Craiginches

by Bryan Glennie

  Craiginches would be sprung into life by the guards going round the cells for the 6 a.m. wake-up and morning head count. Those prisoners who had special dietary requests would be sent through to the dining room to get their breakfast first. It was an early start and they would go around 7 a.m., pick up their breakfasts and return to their cells to eat it.

  The morning menu would consist of options like porridge, toast, bread and butter, and either a portion of bacon, black pudding or sausage, along with a cup of tea.

  After those inmates were fed and watered then the other prisoners would be taken through to the dining room. It certainly wasn’t a leisurely breakfast. The inmates all had to be finished and ready to start their day jobs by 7.45 a.m., whether that was in the work sheds or elsewhere within the prison. This was also the point where we would take another head count to make sure none of the prisoners had sneaked off.

  The prisoners would be hard at it until around 10 a.m. when tea was taken around the various work places to give everyone their mid-morning cuppa before it was back to the hard graft. If you were ill and had requested to see a doctor or the governor, then this would also happen around this point. If the medical staff decided, after your check, that you weren’t fit to work then you would be sent back to your cell for the rest of the day.

  The morning shift normally ended about 11.45 a.m. That was lunchtime and the prisoners were taken back through to the dining hall, where a head count was done again.

  The lunch normally consisted of three courses: soup, main and dessert.

  Lunch normally lasted for about an hour and after that the prisoners were taken out to the yard for sixty minutes of exercise. If the weather was too bad, then the inmates would be kept inside and given some free time to spend in A Hall.

  It was then back to their day jobs until their shifts clocked off at 4 p.m. That was also the stipulated dinner time. Like at lunch-time, the prisoners would go through for their main meal and they would all be counted in and out.

  The dinner consisted of a main meal followed by a portion of bread and butter and a cup of tea.

  They would all then be returned to their cells in A Hall to allow the prison staff to get their own dinner break. The prisoners would be allowed to freshen up and to use the recreational facilities if they were entitled to them. They would be allowed to go back to the dining room, where they could watch television, play snooker, table tennis, cards, read the newspapers or just to have a chat with others. If you had lost your recreational time, then you were left in your cell.

  The evenings and Saturday and Sunday afternoons were normally the visiting times for convicted prisoners. That was the only thing that broke up the monotony of prison life for some and got them through their sentences. It was a highlight for most the inmates.

  Everyone would be returned back to their cell around 8.45 p.m. for their night-time cup of cocoa along with a sandwich or a bun. The cells were locked up and a final numbers count of the day would be done. The backshift staff would then sign off to be replaced by the nightshift.

  That would be the process until 6 a.m. the next morning, when the same old routine would kick in all over again.

  7

  Rooftop Protest Leaves the Ears of Torry’s Residents Ringing

  There was one particular day a prisoner decided to noise up Craiginches. He had been out in the exercise yard for his daily lunchtime walk. This wayward prisoner decided to take a detour and ran out of the yard and up onto the roof of the main building just before you entered A Hall. That allowed him to get access to the roof on top of A Hall.

  The situation was complicated. As a prisoner officer, you couldn’t go up and simply drag an inmate back down. That isn’t protocol. You have to negotiate with the prisoner and try to talk them down of their own accord. When this prisoner went up on the roof there was no talking to him, down or otherwise. He wanted to make his point and was up there all afternoon, evening and night.

  We tried to persuade him to come down but he wasn’t having any of it. Looking back it is quite funny, but it wasn’t at the time! We had to leave a guard out all night to keep a watch on the prisoner, just in case he tried anything else or attempted to escape. Needless to say the guards were far from impressed at being exposed to the North-east elements all night.

  Extra officers also had to be taken in to help in situations like this. We not only had to pay close attention to the prisoner on the roof but we also had to make sure the rest of the jail was secure and it didn’t spark anything else off.

  If this prisoner felt his protest wasn’t having the desired effect, then he certainly found a way of becoming the centre of attention. He wasn’t going to go quietly. He started to ring the prison bell in the tower at two in the morning. You can imagine how that went down amongst the local residents of Torry, especially those in the immediate vicinity of the prison, in the neighbouring streets of Walker Road, Grampian Place, Wellington Road and Polworth Road.

  The longer the bell was rung you could see more and more lights going on in and around the surrounding houses; people wondering what was going on, although maybe it wouldn’t have been put so politely by some of the sleep-deprived locals that early morning. If they had got a hold of the prisoner, like us, they would have probably wanted to wring the prisoner’s neck – never mind the prison bell!

  The prisoner quickly realised he had played a bum note or two, as the following morning he decided to give himself up. No doubt he was cold and hungry and had decided enough was enough. We got him down and he was put back into a solitary confinement cell.

  The prisoner was called in to the governor’s office, where he had to explain his antics. Everything was noted so staff could put future practices in place to avoid a repeat performance.

