Heaven

DAY 215 MONDAY 18 FEBRUARY 2002

10.00 am

Mr Le Sage does not turn up for our meeting.

The governor of HMP Stocken has decided that they should not have to bear the cost of my accompanying Mr Le Sage on any school visit, as it would no longer be a voluntary activity that Mr Le Sage would normally pursue in his off-duty time.

As so often is the case in prisons, someone will look for a reason for not doing something rather than trying to make a good idea work. I cannot pretend that I’ve become so used to this negative attitude that I am not disappointed. Mr Berlyn is also unable to mask his anger, and seems determined not to be thwarted by this setback. He has decided that NSC will send its own officer (Mr Hocking) as my escort, so that I might still attend Mark Le Sage’s lectures. As I won’t know if this suggestion will be vetoed until Mr Berlyn has spoken to the Stocken’s governor, I will continue in my role as hospital orderly.

11.30 am

Alan Purser, the prison drugs counsellor, comes across to the hospital to give me a copy of The Management of Drug Misuse in Prisons by Dr Celia Grummitt. Dr Grummitt will become my new bedtime companion.

4.00 pm

Mr Vessey has charged Chris (lifer, murder) and David (lifer, murder) with being on the farm in possession of four potatoes and a cabbage. In normal circumstances this would have caused little interest, even in our self-contained world. However, this will be the new governor’s first adjudication, which we all await with bated breath.