silhouette was all about.

  We still to this day don’t know how he managed to get himself in the position he was in. His middle name must have been Houdini, He was hanging from the bars of his window, arms outstretched and tied by the wrists to the opposite ends of the window with barbed wire. Where he got it from remains a mystery, but there is no shortage of the stuff in a prison. He had a rope made of twisted sheet around his neck and fastened to the top bar of his cell window. Barbed wire adorned his head and his feet were tied in a similar position to the bottom of the bars of his window.

  Mick and I just stood there, mouths open. How the fuck did he do that? It was impossible! He must have worked at it for hours to get in that position.

  Whaddya want, he screeched, his throat being restricted by the knot around his neck. We didn’t know whether to cut him down or run and get a camera. This had to be seen to be believed.

  What the fuck are you doing, we both said, nearly in unison. We still couldn’t believe in what we were witnessing.

  I went forward and started to take the weight of his body so Mick could cut him down.

  Leave me, leave me to die, the prisoner was screeching.

  Not on my watch you aren’t, I said. After all, I was the suicide awareness representative. It wouldn’t do to have a suicide on my watch.

  We got the homemade noose off him and he started to breath normally. He started crying.

  What the fuck is up with you, I said. Mick and I were still busy cutting him down from the window. We had radioed ahead of the situation and the night orderly Officer had called an ambulance based on our report. He wasn’t taking any chances either; he came into the cell just as we had got the prisoner untangled from the window bars. We didn’t remove the barbed wire from his head; he had jammed it on tightly and screamed every time we touched it.

  The prisoner obviously had thought that putting barbed wire around the top of his head would signify Jesus on the cross. I must say though, he did resemble him; he was naked apart from the pillowcase around his waist, like a baggy nappy, and badly needed a wash and shave. Blood was running down his face so we used a bit of the sheet that had been removed from him to wrap around his head, the wire still attached.

  When you get a suicide or suspected suicide in prison, everything must be left untouched for the official investigation team. The noose and the remainder of the stuff he used were left where they were.

  When we had got him down completely and laid flat on his back, I did a quick check of his physical state, being trained in first aid. I wanted to be sure he wasn’t leaking blood from anywhere else or had any broken bones. Finding no evidence of either, we started asking him what he was up to.

  What was you doing up there, I asked him.

  We found out his name was Richard. In these cases, in order to maximise cooperation it was wise to use first names. I introduced Mick and myself by our first names. The night orderly Officer, being the old sort, insisted on being called Senior Officer.

  The prisoner told us that he had found God, who had told him to sacrifice himself in the manner in which Christ died on the cross, so he wanted death by crucifixion, and he wanted to be the first to die in the new century.

  But it’s only eleven o’clock, I said, agitated.

  Put me back up there, he cried, put me back on the cross, God is waiting for me!

  Oh, great we thought, just what we wanted when the clock struck twelve, a crucifixion on our hands.

  Richard, how did you manage to get up there, with all your hands and feet bound up as they were? I asked.

  God told me how to do it, he replied.

  Nutter, we thought.

  Where did you get the barbed wire from? I asked.

  God gave it to me, Richard replied.

  At this point we knew we was wasting our time. He was on another planet. The night orderly Officer was off, hearing enough of his “twaddle”, as he called it. He went to supervise the ambulance from the gate.

  We bundled the prisoner into the waiting ambulance.

  Since you’re on first name terms with him, you two can go with him, the night orderly Officer said.

  Oh well, it made a change. He was harmless. We weren’t going to get any problems from our Richard. Mick was mad, though, he wanted to watch his football.

  At the hospital, Richard was seen straight away by the waiting nurses and doctors; it was just before midnight, so the main walking wounded hadn’t arrived yet.

  I left Mick handcuffed to Richard and set off to find my wife. She was at the main reception desk with a plastic cup full of Bucks Fizz, waiting to see the New Year in with the rest of the staff. She was surprised but glad to see me. At least we got to toast the new Millennium together, even if it was just a plastic cup of Bucks Fizz.

  Although Richard was seen to fairly quickly, the crown of thorns now removed, it was going to take ages for us to get back to the jail. Because of the New Year’s Eves celebrations, there weren’t any cabs available for at least two hours, so we settled down in one of the side rooms. Richard was soon off to sleep, the medication they gave him saw to that.

  Arriving back at the jail at three in the morning, the night orderly Officer said that now the event was over and the world had not suffered a terrible fate, we could go home. Result! I was tucked up in bed by the time the missus got home.

