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I am a Cambridge Graduate (English 2:1 1972). I am the son of a Vicar. Arriving in jail as a first timer is shocking, particularly as a 56-year-old, normally ‘good’ citizen, or ‘burgher of this borough’. (Shrewsbury, Shropshire, UK). That’s what happened to me on April 7th, 2005, after I had been distressed enough to set fire to my own office at home. Within less than 24 hours of the incident, I was bundled into The Dana at Shrewsbury. I had handed myself over to the police because I knew I had done something wrong. I also knew I was ill and needed help. I was at wit’s end. After librium had helped me down from excess alcohol - (a major contributory factor in the causation of the sorry event) - I set about surviving, on the only terms available. These were my own. Writing was the means by which I tried to make order out of Chaos, or what I later determined was KAFKA = the institutional insanity of the prison unsystem. I wrote irregularly but constantly, jotting down everything and anything of interest - to keep the mind alive in this most mind-destroying of places. The Alpha-Omega was my special vehicle - a concise way of getting mind over matter. I stole unashamedly from the books to hand, and then made my ‘A-Z’ sense of the meat of them. There was a wonderful hour of performance just after Christmas in Stafford Jail when prisoners shared talents. That’s what I’m doing now, I hope. For any ‘outside’ or ‘inside’ prisoners. ‘The mind is its own place, and in itself/Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.’ Writing helps self-analysis, making sense, keeping self together - hope. ‘Don’t let the bastards get you down.’ Words rise.
