Christmas is a miserable affair in prison. People become even more acutely aware of their separation from their families and, because few staff are happy to work over the holidays, you tend to get more ‘bang up’ in the cell than usual. But prisoners do find ways to get a little enjoyment (I could mention the hooch but I won’t).
Incarcerated at Highpoint during the turn of the millennium, this is how I experienced New Year’s Eve:
At 7.30pm we are back locked behind the spurs, early again so that the screws can go off and enjoy themselves. People make last minute phone calls.
“You’ll be sure to see them every day,” says one woman as I pass. Our children, oh how we miss them, and how they must miss us. I look at the photos of the family stuck onto my cupboard, imagining what they are up to right now: maybe Rachel will be raving it up with her boyfriend in Cambridge and Gordon and Joel will be together at home. Grace sticks her head round the door.
“What are you doing? Come an’ join the party.”Everyone is gathered on the central landings, all of us squeezed together behind the thick white bars of the spur gates. I have two sets to the back of me and three in front, familiar faces behind them all. Someone puts Radio One on loud, and here it comes, the final countdown: 5-4-3-2-1. We erupt, yelling, whistling, a-huggin’ and a-kissin’, scenes being repeated throughout the country. The music rings out. A large black woman smashes a cake tin repeatedly against a wall, the noise reverberating……..
Fifteen minutes later everything has died down. I chat awhile to Annette, a Yorkshire lass doing four years, and then I am back in my room and like most of the others thinking about those on the out, straining to pick up their thoughts on the ether.
“From the Inside” Aurum Press 2003
Tags: gaol, jail, New Year, prisoners, Prisons, Ruth Wyner, Xmas
