The prisoner

Peter Wayne returns to Lindholme and discovers that Governor Batt was not so bad after all
October 19, 1997

As expected, i was booted out of my therapeutic community in the west country and transferred back to Lindholme prison in Yorkshire. And now I discover that my old sparring partner Governor Batt has also got the boot.

It seems that, during my absence, Batt the Intransigent had dug in his heels a little too deeply on the complicated matter of staffing levels. From what I have been able to gather from sources in the prison, his removal (to another establishment several miles up the road) was considered the only way out of an uncomfortable impasse.

When I first arrived back here at the beginning of July, I went to great pains to avoid my old adversary as he took his daily tours of inspection around the prison. I dodged into cells, hid behind walnut trees, rammed the peak of my newly acquired baseball cap so far down over my face that he could not hope to recognise the person beneath it. Eventually though, the inevitable came to pass. I was walking across the parade ground one afternoon when, too late to avoid a head-on confrontation, I saw him making in my direction. "Oh, er. Hello Governor," I greeted him nervously but with as much brio as I could muster. "How nice to see you again."

He had that faraway look in his eyes, as if he were replaying the events of the past before making a move. "I wasn't expecting to see you of all people Wayne. To what do we owe this signal honour?"

"Things didn't work out too well at Channings Wood. In a nutshell, they threw me out."

Batt looked at me quizzically. "Do things ever work out for you anywhere?"

"Oh yes," I replied. Now was my chance to give him the good news. "Do you remember the interview I did with you earlier this year?"

"Yerse." There was caution in his voice. No wonder.

"Well. You'll be pleased to know that I entered it for the Koestler awards. It won the Financial Times prize for journalism."

"Dear me! The Financial Times. Did you win any money?"

"Yes I did-?50."

"Um. It's a pity they didn't see fit to allow me a percentage, for being so big-hearted about the underhand way in which you got the interview in the first place."

He stunned me. "But I thought you were responsible for my transfer out."

"Of course not. I had nothing to do with it-or your parole knockback. I was particularly sorry to hear about that."

The Parole Board's decision to reject my latest and last application for "early" release had come as a bitter disappointment after all my efforts to convince them that, through my writing, I had thoroughly rehabilitated myself and was now ready to take up my place as a law-abiding member of society. Not only had David Goodhart written a reference which spoke in glowing terms of my journalistic accomplishments and future potential, but my editors at the Spectator and the Times Literary Supplement had also sent letters of support "to whom it may concern." Even Brigadier Prosser, the clerk of the Tallow Chandlers' Company, had weighed in on my behalf, because I had proved conclusively, earlier in my sentence, that two paintings in the company's great hall, thought since their acquisition in 1829 to be of William III and Queen Mary, were in fact of Charles II and Mary of Modena. Not even on account of this great service to the cultural wellbeing of our nation was I to be trusted out there a moment earlier than was absolutely necessary.

"Mr Wayne has an extensive and escalating history of offending and has served a number of custodial sentences," the official reply began morbidly. "He has breached trust, escaped from custody, absconded... committed further offences. He has not yet satisfactorily demonstrated his commitment and capacity to remain crime-free and the risk of re-offending remains too great to recommend release on parole licence."

One can understand a certain caution, in the light of the dozen or so building societies I robbed. But that was almost ten years ago. For the last three years I have been working almost every hour God sends researching, writing and haranguing editors to give me more work, thus ensuring I do have a regular and realistic income when the gate finally swings open to let me go.

The authorities' reaction to my efforts has, at times, been incomprehensible. Letters to editors are stopped or go mysteriously astray in the post; books for review are held back in reception; my typewriter has on occasion been impounded, access to the prison's computer hardware is denied. Despite all this I still managed to publish over 40 articles and reviews last year. How can this be failing to demonstrate my "commitment and capacity to remain crime free"? It's getting to the point where I have to contrive ever more devious ways of filing my copy and meeting my deadlines.

The more determined they are to stop me, the more determined I am to succeed. In the meantime, I have a new job-as one of the worker bees in Lindholme's clothing exchange stores. Each week I sort through the detritus of 700 South Yorkshire convicts-2,000 olive green tee shirts, 1,500 twill shirts, 1,000 pairs of Y-fronts, 2,500 pairs of boxer shorts and nearly 5,000 pairs of sweat-encrusted woollen socks. It's a fine life and no mistake.