  If I remember correctly, I think that particular prisoner ended up losing his remission and his chance of early release. Yet when he was eventually put back in with the other inmates he was viewed as something of a hero. When you go against the regime then you get a lot of respect for that. Some prisoners started to look up to him after that – even though all he had done was to extend his sentence.

  The irony is that I don’t think the whole episode was anything more than a prank. There was no chance of the prisoner making his escape from the rooftop, so you just wonder why he did it. I don’t suppose we will ever know. We asked the prisoner at the time and he just laughed.

  That rather noisy incident led to the bell being removed from the tower of Craiginches Prison. The governor, Mike Milne, made the order so we wouldn’t have a repeat episode – much to the relief of the majority of the people in Torry on either side of the prison walls.

  It was only put back up when we celebrated our centenary!

  8

  A Not-So-Great Escape

  I recall being on duty with one of our new officers. He got a night that I am sure he won’t forget in a hurry – if at all. It all started when we were walking routinely through B Hall and heard a constant tapping noise. We began to look around the cells and we eventually got to the bottom of the minor disturbance: it was one of the untried prisoners who had been trying to get our attention.

  When we got to his cell he informed us that there were sheets hanging down past his cell window, all the way down to the ground. Right away I got on the radio and alerted the outside patrol of the possible breach, and the front gate, who called for police assistance and a sniffer dog.

  I then went out and joined the search with the outside patrol, which normally included the officer who was in charge of the shift. We quickly scanned the outside walls and outbuildings and we were pretty confident that the escapee or escapees were still inside the prison.

  A few minutes later, the police dog came in with its handler and within minutes the two prisoners were unearthed. As soon as the dog was let off its leash it got a scent of the runaways and their cover was blown. The dog just stopped, barked and looked up to the chimney stacks on the roof of the work shed. Sure enough, both pris
oners had been hiding up there, hard against a chimney stack.

  They knew they had been caught red-handed and they were never going to escape. There was nowhere else for them to go. So they embarrassingly jumped down from the chimney and gave themselves up.

  They were put in holding cells after they had been up in front of Governor Swanson, who demanded a full explanation of the entire situation. It caused a right upheaval.

  We also had to go and relocate the other prisoners from the communal cell where they had escaped from because the security there had been breached.

  When we first went into the cell to investigate the possible escape all prisoners pretended they were sleeping and made out as if nothing had happened. I am pretty sure they would have known all about the escape plan but would have been well warned not to let on.

  When we started to look into the escape we found they had actually wet a towel and then taken the towel rail and used them to force the two central window bars apart so they could get out. They had managed to tie sheets together to get down and they had used them to scale the wall from the third floor.

  The prisoners had certainly thought long and hard about their escape from their cell but they hadn’t looked too far beyond that. When we found the prisoners they had no provision to try and get over the wall and to actually get out. So I think it was more an opportunist prank than a genuine break for freedom.

  9

  Who Said Drugs and Money Don’t Grow on Trees?

  Once drugs started to come into prominence in society they also became a problem behind bars. It became a major issue in the final years at HMP Aberdeen. That was evident from the government’s own inspectors. The good thing is that drugs weren’t as freely available then as they are now and I wouldn’t say it was a tremendously major issue at Craiginches. I think that was down to the fact that the majority of our staff was always very proactive and moved with the times. We tried to remain one step ahead of the inmates as much as we could – we always had to be very alert.

  We were also in constant contact with the police to make sure that staff were kept up to date with what was going on in the drug scene. The police would often come across at lunchtime to hold regular talks with the prison staff to keep them updated on various crime issues, especially on the drugs front. The police would give us hints and tips on what to look out for and to let us know what drugs were on the go. That was important because it kept us vigilant and abreast of the changing drug trends.

  The other good thing about Craiginches was that it was such a close jail. The majority of the prisoners and officers got on well. Most of the time we knew what was on the go or what inmates were up to. Being proactive meant we were also able to act accordingly and nip things in the bud before they became a real problem. That changed a bit when some of the more hardened prisoners came down from Peterhead to finish their sentences. They were transferred because they had been threatened or their lives were in danger or they were being upgraded to another prison which was a positive step forward if they were doing a long sentence.

  The main problem for us was cannabis, or ‘hash’, as it is also more commonly known. That was the drug that caused us the biggest headache at Craiginches. The key was cutting off the supply routes, which were via visitors taking the drugs in illegally, or outside accomplices throwing it over the prison walls. The prisoners were always searched after visits to make sure nothing had been handed over. The prison officers on duty would also keep a close eye on visitors and make sure there was no close contact or the opportunity to try and smuggle something in.

  If anything was found then it was confiscated from the prisoner, and he could end up getting into further trouble, probably put on report, depending on the view of the governor.