  On payday, we got an even better result. On top of the £200 bonus promised, we got paid for a bed watch. A nice New Year’s present. A bed watch is a separate duty. When prisoners are admitted to hospital, Officers were paid extra to sit with them. They were still effectively in prison custody and it was down to the prison to ensure they were looked after.

  Richard, we found out later, had been sectioned off and carted to the Looney Bin. Best place for him I suppose; he was still talking to God and receiving instructions from him when he got there.

  Good lad, keep it up.

  Sentence Planning

  Back on B wing, it was as though nothing had happened. Dave was telling stories of how he saved my life and how he single-handedly got the riot on C wing under control. It raised a laugh. We, of course, reminded him how he faked a heart attack to get out of the riot.

  Hull Prison was putting a team together for the Sent
ence Planning Unit. As I had some experience in this field and I was getting bored standing around the landings, I put my name down for it. I was soon selected. The resettlement Governor, knowing of my previous sentence planning work, didn’t hesitate. It helped that I was also involved in the ACCT document and I was a trained tutor.

  It was interesting work. Not only did our group cover sentence planning, we also covered O.C.A (Occupations, Categorisations and Allocations), HDC (Home Detention Curfews) and the first night induction unit. This new unit had been built in place of the special secure unit which had been taken apart after the hostage with Brown.

  This is where I came face to face with my old rival from Highdown – the tattoo man, Thompson. He was a shadow of his former self, worn down by years of drug taking. He was a mess.

  Whilst I was on the unit, I finally took my Senior Officers exam after ten years in the job. I didn’t really want to; Mick, one of the Officers I had teamed up with, coerced me into it. He had passed his exam and wanted me to do the same. Still, he was a drinking buddy, we both liked real ale, so I went for it.

  I passed on the first attempt. By this time Mick had already got his Senior Officer pips and was in charge of me. He was now my line manager.

  Go for the J.A.S.A.C, (Job Simulation Assessment Centre) he was saying.

  Mick, I’m not into it mate, I’m happy as I am, I told him.

  Ray, you’re better than that, you can pass easy. And anyway, he said, I will put it down as a target on your SPDR (yearly report).

  Bollocks Mick, leave it out, I’m all right as a basic warder, I said.

  Mick was persistent and in the end I took the JASAC and passed. I was now qualified to be a Senior Officer, so I needed a job.

  For the time being though, I was put in charge of a new system for Sentence Planning called the OAsys – Offender Assessment System. It was a more in-depth and individual way of assessing prisoner’s needs and included, for the first time, contributions from outside agencies. Probation and Social Services, as well as youth custody teams, were now involved in the process. It was a far better way, because it meant we were armed with all the relevant material before we interviewed the prisoner. It also meant the prisoners couldn’t tell us lies or make things up, as they often did. We could at last challenge them with the facts.

  It meant that I went on to complete further training courses, and soon became a “trainer for trainers” – in other words, it was my job to teach tutors how to deliver the OAsys system to the staff in their respective jails.

  This went on for six months. I loved the freedom and the fact that I was now a Senior Officer, the first step in management. When the training was over, it was back to Hull Prison. I still kept my Senior Officer pips, but was not a substantive Senior Officer yet. I would have to apply for a vacant post somewhere, but, for the time being, I was given a job as a Senior Officer on one of the new wings that had just been built. I was in charge of J wing, the sex offender’s wing, and with my training qualifications, set about arranging sex offender treatment programmes with my new Principal Officer, John Marshall.

  John was a big man, well over six foot three and a bulk to match, but he was highly intelligent, I guess you could describe him as a gentle giant. John never raised his voice, or lost his temper. He was a great bloke to work for, despite being ginger.

  It was hard work. Yes, I was driving a desk, but for a change, I was using my brain instead of my brawn. I was really enjoying it; this was a new challenge for me. The number one Governor still wanted me to head up the Samaritans Listener Scheme, but he allocated an Officer to help me with the duties.

  I was working on the residential unit where all the sex offenders were housed. Although they could be manipulative and devious, that being the nature of sex offenders, they were non-violent and, on the whole, polite. The wing was half-full with pensioners. They kept the whole unit spotlessly clean and tidy. There was even a washing and ironing party – unheard of in prison. It was, on a daily basis, quiet and relaxing, not at all like mainstream residential units.

  The other task I had was organising course work and setting up and running classes. This started to take over my working day. I was on the wing less and less, putting more time into the rehabilitation side of the process. Interview after interview, course after course.

