Craiginches

by Bryan Glennie

  The project officer for Aberdeenshire City Council, Judith Cox, coordinated with us and told us exactly what they were looking for. The council felt the best option was to put in wooden walkways like the ones that had been such a big success up at Burn O’Vat. We were to build steps and ramps at various points for wheelchair access.

  The plan was to lay the walkways on either side of the River Don. The first walkway went from the Bridge of Don right down to the mouth of the river and the other ran parallel, leading straight on to the beach boulevard. We also had to put a ramp and steps in at the Donmouth on the other side of the river to maximise the access and to take out the massive drop down on to the sand. The second part of the walkway was laid the following year in 1992.

  We got a group of four prisoners out again to put in the hard graft and within a couple of weeks we had laid and built the walkways, which ran to more than 400 metres. We completely transformed the area in about two weeks. I knew what a shift the prisoners had put in but even I was surprised at how quickly they got the job done and to their usual immaculate standards.

  We also got plenty of plaudits in the press, including some live footage on the television evening news show North Tonight. Texaco also filmed an entire day’s work with the prisoners for their own promotional purposes. The council was delighted but the real achievement was seeing the buzz and excitement of the patients from Woodend Hospital as they were pushed along the riverside.

  After we had completed the project we took some patients from Aberdeen’s City Hospital, who were confined to wheelchairs, down to the Donmouth walkways. We let some of the prisoners take them for a walk along them. They loved being able to go along the Don, taking in the views and watching the goings-on in and around the neighbouring nature reserve. It was something new, as there had been no chance of getting a wheelchair down on the dunes before that. We saw at first hand the positive impact of the work. Seeing that was a great moment for the prisoners and myself because we were doing these projects to help others. To see them getting such enjoyment out of our work made it all worthwhile.

  The prison governor, Bill Rattray, got a lovely letter from Aberdeen City Council thanking us for the work we had done with the boardwalks at the Donmouth. Bert Allen from Aberdeen City Council also came out to see us at the Donmouth, but we had actually completed our work a couple of hours earlier.

  His thank you letter to the prisoner governor said:

  I write to express my thanks to the Prison Service and in particular to Mr Bryan Glennie and his team for building the boardwalk at Donmouth. I am very impressed by all that has been done and by the quality of the workmanship. The boardwalks have already attracted favourable comments from members of the public and I am sure the community, in particular disabled persons, will obtain a great deal of pleasure from the facilities which have been installed by the Prison Service.

  I very much appreciate the level of cooperation with members of staff here in the department and I would hope that opportunities will arise in the not-so-distant future when we can work together again on environmental measures which will have lasting benefits and create further opportunities to enjoy the city and its natural setting.

  I also received a letter from Chris Jackson, the principal planning officer, thanking me for my personal involvement. It said:

  The City Council planning committee has now taken the final steps towards designation of Donmouth as a Local Nature Reserve and has instructed me to convey their thanks to all those involved in the project.

  The planning and construction of the timber boardwalk carried out by yourself and the prisoners has been instrumental in improving access to the dunes, particularly for the less able. They have also considerably reduced erosion of these areas and the dune grasses are now re-establishing underneath and along the boardwalk. This project has been very worthwhile and has contributed towards the enhancement of an area which will be a valuable resource for Aberdeen.

  ‘I would be grateful if you could pass on my thanks to the prisoners who I am sure can be proud of the work which they carried out to such a high standard under your supervision.

  It was a nice touch and fitting tribute to the prisoners and their work. The fact that Donmouth is now a protected local nature reserve is also great to see. HMP Aberdeen could look proudly on, knowing we helped play our part. What more could we have asked for?

  The Scottish Prison Service also got wind of the impact of our work. They had obviously given it the green light and had been kept abreast of things through the daily newspaper cuttings library. They sent a letter to the governor, Mr. Rattray.

  It was entitled: Donmouth Project and read:

  Mr Glennie’s initiative and commitment is, yet again, to be highly commended and I would wish to do so on behalf of the Scottish Prison Service.

  This kind of community venture attracts nothing but the highest praise and credit both for the establishment and for the Service. It will also give me great pleasure to include this project in the Scottish Prison Service’s annual report.

  Perhaps you would also be kind enough to pass a copy of this letter on to Mr Glennie.

  Alan Walker (Deputy Director of Operations)

  25

  There Has Been a Robbery

  Theft and robbery are two of the crimes which could well have led to you serving time at HMP Aberdeen. We just didn’t expect our inmates to become the victims!

  It all centred round a local project in Torry which we got involved in in June/July 1992, doing some more outside work with the prisoners in association with Aberdeen City Council. This time it was for their ‘Clean and Green’ campaign. They worked on numerous regeneration projects all over the Granite City to tidy places up and to encourage more people to visit them.

