Heaven

DAY 186 SUNDAY 20 JANUARY 2002

10.51 am

Mr Hart (an old-fashioned socialist) visits the hospital to tell me that there’s a double-page spread about me in the News of the World. It seems that Eamon (one of the Derby Five) is the latest former inmate to take his thirty pieces of silver and tell the world what it’s like to share a room with Jeff.

I am surprised how many prisoners visit me today to tell me what they think of Eamon. Strange phrases like ‘broken the code’, ‘not the done thing’ come from men who are in for murder and GBH. After Belmarsh, Fletch, Tony, Del Boy and Billy said nothing, while Darren, Jimmy, Jules and Sketch from Wayland also kept their counsel. Here at NSC, I trust Doug, Carl, Jim, Clive and Matthew. And they would have stories to tell.

4.00 pm

I’ve started a prison tea club as I love to entertain whatever the circumstances. Admittedly it would have been impossible at Belmarsh or Wayland, but as I now reside in the hospital, I am even able to send out invitations. Membership is confined to those over the age of forty.

My guests are invited to attend ‘Club Hospital’ on Sunday between the hours of 4 pm and 6 pm. They will be served tea, coffee, biscuits and scones supplied by Linda. The current membership is around a dozen, and includes David (fraud, schoolmaster), John (fraud, accountant), John (fraud, businessman), Keith (knowingly in possession of drugs), Brian (ostrich farm and chapel organist), Doug (importing cigarettes), the Major (stabbed his wife), the Captain (theft, drummed out of the regiment), Malcolm (fraud) and Carl (fraud).

The talk is not of prison life, but what’s going on in the outside world. Whether the IRA should be given rooms in Parliament, whether Bin Laden is dead or alive, the state of the NHS and the latest from the Test Match in India. All of my guests keep to the club rules. They remove their shoes and put on slippers as they enter the hospital, and no smoking or swearing is tolerated. Two of them will be leaving us next week, Keith will have served five years, and Brian nearly three. We raise a cup to them and wish them luck. Carl and David stay behind to help me with the washing-up.