Monthly Archives: July 2014

I was only kidding.

 The place is the middle hut of Compound 21 in the Kesh prison. It is 1981. We are 90 odd loyalist paramilitary prisoners.  We have special category status.  We live as prisoners of war.  Each hut has an officer in charge and overall is Gusty. Our OC. It is a life of tedium,  conflict and uncertainty. Studying, the gym, weekly visit, locked up at 9pm, card schools, TV, football and so. Same old pattern every week. Some of us are life sentence prisoners. I am a lifer. We are going nowhere. The long termers have a mix of fixed sentences ranging from 15 to 20 years. They know their release dates. Some are serving short prison sentences like 8 and 10 years.  So anything to relieve the boredom and tension is to be welcomed. The odd ‘stand to’ with the screws. Well nearly every summer something happens. They just can’t do their time the way we can.  The odd prank to get tongues wagging and some poor sod humiliated.  Daily slagging about football,  girlfriends, mates and so on.

One stunt I pulled concerned the old style Belfast Telegraph. Only one copy came in that night and the screw shouted on me from the compound gate to bring it in. Before leaving it out for reading I went to the study hut where my typewriter was. It was an old Remington with black and red  typewriter ribbon and keys that flew up and down as you typed.  The typeface and size just matched in nicely. The Tele usually had, in those days, a blank column- ‘Stop Press’ -on the back page,  bottom right hand column. It usually was filled with details of the latest atrocity in N.Ireland.  It was blank tonight and I proceeded to type that the NIO had granted two thirds remission to all prisoners in NI. (This was the situation in England at that time) Fixed term prisoners in N.I.  had half of their sentence knocked off,  ‘for good behaviour’.

I left the Tele  on a table in the end hut and said nothing.  No one was about. Thank heavens as it turned out. It wasn’t long before the buzz started.  For any lifers this was not relevant or important news so they didn’t join in. However for any fixed term man this was electric news. For some it would mean they effectively had served out their term and could be released in days. For the 20 year men it meant years knocked off their sentence. The place was alive with speculation. People asked for radios to hear what the local stations would say. The 9 o clock news was on every TV to see what commentators would make of this audacious move.  The brass were puzzled as they usually had a sneak warning of important stuff coming back the track.  They had been speculation in the media but nothing serious. But here it was. In black and white. In the papers. And the Belfast Telegraph no less. It had to be true.

Well,  talk about throwing petrol on a fire. Very earnest conversations took place between the short termers as calculations unfolded about possible new release dates. I knew I was in the shit when I heard someone  talking about spending Xmas at home. Whoops.  Some were bursting to get a message to their family as soon as possible.  Someone asked me if I had heard anything about the two thirds being introduced.  ( I had a reputation of being a news junkie)  I said ‘no’.  Which in a way was the truth. I certainly had not heard that the two thirds was coming in. But I had doctored the paper to say that. No one asked had I done this and I didn’t feel like enlightening them just at that time.  I did spend some time thinking I should own up and say it was a prank. And maybe we would all have a good laugh and a chuckle. hmmm. Maybe not.  The local news came and went. Nothing. The morning papers, Newsletter and Daily Mirror came. There was a bloody queue to read those papers. Scoured back to front.  Nothing.

Theories  abounded. Maybe the paper leaked the story but it was so politically sensitive that it is being kept under wraps? Or. Maybe the screws had done this to wind the prisoners up?  The usual nutters muttered about mind games, British intelligence and black operations working on the loyalist prisoners.  As time went on, peace and quiet returned slowly.  I never did own up to any of the fixed term lads. Of all whom were released in due course. Some of them were good friends.  So now, after 30 odd years,  a belated apology to all. Sorry.  I was only kidding.  Better late than never.

Mea Culpa

FLASHBACKS.

The huge metal gate is for vehicle access only. The screws crack if you, a prisoner,  try to walk through the gate when it opens for a prison mini bus. Each gate has a smaller wicket gate for people to go through.  The Kesh, a hard world of barbed wire, walls and gates. The gate is rusting. We don’t see it. Each gate has a screw that opens and shuts as needed. We will spend over a decade and more of our lives behind these metal barriers.  We go through the metal monsters to see our loved ones. To go play football, talk to a solicitor or to go to the hospital.

My first impressions of this world famous gate is that it does not look much like a gate. But a trip to Berlin isn’t complete with a trip to the Brandenburg gate. I get a photograph taken along with many others doing exactly the same.  The Berlin wall is long gone but reminders remain in the city. A concrete wall. A metal gate.  For tourists. It prompts a memory. There are people from everywhere here. Asians, Italians, English, Americans.  It’s a long way from the Kesh to the Brandenburg.