  The council asked if we could supply prisoners to aid a project right on our own doorstep. They wanted to give the walkway along the River Dee at Torry a bit of a clean and spruce up. It had been left untouched for years and needed a bit of manual work to be done on it such as cutting back trees and bushes to make it a bit more appealing for people to walk along.

  In all honestly it had become a bit of an eyesore and at some points it was even bordering on the dangerous. The council wanted the majority of the work to be done around the Victoria Bridge area. They wanted to improve its existing walkways. They were keen to make it more accessible for all, offering wheelchair and pushchair access from the bridge all the way up to the fish houses at the opposite end.

  The wooden walkways we built certainly made the area more accessible for the public and wheelchair users at the entrances beside the Victoria and Queen Elizabeth bridges. Our work cleaned up the area and made it a lot more appealing for the locals and visitors to use. It took a lot of hard graft from the prisoners over the space of several weeks. The project was another great success and made Torry a bit more appealing and obviously opened things up for a lot more people and families of all ages to visit.

  We also thought it would be a good idea to finish things off by putting a bench along the walkway. We felt it would be good for walkers to have a quick seat or just to sit and relax on the riverside. It wasn’t part of our remit but we thought it would be a worthwhile addition and would set things off nicely.

  Having the joiner’s workshop, and with so many skilled joiners amongst our inmates, meant that it wasn’t going to be too difficult to get our hands on a sturdy wooden bench.

  We spoke to George Hunter, the boss in the joiner’s workshop, because bench-making was one of his many specialities and he had made dozens throughout the years.

  The fact that it was for a local cause and was something for the surrounding community also whetted the appetite of George and his prisoners.

  Within a few days we had a heavy-duty timber bench fully varnished and ready to be carried out on to the walkway. Once again, there could have been no complaints about the quality of work the men had produced. The bench was certainly made to last!

  We put the bench alon
g the walkway, looking across the river over to the esplanade. We thought it would be nice for people and visitors just to sit there in such a picturesque location. Afterwards, we looked proudly at it knowing that we were able to sign off because our work on another project was done. Or so we thought!

  A member of staff was out for his walk the next day at lunchtime and as they came along the walkway and they noticed the bench had disappeared. It had been stolen! We couldn’t believe it. Who would want to steal a bench? Something that had been put there to benefit the whole community!

  You just wonder about some people. There are some unscrupulous individuals who would steal anything. That is the sad reality of the world we live in.

  The local newspapers ran some articles to help us try and find the missing bench. We got some decent headlines and coverage but we never did manage to locate it.

  I was absolutely livid at the time. I was quoted as saying: ‘It is very sad. We have been doing a lot of work for this project. The riverside is right on our doorstep and a lot of the prisoners had jumped at the chance to work for their local community.’ Even Aberdeen City Council got involved. Their environmental officer George Duffus added: ‘These benches were not for the council they were for the people of Aberdeen. It is sickening.’ Thankfully, there are more good people around in Aberdeen.

  We went back to the joiner’s workshop and told George Hunter and the boys what had happened. They were as bemused and as angry as us.

  If we had caught the thief and thrown him into Craiginches, I dread to think what would have happened!

  George and the rest of his team in the joiner’s workshop immediately told us they would make us another bench, which they did. We then took it back out and put it in the same location as before. This time we had learned from our mistakes. We bolted the bench down and if anyone wanted to take it then they were going to need to take the riverbank with them! This time the bench was there for the long haul.

  The riverside project was another massive hit and was testament to the prisoners again. It proved to be another popular project and that was seen with the number of people who used the walkway or would be sitting on the bench looking across the water. That was where the real joy and sense of fulfilment came from everyone involved in these projects. When I think about the bench being stolen now, it is quite funny, but back then it was no laughing matter.

  26

  Woodend Hospital

  We had good links with Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and Woodend Hospital. We had done a string of fund-raisers for different wards. We had also been up and done various events in and around the hospital.

  This time we took on a project at Ward 19 at Woodend. It was a twenty-five-bed ward for females awaiting geriatric assessment. We had already been up to the ward and had done a prison slide show to entertain some of their patients one afternoon. We were showing and telling the people at the hospital some of the things we did. Fiona Thomson, the voluntary services coordinator for Woodend and Morningfield Hospitals, got in touch and said they could do with a hand in gutting out the ward.

  We had raised money for various wards and causes at the hospital but in 1994 we decided to go one step further and the Aberdeen Prison Community Links Committee adopted the ward for the year. The four-man committee met with the sister of the ward and the voluntary coordinator at the hospital to see where we could help in and around the ward.

  When we first set foot in Ward 19, we all agreed that it had seen better days and was in dire need of being brightened up. It was quite tired and dark and was hardly inspiring for the patients who had to spend a lot of their time there.

  So the first step was to get funds so the ward could be decorated.

