The Victorians were adept at architectural onomatopoeia. Their houses of correction looked authoritarian from without and within. Even today, pri-soners (this one at least) pass through these ominous gatehouses shocked by the monumental stylistic eccentricities of another age. A Venetian campanile here, a neo-Byzantine chapel there; amphitheatres, rotundas, eerie barrel-vaulted underground passages... From the start the mood is set through this imposing architecture of intimidation. As the gangplank is drawn up the prisoner weakens and (if he knows what's good for him) obeys.
Wandsworth, in leafy southwest London, is an enormous enclosure of austerely functional space. Imagine a cathedral without its high altar, shorn of its pews and triple decker pulpit, its organ and reredos. Pared-down classicism in yellow London brick. You feel like some exotic bird at times, trapped forever in an intricate gilded cage. Just watch, and listen to the beating of wings up in the hammer-beamed roof. They are real, those birds up there-curious creatures unlucky enough to have fluttered into this huge basilica of human discontent.
In the early 1980s, when I began a four-year sentence in this sad place, Wandsworth was still the flagship of an ancient penal regime based on the moral absolutism of silence and separation. Six "living" halls extend outwards from a central panopticonic hub. Cellular accommodation of the most basic kind runs around four storeys (flats) of galleried landings. You might be in the Lloyd's Building or the fabulous Hong Kong and Shanghai bank if it were not for the fetid air and the safety nets strung across the atria to catch men who might jump. Doors punctuate the interior fa?ades, each with a number, a polished brass handle, a Judas hole and a name tag coloured according to religion. Red door, green door, blue door, red door, locked door, locked door, locked door, door upon door upon door and they are locked-the lot of them-locked and bolted, with two or three men securely contained within each one.
During my time there, I kept a daily journal. Homosexuality had never been openly accepted as the norm among the robbers, con-men, long-termers, hot-rodders, junkies, pickpockets, safe-crackers, pimps, prostitutes, punks and the rest. Nevertheless, there was a tacit acceptance of casual sexual encounters between men, which for the most part (but not always) took place behind closed doors when the screws had gone home. I have to admit that despite the pervading air of defeat and debilitation, there were times when I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Sex was sex. Lips were moist and mouths were wet and erections were erections. This wasn't my first time in Wandsworth; I already knew the score. Yet when I returned there in the month before Christmas 13 years ago, the mood had begun to change. The following extracts from my journal may shock, even disgust. I make no apology for the relentless sexual reportage; this was how it was. As chronicler of our secret lives, I felt it incumbent upon myself to write down what I saw and what I did. All names have been changed to protect friends and enemies alike.
WANDSWORTH, 25TH OCTOBER 1985: Paranoia about a new sexually transmitted disease has swept the prison. Just heard they've set up an underground segregation unit to house the infected. Read in today's Times that since the beginning of the year there have been 21 recorded cases of Aids in the British penal system. So far one death. The article says that in New York there is a 17-times-greater chance of contracting the disease inside Riker's Island than outside on the teeming streets. The Americans are supposed to be three years ahead of us in this respect. I guess I'm really going to have to slow down. As we enter the age of the "new puritanism" we must pray that the scientists find a cure before long.
2ND NOVEMBER 1985: Worried. New cell; new cellmate. Jeffrey, a self-confessed schizophrenic waiting to be transferred to a psychiatric prison in Buckinghamshire, spent the first two days telling me about close shaves he's had with predatory queers at King's Cross station. He realised that it was a noted pick-up place for rent boys in their teens and early 20s. He is going to great pains to deny his homosexuality, and put paid to any plans I may have had for seducing him by showing me a button-like venereal wart on the back of his penis. He spends most of the day asleep beneath a pile of rough woollen blankets. All I can see is a protruding thatch of straw-coloured hair which must be alive with infestation. It took three days to persuade him to have a wash. A further three days have now gone by without him having another.
4TH NOVEMBER 1985: In the first four days of being back I bumped into three people I'd had sex with on my last sentence. We were all a little embarrassed. All a little older. Michael is awaiting the results of an Aids test.