I am in a punishment cell.  Solitary. For refusing to strip on a screws order.  It is a 10 feet by 6 feet concrete box. A living coffin for bad boys. The window is covered over and daylight filters in. the air is fetid and the heat turned up even though it is summer. I ask for the heat to be turned down. ‘We cant do that’,  even know we know they can. It is quiet. The bed is a concrete slab topped by hardwood. The mattress is taken out through the day. There is no chair. No radio. Nothing. I start by doing press ups and sit ups. Then some yoga.  I think back to my days on the farm. My memories secure me. I walk back and forth for hours. I can never look at a zoo animal in the same way again.  The day drags in. Meals come and go. I check for spit in the food. The sunlight is replaced by the lights of the Kesh.  I turn in for a fitful sleep and get another day over. I will be back here.

I have travelled to Knoydart. They call it the last great wilderness in Europe. It is amazing.  It is a three hour drive for me. I canoe along the long loch for easier access.  I have climbed to the top of a mountain and there is nothing but rolling hills.  They go on forever. There are no houses. No pylons. No walls. There are billions of midges. It is a world of purple heather , green ferns and hillside brown. Herds of red deer roam wild. One stag stops to stare at me. The loch below sparkles diamond white in the July sunshine.  A gentle breeze cools me from my exertions. The sky is the brightest blue with wisps of white cloud. It is July. Warm and sunny. To the west is the restless sea and the Atlantic.  North is the highlands of Scotland. This is a place apart. A long way from the Kesh to Knoydart. .

Day after day I walk round the wire wall that hems us in. We jog round the compound. 7 laps to the mile. Some have run marathons here. A lot of laps. In the evening before we are locked up for the night we walk and talk along the wire. It is heavy gauge metal, 10 feet tall topped with razor wire. Wooden posts every 12 feet have small lights that stay on all the time. Behind the wire wall is the concrete wall. Over 20 feet high and covered by the stalags look outs. A film producer could use this as set of a prisoner of war film. If we weren’t here.  Today it is raining. The grey ground merges with the grey wire and wall into a grey expanse of cloud. We are in a grey hell.  There is no colour. Only in our huts is there bright colours. Our identity.  Our resistance to a world devoid of sensation. We have painted our walls ourselves.

I stand in front of the grave. He was my grannies big brother. He died in 1915. His headstone is grey like millions of other Commonwealth war graves here in France.  I have a picture of him on my wall at home.  I look up. It is summer time. It is quiet and beautiful in this small cemetery.  I place our family tribute on his grave. I bought the flowers  in Albert. They are a mix of orange, red and purple.  They look great. Other graves have their small bunches of flowers. There are small plants growing by the graves. Outside the cemetery wall is a sea of red. Poppies are everywhere.  The rolling fields are a mix of green;  some dark, some yellow hued.  They stretch on to the sky topped by a cloudless brilliant blue sky. It is a long way from the Kesh to Albert.

There are over 30 men in the half round Nissan hut. It is home for over a decade of my life. It is warm in the summer and freezing in the winter. There is always life in the hut. You can never escape from the others. In the Kesh you can never be on your own unless you go to solitary punishment. As soon as you wake till you sleep there are people. Lots of people. You share a cube (room),  you train with others, eat with others,  walk and talk with others.  You go to see your family and a screw is in tow at every point. You see the doctor and a screw is there.  The TV is on in the hut, a radio is blaring. Someone wants a record on the old Dansette record player. A group is playing cards and shouting. Someone is telling a joke. The hut is jumping.  It is alive. At night the lights are out. The TV is off. But there are sounds. A man snores. A man grapples with his dreams. Or nightmares.  I hear the pages turning as someone reads the night away.  A tin pressure cooker full of people going nowhere.  You are never alone.

I sit on a cold stone slab. The roof rises way above my head. There is quietness in the vast space. It is summer and the bright light invades the interior.  The building is hundreds of years old and legend has it that St Columba came here to start his church.  Each stone put up by hand. A building that seen past glories, went into decline and was raised again. I am relaxed. There is no one else in the abbey.  It has power in its history and stones. In the distance I faintly hear the birds as they wheel about the graveyard.  I can hear my own breathing. There is peace here. A place on the very edge of Europe.  I am finally on my own. I am happy. It is a long way from the Kesh to Iona.

