I Am Not A Gangster by Bobby Cummines

Author:Bobby Cummines
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw, epub
ISBN: 9781473501638
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Published: 2014-05-08T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

THE KRAYS AND THE RICHARDSONS – ALL TOOLED UP

ALBANY WAS A frightening, frightening place, where it was easy to lose all hope for the future.

I sat alone in my cell, wondering what lay ahead. I felt no remorse for any of my activities, apart from that accidental death during the armed robbery several years earlier. I thought that, generally, my actions were justified as bits of work. As I look back now, I can see that a lot of my activities were sheer lunacy. Much of what I did was total insanity. If I could turn the clock back … who knows?

You have to remember that I was up against some really nasty people and they received what was coming to them. Of course, those villains had families and I feel sorry to have caused them so much grief. I suppose one silver lining is that because of my actions back then, I have a lot of credibility when I come to try to stop youth crime today … so I have turned that negative into a real positive.

I scanned the scanty surroundings of the small cell. It must have been around twelve feet by six feet, with lino on the floor. There was a bed, a small table and not much else. The first thing I did was to hang a picture of the Queen on my cell wall. That tradition had stayed with me since childhood, and would never change.

The window was bigger than I was used to in prison, and I peered through the bars onto the exercise yard. It was a mass of concrete with not one blade of grass in sight.

I saw an intercom gadget on the wall and pressed the button. I asked the guard in his sealed office if I could go to the toilet and the door opened electronically: only one prisoner was allowed out of his cell at a time.

This was a high-tech prison. I even had a key to lock my door. Well, there was nowhere to go apart from the normal prison areas, so no one could escape, or anything like that. My convictions, including manslaughter, ensured that I always had a cell to myself and was kept away from other inmates.

I soon became used to the system. I went down for breakfast, mopped the landing, watched TV and made as many friends as I could. There were set times for meals, and these were cooked by the prisoners. The food was brought out on trolleys and you could eat them in the TV room. You could also eat in your cell if you wanted some peace.

My mum never came to see me – it would have been too much for her – but my sisters and friends came to Albany. It was difficult for them to get to the Isle of Wight, because the ferry didn’t run in rough weather, and it took visitors all day to get there and back. Albany and Parkhurst were jails within jails.

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