  We raised money through the usual avenues: street collections, football sweeper cards, the sale of prison merchandise. We also held regular jumble sales in the church hall at Torry and did regular coffee mornings, where Mrs Aitken would supply us with rolls and cakes, while Ian Law our local shopkeeper beside the prison would give us loads of sugar, milk, tea bags and coffee. Every year we had different charities and that particular year was Woodend.

  There were also bingo afternoons in the ward run by prison staff, which the patients enjoyed. One of the main events for Ward 19 was a sponsored hill walk. Hospital and prison staff along with friends walked from Braemar to Blairgowrie, which was an impressive total of around twenty-seven miles and raised a lot of money.

  The ward was painted by the hospital staff from top to bottom. We then got new furniture, including a new three-piece suite for the day room and we also bought some much-needed new dinner sets as well. We also brought in some plants and hanging baskets to try and make the ward look a bit more homely.

  The prison also got on well with Aberdeen Journals. I knew their managing director Alan Scott well and when he heard about the work we were doing for Ward 19 he also wanted to get involved. Alan arranged for a number of old photographs from in and around Aberdeen to be printed off and then got them framed so we could hang them on the walls of the ward just to finish things off. It was a nice touch and one I know the staff and patients really appreciated because the number of comments we got about the photographs was unbelievable.

  To finish off that project we took the patients from the ward down to the Duthie Park, with the four prisoners being the escorts for the afternoon. We took them for tea and coffee and a walk around the Winter Gardens and just had a good laugh. The patients and prisoners really enjoyed the afternoon.

  This was the lovely thank you note we received:

  To the Aberdeen Prison Community Links Committee,

  Thank you to the committee for volunteering to adopt a ward at Woodend hospital for the twelve-month period from January 1994.

  The ward selected was Ward 19, which is a twenty-five-bedded female geriatric assessment ward. An initial meeting was held between the four members of the committee, the ward sister and myself to establish how funds raised could be effectively spent for the benefit of patients and appropriate social activities could be arranged.

  It was felt in the first instance that the ward environment needed brightening up so the committee provided hanging baskets and plants for the corridor, a selection of pictures, five dinner sets, a three-piece suite all of which created a more homely atmosphere in the day room.

  Regarding social involvement, the committee organised a bingo evening in the ward and with the help of four prisoners as escorts, they gave a group of patients a tour round local Winter Gardens followed by afternoon tea.

  Over the past months one prisoner has made visits to the ward to chat to patients, some of whom who have had few visitors of their own and do enjoy a bit of company.

  As well as the committee, other members of the prison service have been involved in supporting the project by participating in fund-raising events, etc. Money has been raised through activities organised by the committee which include a football sweep and the sale of goods with the Community Links logo. There was also a sponsored hill walk which ward staff, prison staff and friends participated in.

  An excellent rapport has been built up between ward staff, the committee, prisoners and the patients. Great improvements have also been made to the ward environment and to the patients’ quality of life during their hospital stay which has been greatly enhanced by the involvement of the Community Links, which is without doubt worthy of recognition.

  Fiona Thomson.

  Voluntary Services Coordinator of City Hospitals in Aberdeen.

  27

  Aberdeen Royal Infirmary Bowled Over by Craiginches

  I bowled at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary Bowling Club. The club was within the grounds of the hospital. I became a member and bowled there for a number of years. The committee knew that I worked at HMP Aberdeen and were also aware that I had, along with some of our prisoners, assisted with various projects out and about from Burn O’Vat to Balmedie and Bridge of Don.

  The committee, via our then president, Tom Cowe, approached me
to ask if there was any possibility we could get the prisoners to help at the bowling club. They wanted some heavy duty maintenance done at the club. They needed the ditch round the green dug out because heavy rain had caused serious damage to it.

  They required us to barrow in all the replacement blocks for two of the members who were going to come in and build the new wall.

  Tom made the plea for help from the prison because they were stuck in a bit of a catch-22 situation. He explained that at the time in the local press. Tom said: ‘Most of our younger members work all day and we don’t have enough money to employ an outside contractor, so we asked for the prison’s help.’ It was one that I couldn’t really say no to, although the final clearance still had to come from the governor, Scott Ogilvie. Just as well it wasn’t a problem. I was given the go-ahead and assured of my ARI Bowling Club membership for a few more years!

  I then went back to the prison to get three prisoners for the job. For these projects we picked those who had achieved a trustee status and were often nearing the end of their sentences, although in fairness I wasn’t short of volunteers to work on this project. We had a few keen bowlers, others who were just sporty and some prisoners who just wanted the chance to work outside the prison. I picked a trio who I knew would put in a real shift and could also cope with the physical demands of the job. I then took them down and we worked together under the supervision of the head green keeper Dougie Alexander. The guys all worked like Trojans and at one point I even had to tell them to slow down a bit because they were so full of enthusiasm and wanted to make the most of their few hours of freedom. The prisoners knew that if they impressed there would be more chance of getting asked on to future jobs.