Archive for the ‘Prison’ Category

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Tony, Alan and Julia…


2010
03.30

Posted in People, Prison, Reading | 1 Comment »

Today as the rain fell in bucket loads – like it would never stop – I sat in the warmth and comfort of the County Hotel in the very heart of Durham, sipping hot latte coffee from a long glass and talking with friends from my prison service days, Tony and Alan.

We talked about the times we remembered as being especially good – were they so good we wondered? Or does everyone look back on certain times and think they were happier, sweeter, more fun? Is it the – summer was always hotter when we were young brand of nostalgia? Maybe – who knows? I’m not sure it matters. What matters is having times like these to look back on and more importantly friends to talk it over with. Friends: Tony, who shared some of his early prison service stories with me for my P.I. Danny Beck novel (now out there somewhere – I hope giving  a good account of itself)-  and Alan, who promises to show me his Newcastle if I get the chance to write the next Danny Beck.

Talking of Newcastle led us to The Taxi Drivers Daughter by the late Julia Darling – Alan has been reading and enjoying  it – and I came away thinking of Julia and how she will never not be missed and how generous she was in her praise of my writing and in her encouragement – and not just to me but to everyone. And how she was full of inspiration and fun and ideas – and how she was a great friend to many and how I wished I’d known her better.

As I drove home on the high road, through the rain induced fog, hills running with water, I thought of Danny Beck (he makes similar journeys) and of his growing sense of belonging in the very centre of Newcastle which is expressed in the novel and how much that mirrors my own growing sense of belonging here in the North East.

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Editing Your Novel -how do I know when I’m finished and DON’T miss next Tuesday!


2009
10.24

Posted in Editing Your Novel, Prison, Writing your novel | No Comments »

Untitled

Cornwall

I am back to editing the novel at last! I’m seeing it afresh again after a break. I even made changes to the first page which surprised me. Soon I will be back to where I left it some weeks back and I hope very much to power on from then until I am done.

So how will I know when I’m finished? For the answer to this question there is no better place to look than Walter Mosley’s – This Year You Write Your Novel - possibly the best book ever on writing. In his opinion the novel can never be perfect, no matter how much editing you do, there is always something which at a later date you will feel could have been better. So the decision to stop is made not when everything is perfect but when you reach the point (after a number of edits/drafts) where you are happy and you can no longer improve what you have beyond fiddling at the margins. If you find yourself fiddling in this way or trying to fix problems and making them worse – STOP. You are finished. Trust your instincts on this one, don’t worry too much, and besides if you have edited it well and it stands up to scrutiny by agents or editors and they take you on – then they will want to help you edit it further.

Mosely also suggests you make a recording of yourself reading the novel aloud. Playing this back will let you hear your characters and their world afresh and help you notice the problems, omissions, mistakes etc. I must admit I have never done this but I do read out loud in an attempt to experience what I’ve written in a new way.

So good luck if you are editing and pat yourself on the back when you reach the end.

IMPORTANT REMINDER – TUESDAY evening at 6pm in Studio 1 Gala Theatre Durham – as part of The Durham Book Fest – myself and others including Wendy Robertson will be talking about writing in prison, what it means to the women of HMP Low Newton – we hope there will be plenty of questions – there will certainly be readings from the prisoners’ work and we will be retiring to the bar afterwards to continue our discussions! Its a FREE event and we hope that people will come not for our sakes but to hear about these invisible women and about the effect writing can have on their lives .

Hope to see you there!

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Prison On My Mind –


2009
09.03

Posted in My Writing, Prison, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

The prison, and especially those women I know who are still there a year on, is so much in my thoughts at the moment. Going back on Monday, if only to a meeting outside of the prison in the Visitors Centre, brought it all back.

It made me think too of my forthcoming novel Bad Girl and how important it is to me to see it in print -  a mark of respect to the women in HMP Low Newton and I hope to the staff too.

But first and foremost Bad Girl is a novel. A novel set both inside – in the women’s enclosed world and outside in the twilight world of the stranger who preys on them. Here is a brief extract  which I think gives an idea of both worlds -

Towards the end of Chapter twelve -

That night we sat safe, in the pink paradise of Kelly’s cell. Her, me and Mandy, watching TV.

     Kelly’s cell was an Aladin’s cave, littered with treasures from the canteen, a posse of them covered every inch of space. But they were not for use. Christ no! Never opened. The bottles of coconut shampoo, apricot shower gel, cheap soap, stayed as they were. They masked the walls, softened the edges, filled the space and convinced you, you were somewhere else altogether.

     Her cards said, I love you, I miss you, I’m thinking of you.  Her cards had hearts on and so did her curtains. Her curtains were covered with sparkling pink and purple hearts and tied back with ribbon.

      We sat there, smoking and waiting. There was no news, they still hadn’ t identified the woman, but you know what the TV’s like they make news, they stretch it out, on and on, even when there is nothing to say.

