My final visitor for the day is Kevin, my Listener, who tells me there’s a rumour that I’m going to be moved to Block One tomorrow, where the regime is a little bit more relaxed and not quite as noisy. I’m sorry to learn this as I’m beginning to make a few friends – Kevin, James, Pat, Vincent, Peter and Mark – and am starting to get the hang of how Block Three works. Kevin sits on the end of the bed and chats as James had warned me he would; but I welcome the company, not to mention the fact that while a Listener is in the room, the door has to be left open.
Kevin had a visit this afternoon from his wife and children. He tells me his fourteen-year-old is now taller than he is, and his nine-year-old can’t understand why he doesn’t come home at night.
Mr Gilford, the duty officer, hovers at my cell door, a hint that even though Kevin is a Listener, it’s perhaps time for him to move on. I ask Mr Gilford if I can empty the remains of my meal in the dustbin at the end of the landing – only one bite taken from the fritter. He nods. The moment I return, the cell door is slammed shut.
I sit on the end of the bed and begin to go through my letters. Just over a hundred in the first post, and not one of them condemning me. Amazing how the British people do not reflect the views of the press – I’ve kept every letter just in case my lawyers want to inspect them: three Members of Parliament, David Faber, John Gummer and Peter Lilley, and two members of the Lords, Bertie Denham and Robin Ferrers, are among those early writers. One former minister not only says how sorry he is to learn that I’m in jail, but adds that Mr Justice Potts’s summing-up was a travesty of justice, and the sentence inexplicable.
I begin to make a mental list of my real friends.
Day 6 Tuesday 24 July 2001
5.44 am
I seem to have settled back into my usual sleep pattern. I wake around 5.30 am, rise at six, and begin my first two-hour writing session just as I would if I were in the tranquillity of my own home. I continue to write uninterrupted until eight.
I make extensive notes on what has taken place during the day, and then the following morning I pen the full script, which usually comes to about three thousand words. I also scribble a note whenever I overhear a casual remark, or a piece of information that might be forgotten only moments later.
I am just about to shave – a process I now take some considerable time over, not just because I have time, but also because I don’t want to be cut to ribbons by my prison razor – when there is a bang on the cell door. My tiny window is flicked open and Ms Newsome shouts, ‘Archer, you’re being moved to House Block One, get your things ready.’
I should have realized by now that such a warning would be followed by at least a two-hour wait, but inexperience causes me to abandon any attempt to shave and quickly gather together my belongings. My only concern is that my children may be visiting me this afternoon and I wouldn’t want them to see me unshaven.
I gather everything together and, as if I were returning home at the end of a holiday, I find I have far more possessions than I started out with. By the time I have stuffed everything into my large HM Prisons plastic bag, I begin to feel apprehensive about moving off Beirut to the lifers’ wing.
10.07 am
My cell door is thrown open again, and I join a dozen or so prisoners who are also being transferred to Block One. I recognize one or two of them from the exercise yard. They can’t resist a chorus of ‘Good morning, Jeff’, ‘How was your breakfast, my Lord?’, and ‘We must be off to the posh block if you’re coming with us.’
Kevin slips into the back of the line to tell me that my white shirt has been washed and pressed by Peter, and he’ll have it sent over to Block One this afternoon, but I’ll have to make out a new provisions list, as each house block has its own canteen.
The walk across to my new cell via several long corridors is accompanied by the usual opening and closing ceremony of double-barred gates every few yards, and when we finally arrive, we are herded into the inevitable waiting room. I’ve never been much good at waiting. We’ve only been standing around for a few minutes when a young officer, Mr Aveling, opens the door and says, ‘Archer, Mr Loughnane wants to see you about reallocation.’ I’ve only just arrived.
‘They’re letting you out,’ shouts one of the prisoners.
‘Ask if I can share a cell with you, darling,’ shouts another.
‘Don’t pay more than the going rate,’ offers a third. Prison humour.
Mr Aveling escorts me across the corridor to a large, more comfortable room by the standards I’ve become used to during the past few days, and introduces me to Mr Loughnane and Mr Gates. I take a seat opposite them on the other side of the desk.
‘More form-filling, I’m afraid,’ says Mr Loughnane almost apologetically. ‘How are you settling in?’ he asks. I now accept this as the standard opening to any conversation with an officer I haven’t met before.
‘I’m fine, except for having to be locked up in such a confined space for so many hours.’
‘Were you at public school?’ Mr Gates asks.
‘Yes,’ I reply, wondering why he asked this non sequitur.
‘It’s just that we find public school boys settle in far more quickly than your average prisoner.’ I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. ‘To be honest,’ he continues, ‘I’ve already filled in most of the boxes about whether you can read or write, if you’re on any drugs and how often you’ve been to jail. I can also confirm that you have been allocated Category D status, and will therefore be moved to an open prison in the near future.’ Like ‘immediately’, ‘near future’ has a different meaning in prison. Mr Loughnane explains that first they have to locate a prison that has a vacancy, and once that has been confirmed, there will be the added problem of transport. I raise an eyebrow.
‘That’s always one of our biggest headaches,’ Mr Loughnane explains. ‘Group 4 organize all the transport between prisons, and we have to fit in with their timetable.’ He then asks, ‘Do you know any Category D prisons you would like to be considered for?’
‘The only open prison I’ve ever heard of is Ford,’ I tell him, ‘and the one piece of information I’ve picked up from a former prisoner is that they have a good library.’
‘Yes, they do,’ confirms Mr Gates checking the prisons handbook on the table in front of him, as if it were a Relais Chateaux guide. ‘We’ll give them a call later this morning and check if they have any spaces available.’
I thank them both before being escorted back to the waiting room.
‘Have they fixed you up with the riverside suite?’ asks one prisoner.
‘No,’ I reply, ‘but they did promise I wouldn’t have to share a cell with you.’
This feeble effort is greeted by clapping and cheers, which I later learn was because I’d stood up to a man who had blown his brother’s head off. I’m glad I was told this later because, let me assure you, if I’d known at the time I would have kept my mouth shut.
The door is opened again, and this time Mr Aveling tells me that the senior officer on the block wants to see me. This is greeted by more jeers and applause. ‘Be careful, Jeff, he thinks you’re after his job.’
I’m led to an even more comfortable room, with chairs, a desk and even pictures on the walls, to be greeted by four officers, three men and one woman. Mr Marsland, the most senior officer present, two pips on his epaulettes, [18] confirms the rumour that as I won’t be staying long he has put me on the lifers’ spur. I was obviously unable to mask my horror at the very idea, because he quickly reassures me.