  In the worst case it saw prisoners lose remission, which would stop them getting out of their sentence early, or they could be charged with trying to get drugs into the prison.

  I wasn’t really prominent in the visiting area because I spent a lot of my time patrolling the halls and the gardens. We always had to do regular searches round the grounds to make sure there was nothing left lying about or thrown over the wall. It wasn’t just drugs; money was another issue that used to come in illegally the same way.

  The money or drugs would normally be stuck in a plastic carrier and thrown blindly over the prison wall. Often coins were tossed over the wall because they had a bit of weight to get into the prison grounds. The people throwing the packages were taking a chance because they didn’t know where they were going to land. They may have had a rough layout of the grounds but they would have had no idea who was going to find it. The chances of the parcel reaching its intended party were remote to say the least, but it was a chance people were willing to take.

  The other added complication was that the perimeter walls were normally planted with vegetables like potatoes, carrots and cabbage. There was also a walkway right around the inside of the prison wall. It and the grounds were always regularly inspected and so if anything was found, it would be picked up by the officers and handed to someone in control.

  If it landed in the vegetable patches then it might lie a little bit longer, but if anything was missed by the officers then the likelihood was that it would be picked up by the prison handyman who looked after the grounds.

  There were also times when we were tipped off about possible Unidentified Flying Objects coming over from the outside. There was a prisoner who had been sentenced to life. I got on really well with him. He kept me informed of many potential situations. There were a couple of incidents that he told me about because he had been threatened to make sure he went out and got the parcel for a certain prisoner.

  The prisoner told me on the quiet and I would then alert the other officers and we would go out and search the gardens and pick up the contraband before we let the prisoners out. That way our informant didn’t get the blame and wasn’t implicated in tipping us off.

  If you were known to be a grass or a snitch, then prison could become a very dangerous place. Prisoners could quite often be ostracised and would come in for the cold shoulder from the other inmates. There would also be the occasional set-to and fights amongst the prisoners who tried to single out snitches.

  There were also the so-called soft touches that the more influential prisoners would find and knew they could lean on and there were the inmates who used to like to stay close to the so-called top prisoners. However, the majority just got on with their everyday lives and saw out their sentences.

  The problem was that Craiginches was like anywhere else. Yes, it had a bad element, but it was no worse than any other jail.

  10

  The Unofficial Craiginches Beer Garden

  There was one afternoon when I was working in the prison gardens. We had a compost heap for all our garden rubbish but that day I noticed something wasn’t quite right. It looked like somebody had tried to move quite a bit of the compost. I went and had a closer look and I discovered two large gallon disinfectant containers within it.

  After I returned the containers to the control room, we quickly realised it was home brew. Some of the prisoners had tried to make their own beer and had tried to brew it in the compost heap. It just shows you have to be on your toes. Obviously, some prisoners had thought they could use the heat from the heap to ferment their beer.

  I remember when I opened the containers. It smelt and looked absolutely putrid. I would hate to think what it actually tasted like! The prisoners might not have thought so at the time but I definitely did them a favour by finding their stash. If somebody had ended up drinking it they probably would have ended up poisoning themselves! It is fair to say that Tennent’s and McEwan’s had nothing to worry about on that particular front.

  We never actually got to the bottom of who the local Craiginches brewer was. We had a fair idea but nobody actually owned up and didn’t have enough evidence to point the finger. It was that bad an attempt I am not sure I would have owned up either!

&n
bsp; Special Assignments

  11

  From Riot Control to Flying Toilets

  I did a lot of work at the Scottish Prison Service College down in Polmont, near Falkirk, especially after I had taken a physical training course at Edinburgh University. That took me eight weeks and I was another two weeks at Loch Tay. Edinburgh University had built this special facility/hotel which specialised in outdoor activities on the banks of Loch Tay. It was owned and used by the university to teach all who attended courses, including the Scottish Prison Service. You would go there and do canoeing, hill climbing and orienteering – it is pretty much an outdoor adventure centre – but that was after you had done your eight weeks at the university first. It was a first-class facility.

  There were nineteen of us on that course, including three officers from the Irish Prison Service. Another local officer who was there was a guy called George Laird, who was from Saughton Prison in Edinburgh. We went on to become very good friends during the course. He went to Glenochil Prison and then moved on to be stationed at the Scottish Prison Service College at Polmont. He was responsible for introducing all the training for the control and restraint procedure into the prison service. Control and restraint is basically a practice to make riot and prisoner control more manageable and more efficient. It was really professional and brilliant to see it in full flow. He invited me down to the Scottish Prison Service College at Polmont to train to become a control and restraint instructor. I really enjoyed learning all about it as it was a great step forward for the future for training staff on the techniques.

  You would use it in scenarios where the circumstances were dangerous and you needed to regain control of the situation. Normally you would have a helmet and a shield as basic protection but there were times when you needed a little bit more.