       ‘Been trying to phone Louise all day,’ said Mandy

      ‘Where’s she living now?’ said Kelly drawing on the thin end of her rollie. She passed it to Mandy.

     ‘With that fucking pimp, Carter.’ Mandy took the tab and sucked hard, then held it out to me.

      I took the wet, pinched end  between my thumb and finger. ‘Well he’ll be looking after her then won’t he?’        

       “I wouldn’t bank on it,” said Kelly, “pimps like him fuck off at the first sign of trouble, don’t do you any favours, not when the filth are involved. No fucking way.”

       “Pimps and perverts, there all the same,” said Mandy, “they only want you for one thing, and then they call you a slut or a dirty whore just so they can feel alright, chop their balls off if you ask me, burn in hell , they’ve got it coming. God can see everything.”

      “What the fuck’s God got to do with it?” said Kelly.

Chap Thirteen

 Kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. Numbers 31:17 .

He pictured her, face down, her pale body on the black earth and the words written in thick ink on her back. He wondered if next time he should take a camera.

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The Long Road Back – Outside the Prison Gate


2009
09.02

Posted in My Writing, Prison | 4 Comments »

 

prison A long straight road leads to HMP Low Newton and yesterday I drove down it a year after leaving the prison.

I was apprehensive about returning, although I was going to a meeting in the Visitors Centre outside of the gate. Going through the gate would have been daunting. It can be a big problem – ask anybody who’s had extended time away from the prison (any prison)  about how they feel walking back through the gate. It’s not always easy, sometimes people offer to meet someone outside and then go through the gate with them.

For some it becomes an impossibility. Working in a closed institution has a powerful effect and sometimes it catches up with you – but thankfully not yesterday

 The meeting was in fact inspiring, chaired by the dynamic, no nonsense Alison Redshaw of Durham City Arts. It concerned a Durham Book Fest event on Oct 27th 6pm at the Gala Theatre where I, along with four other panellists –Wendy, former Writer in Residence, Charlie, King of the Library, Derek, Head of Learning and Skills and Richard, Writer in Residence in Frankland prison, will listen to the women’s work being read aloud, talk about writing in prisons, answer questions and read. It’s a free event so - Put the date in your diary now!

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Big Yellow Sofa – Andalucia


2009
08.30

Posted in Poetry, Prison, Spain | 3 Comments »

Apolgies for being off air – apparently my server was down and I have also been on holiday for a week, see below!

mountain

I have just had a lovely a week with my family in Andalucia in Spain, in a beautiful villa in the hills above Nerja. The villa was perched high up among the eagles and we watched them daily, coasting overhead on the thermals. To my great delight there were  bee eaters too, performing their high wire act, just as in France, their wings turning to copper in the sun.

The wall of the villa that led out onto the terrace was comprised of glass doors which slid back and opened the house to the world. On the terrace you could stand and look back on the theatre of your family life. From the interior comfort of the big yellow sofa you could see the mountains and the sea.

The night sky was awesome (a word my son David often uses and which  I rarely think appropriate but seems in this instance to fit) – Venus in front of us, the miasma of the milky way stretching overhead. There wasn’t a single evening when we didn’t see a shooting star fall in the west. We talked of galaxies and dark matter, listened to Mark’s guitar, while Jan drew portraits-  (I definitely hope to post some soon) and Katie painted delicate studies in pale ink. In this creative soup I was longing to write poetry but somehow it eluded me. Maybe it was a question of tension – the idea that poetry is born out of  a tension or disturbance, as expressed by Lavinia Greenlaw

‘The impulse towards a poem can usually be felt as a form of tension – absence, connection, interruption, something that heightens your interest and tugs at your focus, that you can’t quite see, make sense of, resolve or escape’

 There was no ‘tug.’ Maybe I was just too relaxed. Maybe I had finally come to embrace my new life after twenty five years in prison.

I am tempted to call this my bee eater summer. Why? because I first saw bee eaters one morning long ago in Tricomlee  when I was travelling and freer than I’d ever been before. Now once again they have surfaced first in France and now Spain – a symbol of a new found freedom. It is now a year exactly since I left HMP Low Newton.

So, no poem, but what did emerge was a cosmic song! I have never written a song before, but the music, and the scent of celebration, of fun and fiesta that hung in the air (more of that later) must have crept in unseen.

With apologies to Joni Mitchell- I called it Big Yellow Sofa – here are the first four verses (music a la Bob Dylan, at a later date with the help of Mark )

Big yellow sofa, see the sea from here, through the looking glass, into spiral, out on the arm of the universe

Fly yellow sofa, step across a mountain sky, slipway to the faded sea, star shadows fall, footprints of the galaxy

Feet up on the yellow sofa, see Africa from here (on a clear day), through the jazz riff  of guitar plays, out on the eagle wind

Balcon d’ Europa sofa, back-up to ink black hill, see the marbled sunlit gene pool, spirogyra soup, that spilled the milky way…

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The Feast of Pentecost and The Orange Prize- Celebrations!