8TH NOVEMBER 1985: Up early today for Holy Communion. I still go to church, where I play the organ. The chaplain had a go at a couple of queens for giggling on the back row during the midweek service. He said "You've really got to remember that you are not under the arches at Heaven." They apologised, telling him that they only saw each other every couple of years or so, when their sentences crossed. Everyone calls them Anne and Mary. After the service, Mary came up to me with a copy of Angus Wilson's As If By Magic. "Listen to this line," he enthused over my shoulder as I was playing my postlude on the organ. "'The boy across the river has a bottom like a peach, but alas, I cannot swim.'"
16TH NOVEMBER 1985: A recital of sacred songs. Full church. Beside me sat Craig, a tattooed hoodlum with chiselled muscles and two long-ago broken wrists. He whispered obscenities to me during the performance, ruminating on the size and colour of the soprano's nipples. Before the meeting broke up, he said: "If only you, me and the singer could go back to my cell for a threesome." The queers were out in force. Good deal of eye-cruising going on between numbers.
25TH NOVEMBER 1985: A dangerous prisoner, Jess, has arrived on our wing. Last time I saw him, in Albany on the Isle of Wight, he had put a pair of scissors through the neck of a young Palestinian terrorist. He got another five years for that. It seems that after his removal from Albany he'd been taken to Gartree, where the Palestinian's co-defendant was serving his time. Now Jess is waiting to go up for GBH on him. If the truth be known, I don't think Jess even wants to get out. He lures the younger and greener prisoners into his cell, promising them all the cannabis they can smoke if only they'll let him give them blow jobs. Earlier in his sentence, he kidnapped and held hostage the woman governor of a wing he was on in Wormwood Scrubs because his regular fuck had been transferred to another prison. Right now he has his eyes on a young, very pretty chicken a few cells away from me. I think the boy is straight-unblemished as yet-but Jess fancies his chances and is trying to move in with him.
27TH NOVEMBER 1985: Making no progress with my own cellmate. He is still unwashed and unattractive. Got to get him out of here. Last night neither of us got much sleep. Jeffrey had a stomach upset. Earlier, he had been on a visit and stuffed himself with sweets and fizzy drink. It is impossible to get out of the cell after 8pm and the only receptacle we have is a plastic bucket. He soon filled it with a mixture of diarrhoea and puke. Then he fouled his bed. When I got up this morning, I nearly puked myself. There was shit all over the floor and he'd left the lid off the bucket.
12TH DECEMBER 1985: The Christmas decorations, such as they are, have gone up in the centre. Jess has been moved on to a different wing. The screws had his measure. Half an hour after his removal I was accosted by the saturnine creature he'd had in the cell with him. "Jess said you'd give me a half-ounce of tobacco," the boy chirped, as if it had been me who gave him the blow job. If I had had the tobacco I might have been tempted. His smile and pouting bottom lip told me he might be available. But when I get paid tomorrow, I'll have about 25 pence that's not spoken for. I thought about Mary's "boy across the river."
14TH DECEMBER 1985: Michael is still awaiting the results of his Aids test. He's like a cat on a hot tin roof. He tells me that his worries stem not from the furtive sexual encounter he'd enjoyed in Wormwood Scrubs, but because he borrowed a set of works from an Italian junkie who's since tested positive.
16TH DECEMBER 1985: Yesterday the medics called Michael up, told him he'd tested negative, and then discovered the test they had done wasn't for Aids but for hepatitis B. Now he's got to go through it all again. I fancy him still, but I must not touch him before I know he's in the clear. I might have it anyway. I should have a test. Like going to confession and having your sins resolved. Clean slate. Suppose I test positive? I won't. I feel great, don't I? Don't I? Just to be sure, I'll get one done-after Christmas.
17TH DECEMBER 1985: As supper was delivered last night, a door was opened on the body of a man swinging from the roof pipe. Cell has been locked and taped. A neighbour heard them dragging the body out. This morning he sneaked a look through the spyhole and saw the rope still hanging-and a putrid mess half dried on the floor.