  I was on it day after day and didn’t realise the underlying stress it was causing me. Each interview with sex offenders revealed more and more sickening tales. Although I was getting immune to the atrocities these men had committed, I was increasingly sickened by the way they were proud of what they had done. Some days it took all my effort not to give them a bloody good hiding. Some Officers said that they couldn’t have done the job I was doing because they would be tempted to throttle the bastards.

  John was noticing that my attitude was changing. He asked me if I wanted to speak to one of the psychologists that were working with us. He could see I was heading for a breakdown.

  After talking with Sue, one of the psychologists, it was decided that I should be moved back into the main jail. So I ended back as an Officer on B wing, where I was greeted with warmth and understanding by the team. Yeah, right, this is prison Officers we are talking about here. I had to pay a month tea boat up front before they would even talk to me. The piss taking and ribbing I got on my return was, I suppose, good for me. At least it brought me back down to earth. It’s what’s known in the Prison Service as character building.

  Mick was by now promoted again to Principal Officer and was posted to HMP Everthorpe, a category “C” training jail. There were vacancies for Senior Officers. He described it as a good place to be and urged me to put an application in for an interview.

  Myself and another Officer called Clive applied and we were both successful. We were off to Her Majesties Prison Everthorpe as Senior Officers.

  Although Hull was, and still is, a good prison to work in, it was nice to see a different side of the service. In my opinion, all Officers should, on promotion, move to different jails. It’s where and how you gain experience and see how other prisons work. Staying in the same jail all the way through the ranks only makes you stale, never experiencing what it’s like to work in a different environment.

  HMP Everthorpe

  As newly promoted Senior Officers, Clive and I were soon put to use. A couple of Officers had been temporary promoted, awaiting our transfer in. They were pleased to see us. They weren’t particularly interested in acting up; both wanted the anonymity of shrinking back into the woodwork from which they came.

  Clive was a young, fresh-faced and likeable lad, who had recently married. He was eager to get on. At 26 years old, and only five years into service, he was fairly new to the game and vastly out of his depth. The staff called him Sweet Cheeks. He looked about eighteen and, at times, acted like it. He was a genuinely nice bloke. You could not be offended by him. He was liked by everyone, including me, and was helped, step-by-step, through his transition from fresh-faced Officer to a newly promoted Senior Officer. Clive went all the way to the top, earning his second pip, promoted to Principal Officer in as many years and then onto the dizzy heights of Prison Governor. Bloody good luck to him, he deserved it. Clive is still there, working his way up the ladder.

  I was close to fifty by now, never wanted promotion, had seen it all, done it all and got various tee shirts along the way. I was happy to settle on the Senior Officer grade. Senior Officers were first line managers; to get to the grade you had to pass exams and job simulations, interviews on capabilities tests were done and you had to meet the selection criteria. Nowadays, given that the Senior Officer Post has shrunk to “Shift Supervisor” with no qualifications needed, save for playing in Sir’s rugby team or attending the same gym as a member of the Senior Management Team. Cynical, I know, but it seems that is all that’s needed to run a wing as a supervisor. These supervisors have no management responsibilities, nor do they manage any staff.

  Clive was allocated B wing and I was
allocated the newly built F/G wing. G wing was to be the new reception wing. As I had experience in the operation of new wings, I was happy to mould this one into shape.

  As a first line manager, I was in charge of six Officers; three just out of training school and three experienced Officers. Looking at the new Officers, my thoughts went back to my first days. Was I really as stupid as that?

  Graham was just out of the army, raring to go, sleeves rolled up to his armpits, showing off his tattoos and, as he called them, his “guns” – biceps to you and me. He was up for anything and tended to challenge the prisoners a bit too often. Graham definitely needed to back off a bit. He may have had big guns, but it wouldn’t stop a bucketful of shit coming his way.

  Anton was a young lad, skinny as a rake and as daft as a brush. His hair was gelled so much, it looked as though he was in constant shock. We called him Shellshock. Anton wanted to impress. He would run around like a blue-arsed fly, achieving little and getting up everyone nose. He thought he was God’s gift to women and was constantly talking about his personal achievements with the opposite sex. Christ, he could bore the arse off you with his stories.

  Then there was Ruth, an obnoxious forty-something, with an opinion on everything. She had three kids by two different fathers, could never remember their names and was constantly challenging my authority. Ruth looked like Shergar, teeth and all. Most wished she was Shergar and had disappeared. She loved horses and boasted to anyone that would listen that she owned two and rode for the County. Most people, including me, wished she would fuck off and ride away. I was her new line manager and she did her best, much to my discomfort, to impress me, sometimes standing so close you could smell the hay.

  My three experienced Officers were good. They could see that I had served in a few jails and had been around the block and respected me for that.