Veronica's Bird by Veronica Bird

Author:Veronica Bird [Veronica Bird and Richard Newman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781912262625
Publisher: Clink Street Publishing
Published: 2017-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

I settled down to learning about being a Principal Officer for, until then I had assumed I would be engaged only on tasks covered by a Senior Officer. At least there had been time enough to absorb a good working knowledge of the prison. I was more than lucky to get this promotion for there were not many female Principal Officers posts, perhaps thirty in the whole of Britain.

Styal’s fundamentals of having houses, separate blocks if you will, meant each type of prisoner was allocated a specialist unit designed to keep particular types of inmate apart. So, the houses, held between twelve to sixteen women. One would contain dangerous lifers, Mary Bell the child killer and Carole Richardson connected with the IRA bombing in Guildford were here; mothers and babies in another; short termers, those deemed mentally ill or, as we put it, inadequates. There was, of course, a punishment block singularly named, Bleak House. This last unit was where the Governor could send a recalcitrant inmate for a fixed term, say three to seven days. Cellular Confinement was its politically correct label. The implication was that a prisoner so charged would spend twenty-three hours a day locked up, for the term handed down. There would be just an hour for exercise and time out for toilet visits. Meals were served in one of the eight punishment cells. Alongside this there could be loss of remission, up to twenty-eight days though the two punishments might not be necessarily linked. To top this, the final straw as it were, was to lose earnings, meaning loss of tobacco which stored up trouble as smoking was endemic in the prison and as familiar as placing fish with chips. There was no special kudos in being housed in a particular block though each house was tailored to the needs and demands of the inmates’ offences. Progression through their sentences, allowed us to begin preparing them for open prison and thereafter for the big, wide, and often, just as frightening, world.

Supervising in Bleak House was, well…. to be accurate, bleak. There was very little to do and it took a pair of officers, always in twos, who would read the letters as normal and chat to each other. The necessity to move these prisoners was much less frequent. The one hour of exercise became a welcome break for them as well as our inmates. To supervise in Bleak House needed staff who were well-balanced, with a calm nature and who could deal with the special environment they were placed in. They were, in fact, as securely locked up as the prisoners. Think about that, when you next listen to a moan from a prison officer.

When I reached the grade of Principal Officer and my turn came up for night duty, it was my task, amongst others, to patrol between the various blocks set in the grounds of the prison. Black shadows everywhere could hide a dozen escapees. Rats scurried back into the darkness, owls hooted and a fox would often slink away on my approach.

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