19TH DECEMBER 1985: Baz, who is hyperactive, didn't like staying in his cell for 23 lonely hours a day. Decided to spend the afternoon with a friend in his pad. He left pillows and clothes under his blanket, which the screws discovered when they delivered a Christmas card. Full-scale search resulted in Baz being put on to the strict escapee list. He's in a new cell, right next to the principal screw's office.
24TH DECEMBER 1985: Christmas Eve. The screws sacked three of the wing "cleaners" today (among them Michael), after their Christmas parcel of dope was discovered under the rim of a toilet bowl.
Traditional carol service. Studied the instruments and Baz. Harp, cello, violin, xylophone. "Look at her legs wrapped round that thing," someone behind me said. Our chaplain exhorted his interdenominational congregation to "sing to God." Baz was sandwiched between two screws on the front row on the other side of the aisle. He was grinning and nodding. What an enormous tool he has, preternaturally delineated tonight as it pressed insistently against the tight yellow striped jeans he was wearing. I wanted to kneel down and do things to him. Then I remembered where I was and asked for God's forgiveness. During the final benedictory prayers, someone let out a great fart. The congregation erupted into schoolboy hysteria. The screws had us all back in our cells before the last verse of the last hymn had finished.
25TH DECEMBER 1985: Christmas Day. Bishop of K. in for a kind of episcopal penance. After mass he moved around the congregation proffering his hand to the flock which had gone astray. Mary got quite carried away, curtsied, and began kissing the bishop's ring. The chaplain hurried up from behind and gently moved his Right Reverend guest onwards. Mary said he'd been drawing holy protection from the ring. "It must be blessed," he exclaimed, "and if they won't give us condoms we're going to need all the help we can get!" The Christmas film was The Boat. German. Subtitles. The two cons on my left couldn't figure it out. "Is this a Turkish film?" one asked. His friend shook his head. "Dunno. Load o' fuckin' bollocks, though. Christmas fuckin' Day? Some fuckin' celebration!"
29TH DECEMBER 1985: Four days of pure bang-up. The festivities are now well and truly over. Prison is running on half staff, so everything has been delayed. Canteen, showers, kit change, the works. Schizophrenic Jeffrey is still with me. Yesterday I persuaded him to give me half of his daily medication-there was no puff around. I was desperate, and it got me high as a kite. But there was a sting in its tail. Late into the night, I had my usual wank. Jeffrey was out of it so I threw myself into the task with abandon. When I came (and I'd worked up quite a sweat through several accommodating creatures of my imagination) there was nothing there. Not a drop of spunk landed on my stomach. I was horrified. Where had my manhood gone? I felt like a 13 year old. I tried again. Same thing. Shit! All night I tossed, turned, wanked, wondered and worried until at about 5.30am a trickle of life oozed out of me. Over breakfast, Jeffrey confirmed that the drug had certain side effects. I'll not be indulging again in a hurry.
30TH DECEMBER 1985: Michael is determined to move in with me and cannot understand why I'm dallying. Because, Michael, if we're twoed up, we'll be having sex. You are very beautiful but not beautiful enough to die for. Wait until the blood test results come back. Be patient. Do you think I like going without?
31ST DECEMBER 1985: There have been some disturbing noises this week. On Saturday, a man covered himself in his own shit and barricaded himself in. The screws went in to get him. He started to scream. The screams echoed along the wing. This afternoon the screams started again-this time from another prisoner who had set fire to his cell. He was rescued, then beaten up. Screams of pain are common. When the screaming starts, everybody else begins to hammer with their fists on the locked cell doors. The thumping crescendos, like a roll of thunder. The screws shout for silence. Slowly our anger subsides.
2ND JANUARY 1986: Saw Mary, bursting with other men's semen. Mary, Jess (who has been moved on to Mary's wing) and a chicken had a threesome on Boxing Day. Couldn't prise out of him who the chicken was, but the lad told me himself later. I might have known. Broken-wristed Craig the Depraved.
A few years ago, Mary had taken to wearing mascara about the nick. The governor put him on a disciplinary charge for exhibitionism. Mary ended up in solitary where he tried to cut his wrists. One night he became uncontrollably violent. They restrained him with a straitjacket. He was left trussed up until some hours later, when a screw came in. "He undid the belt and... well... we just did it, girl. There on the floor." Mary enjoys reminiscing, especially about sex. Apparently the screw kept him in tobacco for weeks. Mary blew the screw whenever required.