SONGS THAT MADE LIFE IN THE CAGES EASIER

SULTANS OF SWING

Around mid 1978 we in Compound 21 were in the formative stages of a kind of perestroika—well—at the least the UVF version.  The special category system had been granted nigh on 6 years and the loyalist side of the jail was probably at its fullest.  Apart from 21, 19 and 18 were also in existence to house sentenced prisoners.  A large percentage was life sentence men and there were many serving very long sentences.  We still got the odd trickle of men coming through who had been sentenced after the cut off date of March 1976, but by and large, it was the same old gubs we looked at each day.  The militaristic regime was starting to give way to a more relaxed environment..something welcomed by most..although we still had our inspections and parades, the obligatory lectures and classes had gone.  Education had taken over and by the next year the Open University would see a new dawn in the edification of many of the men.
On the whole the body of prisoners relied heavily on the television..And to a lesser extent the radio..To provide the bulk of the entertainment.  There were those who had their favourites..documentaries..wild life programmes..avid news watchers..those who watched anything..including The Dot…and contrary to popular belief I don’t remember anyone standing for the Queen at the end of the night…..Well…not outside their cubicles anyway.   Football of course was the thing that assured most seats on bums although thinking back now it’s a wonder we were able to differentiate between two teams who looked like they were playing in slightly different shades of grey kits.  Such were the delights of black and white televisions.  Music played a major part in everyday life behind the wire and the whole array could be heard during a 24 hour period.  There were only a few music programmes on TV around this time and of course Top of the Pops would have been the most popular.  Thinking back to those days and to the drivel that adorned the charts I firmly believe that the only motivation for watching TOTP could have been to see Pans people..or perhaps they were Legs and Co by that stage.  For those who had an alternative genre to sugar coated pop there was always The Old Grey and the dulcet tones of Whispering Bob.
In July 1978—in between Argentina winning the World Cup and us preparing..bulling and shining for the 12^th day..a new—short lived programme appeared on ITV.  A late night “progressive and asthetic” show..seen as an alternative to the TOTP generation.  Revolver aired on a Sunday evening and had the comedian Peter Cook as a co-presenter.  Great things were predicted but sadly the plug was pulled after only 8 shows.  During that short run though we were lucky enough to catch acts like Ian Dury…replete with Blockheads…a new and exciting Jam…Elvis Costello….Siouxsie…..Kate Bush and many others who previously we had only caught a glimpse of.  The acerbic Cook may well have been the reason for the brief run as I recall he could be very disparaging towards some of the acts.
In our hut ..the middle one..Messines..there was quite a few of us who considered ourselves to be music aficionados.  We exchanged NME’s and Melody makers and lent each other the new albums..to be played during your allotted time on the record player which sat in the study hut.  If memory serves me the most played albums around July 1978 were Bat out of Hell and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours which had came out the year before.  Street Legal by Dylan had only came out and it’s fair to say that it became another one that “done the rounds”.
On one of the first shows..it may well have been the first in fact…a dozen of us sitting watching..had our ears well and truly pricked with the introduction of a “new” band.  Dire Straits.  Even the most knowledgeable amongst us drew a blank here, so didn’t know what to expect.  Being late at night the television was turned down to a very low level of volume..to placate those who went to bed early.  Even still, when Mark Knopfler starting picking and strumming his was through Sultans of Swing we collectively knew we were hearing something different…a new rawness..a departure..and something that heralded a vibrant, burgeoning talent.  The lyrics, on first hearing were a divergence from the saccharin sweetness of what was being served up in the Top Forty…after all John Travolta and Olivia Newton John were firmly planted at the top of the pile at this time with Rod Stewart on their coat tails with the Scottish World Cup anthem.  The lyrics delivered in a sexy gravelly tone, were street wise and immediate.  There were instant comparisons to Dylan and other memorable singer songwriters of the time.  Those who weren’t seated with us for Revolver, soon appeared.  The peeked out through their cubicle curtains…they shuffled in behind us clad only in Y Fronts .  Before the song ended most of the guys in the hut had gathered.  Save those who were sleeping or the ones that couldn’t see past Jim Reeves and Charlie Pride.  The rest of Revolver that night was tendered inconsequential and was lost in a babble of approval and a chorus of intent..to buy the album..of the same name..at the earliest opportunity.  Bobby Hat—the hut OC—poked his head out the curtain…not to join in the revelry..but rather to tell us all to “turn that TV and get into bloody bed.
It being a Sunday many of us wouldn’t have visits for 6 or 7 days.  And being a time before mobile phones the done thing was to write a letter to inform your folks to have the album in your next parcel.  This was done as a matter of urgency—many writing letters that night—for fear of being the tube that didn’t get the album.
Frankie C went one better.  He put his name down in the welfare book and got a phone call out to his Mum..who was able to get the album on Monday morning and have it brought up with the papers the same day.  How we were tortured that night..when he refused to let any of us hear it….Get Yer Own!!  One by one as we got our visits and parcels we got the album..LP’s they were called in those days.  And one by one we trooped out to the study hut to take our turn on the ancient Danzette…we even carried our own needle too…so we couldn’t accuse the previous participant of gathering a fur coat on the end of the communal needle.  Sultans of Swing was an anthem that summer.  It inspired those hitherto guitar buffs to go back to the drawing board..or in some cases the Bert Weedon manual.  First thing in the mornings the ablutions echoed to the refrains of the chorus..hummed and sang.  Today it is as relevant as ever…at least to me.  It still retains that immediacy that made me shift in my hard plastic sheet all those years ago, and sagely nod my head in recognition of something special.

“They don’t give a damn about any trumpet playing band-
It aint what they call Rock and Roll……..”

Beano