Heaven

DAY 444 SATURDAY 5 OCTOBER 2002

5.52 am

This is my tenth day of incarceration at Lincoln.

6.01 am

The publication of A Prison Diary Volume One – Belmarsh: Hell, is the lead item on the news. The facts are fairly reported. No one seems to think that the Home Office will try to prevent the publication. However, the director-general is checking to see if I have broken any prison rules. Mr Narey is particularly exercised by the mention of other prisoners’ names. I have only referred to prisoners’ surnames when they are major characters in the diary, and only then when their permission has been granted. [43]

A representative of the Prison Officers’ Association said on the Today programme that as I hid in my room all day, I wouldn’t have anything worthwhile to say about prisons. Perhaps it might have been wiser for him to open his mouth after he’s read the book, when he would have discovered how well his colleagues come out of my experience.

7.32 am

My cell door is unlocked so I can be transferred from A to J wing. This is considered a privilege for that select group who work in the kitchen. The cells are a lot cleaner, and also have televisions. My new companion is a grown-up non-smoker called Stephen (age thirty-nine), who is number one in the kitchen.

Stephen is serving a seven-year sentence for smuggling one and a half tons of cannabis into Britain. He is an intelligent man, who runs both the wing and the kitchen with a combination of charm and example.

8.00 am

A group of fourteen prisoners is escorted to the kitchens. Only two of the five who reported for drugs testing yesterday evening are still in the group.

I am put to work in the vegetable room to assist a young twenty-three-year-old called Lee, who is so good at his job – chopping potatoes, slicing onions, grating cheese and mashing swedes – that I become his incompetent assistant. My lack of expertise doesn’t seem to worry him.

The officer in charge of the kitchen, Mr Tasker, turns out to be one of the most decent and professional men I have dealt with since being incarcerated. His kitchen is like Singapore airport: you could eat off the floor. He goes to great pains to point out to me that he only has £1.27 per prisoner to deliver three meals a day. In the circumstances, what he and his staff manage to achieve is nothing less than a miracle.