4TH JANUARY 1986: Snow is tumbling down outside, so we had to exercise on the landing. Chatted with a Nigerian prisoner who said that Aids was a God-sent solution to a 20th century version of Sodom and Gomorrah. The ammonia in the drains gave me a headache for the rest of the day.
6TH JANUARY 1986: Mary confided that he, too, is scared of dying of Aids. Every time he gets a sore throat "and I get plenty of those from the number of cocks I suck" he thinks his time has come. Like me, he's too frightened to have the test. Unlike me, he continues to indulge whenever he can. "Even though I'm petrified. I can't help myself. I've always lived by the cock. I suppose I'll die by it, too."
10TH JANUARY 1986: The blow I smoked on Tuesday brought on terrifying thoughts of death. I lay on the cot in my cell, running my hands all over my body, checking for lumps, bumps, unexplained bruises. A twinge. What was it? An ache. Had to be connected to the malfunctioning of an internal organ. A spot. Why was it taking such a long time to clear up?
11TH JANUARY 1985: When I go to collect a meal, I have to pass a couple of dustbins near the servery. Somebody has been dumping the previous day's Times in the same bin each day. Trying hard not to look like a vagrant, I fish it out. Sometimes there is jam or porridge stuck to it. Sometimes it's damp. Yet I always get it. My daily prize. News from another planet. Today I read that serial murderer Dennis Nilsen has written to the Home Office asking if homosexuality was an offence inside. They replied that while homosexual relationships themselves did not constitute an offence, a prisoner would be guilty of such if he was indecent in any act or gesture or in anyway offended against the good order of the prison. This morning, Michael came into the cell while Jeffrey was away collecting his treatment. He tried to kiss me. My normal reaction (M is six feet two, blonde and blue-eyed) would have been to reciprocate. Yet I shrank away. "What's the matter with you?" Michael wanted to know, as I gave him a gingerly peck on his cheek. They say the virus can only be transmitted by deep anal intercourse. Even so, I was scared.
6TH JANUARY 1985: A strange dream. Incest. I was in a swimming pool copulating with my mother. Around us, the rest of my family and some of my prison mates looked on in silence. I hated myself for having this dream. Hope it never recurs. A second convict died from Aids today. A junkie, not a queer.
time to come up for breath. Here I am today (3rd December 1998), approaching my 17th Christmas inside, still as queer as ever, still enjoying the favours of my fellow inmates, and still, by the grace of God and good luck, alive and free from disease. On 6th June 1996 (latest figures available) the Home Office minister in charge of prisons revealed that there had been one recorded case of an inmate becoming infected with HIV during the course of his sentence. There are supposed to be just over 80 inmates (in a population of 66,000) currently HIV positive. These men live in the mainstream, albeit uneasily, among the rest of us. Wandsworth prison is (from what I hear) a more enlightened place today. They issue inmates with Aids information packs, and "mission statements" are posted all over the place, speaking of religious, racial and sexual equality. But the queers in the system still have a hard time of it. The prison service steadfastly refuses to provide condoms (despite statements to the contrary) on the basis that there is "no legitimate use" for them in prison. Because they say that a prison cell is not a private place, any homosexual act can be construed as a criminal offence.
Criminals are notorious risk takers. We risk our freedom time and again in constant search for that one elusive glittering prize. It seems we're still prepared to risk our lives for the unsheathed comfort of our fellow men. No matter what the gamble, no matter how Aids-aware we have become, there is a compulsive quality about the sexual act which makes it always just as attractive as it ever was. Is this how skydivers feel? High-wire artists? Duellists in the Potsdam dawn? I know I will continue to take the risk. Think on this, as the carol singers ring your bell, as you down your last mince pie. It is night: one in a thousand nights of close confinement. There's a boy in my cell. He's young. He's attractive, he's willing to go. As we move, inexorably, closer in thought and word and deed, and the magic of physical necessity sends the blood flowing to the aching loins, we both know the absolute compulsion of fulfilment. We both know there's no turning back.