2009
06.02

Posted in France, Prison | 3 Comments »

How great to hear the news from Charlie, librarian at HMP Low Newton, that he has been interviewed by the Guardian newspaper about the Orange Prize for Fiction reading group at HMP Low Newton – the article should appear on Wednesday, (tomorrow) the day the winner is announced. So don’t forget to buy your copy and take a look.

Update – for a link to the article and fab picture http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jun/03/prison-book-club

 The original idea was brainwave of Writer In Residence Wendy Robertson – and last year a very successful group which included, inmates, librarians, learning shop staff and governors read the short list and picked their winner, it  turned out to be the judges choice too -The Road Home – Rose Tremain.

 That Charlie has continued to nurture and develop this unique group is a cause for admiration and for celebration too! These things are not easy to do in prisons. It’s brilliant and I look forward to reading all about it.

 While I’m on the subject of celebration, this weekend Agde celebrated the Feast of Pentecost with its third annual ‘reconstruction historique’ – music, dance, a medieval fair, circus acts, battle enactments, plays – it was all happening Saturday through to Monday. Sometimes it was tricky knowing what century you were in!

The town was full of ladies in satin gowns with lace parasols, men in frilled shirts and ribbons, Napoleonic soldiers on horseback, milkmaids, pirates and courtiers wandering through the town.

 This morning  while drinking my cafe in The Plazza I saw a man in doublet and hose pop into the Tabac, now how surreal is that?

 The French love and celebrate their history and it seems they love dressing up too. Growing up with a mother who was a dressmaker: to the sound of the treadle, the dust of tailor’s chalk, the laying out of cloth - being spoken to through mouthfuls of pins and acting as tailor’s dummy - I spared a thought for the dressmakers of Agde and their daughters too.

 

pink-parasol1

I have to confess if I lived in Agde and being my mother's daughter it would be a copy of the pink dress and a lace parasol for me!

 

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Twenty Five Years In Prison


2009
04.17

Posted in Prison | 3 Comments »

Yesterday I had  a phone call from someone special that I once worked with at HMP Low Newton. Hearing his voice instantly took me back to my cramped, rather cold, office at the back of the library, where I would sometimes sink into my incarceration and forget that there was a world waiting outside.

I worked at Low Newton for twenty five years, starting as a teacher, becoming an Education Manager and finally a Senior Manager within the prison, in charge of Learning and Skills development. I never meant to stay that long – somehow the place just grew on me. Or perhaps more accurately it was the women who grew on me. 

Prison is full of women who shouldn’t be there, women in need of therapeutic care, women who would be best helped in their own community. There are of course dangerous women from whom the public needs protection but  they are far from the majority. By and large the women I met in prison were great survivors. They were often vicitms of crime themselves, particularly sexual abuse and domestic violence. Many were heroin addicts.

They didn’t make excuses for what they’d done, or feel sorry for themselves, or blame other people. They relished the educational opportunities on offer,  having missed out on most of their secondary school days – they were often carers from a young age too. Perhaps the most surprising thing about them was how much they laughed and made you laugh with them, and also how much they concerned themselves with your welfare and  how kind they could be.

There are a lot of things about working in a prison I don’t miss. I don’t miss the gates, keys, bars, funny windows, or the time it took to just get in and out of the place. I definitely don’t miss the way you never really knew what kind of  a day it was until you got out through the gate in the evening; where the air always tasted different. I recently had a day out with my lovely friend Carole, who like me worked at Low Newton for many years. More than anything that day we were imbued with a sense of freedom, like kids playing hooky: we had escaped and the sun was shining and we were certain that we appreciated being out in the open far more than anyone else could. After all hadn’t we spent what felt like a lifetime behind bars?

Sometimes when women came back into prison for the third or fourth time (in some cases woman were back in and out many times) they would see me and say, ‘Are you still here Mrs Joy? You’re doing  a longer sentence than any of us. ‘ Once, before I left, when a woman asked how long I’d been at Low Newton and I said twenty five years, she looked at me with genuine pity and said, ‘God bless you miss – you poor thing!’

Of course it wasn’t like that. If it had been I couldn’t have stayed. There was much laughter, caring, hope and comradeship at Low Newton and during my time there Iworked with many wonderful colleagues and some very enlightened Governors. But I wont deny there were times when working  in prison was tough. It took it out of you and there was a deal of heartache and pain. From time to time, no matter how you used to it you became, the pain seeped through, under your skin, and inhabited you.

 

wallpaper-22

Wallpaper, by Katie. Wallpaper is something you wont find in prison