The prisoner

I had my prison epiphany on 5th January 2009 when I realised what the name of my mother’s last cat meant. I asked her about it many times when she was alive, but she just laughed. Well, Mum, I know now. The cat had the strange name of Chapitucho, which belonged to no language I knew. But with help from my Spanish teacher Suzy, and the Romany guys at HMP Lowdham Grange, I discovered where it had come from.

“Chapi” is the Romany word meaning “great,” and “-ucho” is a cod Portuguese version of the Italian diminutive “-uccio” meaning “naughty little.” So the name of the cat means something like “naughty little great thing.” But of course, in another way, it means nothing. My mother, who knew six languages, or now it seems seven, must have made up the name of the cat herself.

It was wonderful to realise what I should always have known, that she had been the Neapolitan daughter of a mainly Portuguese gypsy. And to think I came to this knowledge when learning Spanish aged 53 in a jail in the Nottinghamshire countryside. The next morning, the real Epiphany, was more glorious still.

I had some good times in prison. In the past in English jails, it was a different sort of cat—the cat o’ nine tails—that illumined prisoners’ lives. Being dragged through endless renditions of “Amazing Grace,” or carrying a wooden cross during Catholic devotion, with other prisoners to take it from you when it gets too heavy, is nothing compared to sitting in a box in Victorian times listening to some vituperative sermon at the end of a day on the treadmill.



Yet there is something inherently problematic about a prison. And the three that I was in, none of them Category C or D, were far from the easiest England has to offer. Belmarsh, with its war-trained dogs and beautifully-kept gardens over which I gazed longingly, is a prison where, when they should be turning on the heaters, they seem to turn on the cooler. HMP Brixton was too much for me and luckily my time there was brief. As for Lowdham Grange, it was built on the site of a former Borstal, and when I recall the guard going round night after night shouting “C’mon fellas, behind yer doors!”, I feel I know something of what boys in Borstal had to experience.

But those are not my only memories of jail. As I sit in my sitting-room, remembering the days that are so recent but which already feel like a dream, it is as if I have been staying in a cheap Spanish hotel, or a slightly rough old-fashioned youth hostel, where men in temporary difficulties from all parts of the world were gathered. I shared meals with them, heard their stories and performed a minor sexual act on one who requested it. We parted with promises to meet, although I will not see them again.

I am now sitting in my cluttered sitting-room in Clapham, surrounded by books and records, not in narrow Catte Street in Oxford, as my friends and acquaintances planned for me. And I am thinking about Wayne the young gangland killer, with his special smile and aggressive east London accent. I first glimpsed his magnificent chest, down which a scar ran deep, in Belmarsh gym. He was serving his 32 years with total insouciance. Oh, I remember the days when I stood with the rest, waiting to go to work, knees against the grille, elbows on the rail. “Bring back our captivity, O Lord,” as it says in Psalm 126, “like the streams in the south.”

I once saw a television programme about German homosexuals who had survived the second world war. One of them had somehow succeeded in joining the army. When asked why he had done this, he answered coyly, “Ich wollte unter Männern sein” (“I wanted to be among men”). Well, I was certainly among men, although whether I became one of them is a different question. But they liked seeing me do my bird. They found me a bit funny. And they knew I liked them, just as dogs do.

Did I learn anything from my two-and-a-half years inside? Well, I didn’t quite learn repentance. And I didn’t learn how to cook; I was regarded as too violent. But my new skills ranged from sleeping in a top bunk to wearing trainers to knocking in a nail with a hammer. And, much more importantly, jail teaches you patience and tolerance, calm and good sense. I would recommend it to almost anyone. You cannot hide in there. You are stripped, not every day physically, but in every other way. What you are comes through.

Can I control my furious anger now, can I lose my endless ambiguity, or overcome my basic hesitance? I can’t become a heterosexual; prison doesn’t teach you that. And certain other things are too late. At my next birthday, I’ll be 54. I have never punched anyone in my life. And I don’t suppose I ever will. I’m a Christian now and it’s my duty to love everyone. Really, I’m full of goodwill. But don’t push me. You might find I have the tiniest of claws.