Day 3 - April 22nd 2007

Living on the top bunk, sleep is disturbed by daylight punching through the gap between the makeshift towel-for-a-curtain and the edges of the window. As we head into summer it looks like I’m going to be a consistent early riser, though I don’t think that’ll bother me too much. Having endured Saturday’s pseudo breakfast, 8.40am comes, the door is unlocked and I head down the levels to breakfast, though today with different intentions. I’m in no mood for eating, but Mark loves his milk, so I go and get my ration to give to him. Amongst all the grade 2, shaven headed prisoners, my bed headed student look makes me stick out like Gary Glitter at a pantomime. Strangely enough, Sunday morning isn’t that different to home. We both sit and watch T4 Sunday on Channel 4, the ‘hoorah henries’ on that stupid Castaway island thing are still hyperknobs, too.

The door is unlocked and we’re told it’s time for exercise.

Mark goes, I stay put and write. Exercise is a glamorous title for a walk around in a slightly grassed yard, surrounded by 30 foot, razor wire hatted fences. I can see them from my cell window. Two or three different wings use the same yard at different times, but each time the routine’s the same. Small groups of two or three tracksuited lads walking around in big circuits like a photo shoot for Allsports. Loners lean on the fence posts waiting for the session to end. As of yet I’m not really missing the outdoors, mind you, it’s not really what you’d call outdoors, anyway. Time will tell. A couple of hours before lunch and it’s our half of the wing’s turn for ‘association’. ‘Association’ sounds like a phrase used by comfortable shoe wearing lesbian social workers. Despite the glamorous connotations, it’s nothing more than an hour out of your cell, a chance to shower, make a phone call and play the odd game of pool. I’m told there’s always a queue for the showers at the start of the hour, so Mark and I get our names down on the pool table.

Surprisingly it’s just like being down the Crown and Cushion back in Appleby. Same rules, still two shots carry on the black and winner stays on. Watching 3 or 4 games, the standard isn’t that high, one guy wins 3 in a row against players who’d get beaten by my mother. Mark’s on the table when my turn comes up, a scrappy game, especially on the black, but it’s Man Utd (me) 1, Liverpool (Mark) 0. Time for a shower. The wing shower is a corner room with 5 or 6 separate cubicles about 4 feet high. You take your towel and shower gel in, have your wash, dry and re-dress in the same room, with the guards in full view outside. There is no bumming whatsoever. Thank fuck. Dinner today is a delightful melange of circular beef steaks served with lightly caramelised onions, chipped potatoes and haricot beans in a tomato jus. Some might even go as far as to call it burger chips and beans.

At least this one’s edible, I needed to lose some weight but going to prison for a diet is taking things too far. The food’s actually served by other inmates from our wing who’ve applied for, and got, prison jobs. They come under the generic term ‘cleaners’, though their duties seem to span quite a bit. In return they get benefits such as being out of the cell most of the day, first dibs on all sorts of things and they even get paid for it. My mind’s beginning to settle now, the shock to the system is subsiding and confidence is beginning to grow. I haven’t spoken to Jilly today and I’m missing her like crazy, but my phone credit is low and I decide to leave a call till tomorrow, she’ll be at work and I’m likely to catch her first time. Sleep comes more easily tonight, maybe it’s two full meals and a whole evening of trashy Sunday TV?