It’s the screaming that cuts you deepest, on your first night in prison. Screaming like someone is hurt. Like they need help. Like someone is dying. You don’t know where it’s coming from, it’s just out there somewhere. Out there in the gaps between the bright fluorescent lights of the halls and the darkness of the cells. Out there beyond the locked metal doors and suicide nets. Bouncing off thick brick walls, high vaulted Victorian ceilings, metal bars. I never thought prison would be my world, but there I was, at HMP Wandsworth. Why was I there?
Almost a month after I had arrived, I found out I would be going to a prison for foreign nationals (HMP Huntercombe) to serve out the rest of my sentence. No open prison, no day release. I was given half an hour to pack my things. Yet I had no time for reflection, and even less to say goodbye to these men I had not known at all five weeks ago, but who but had helped and advised me, and saved me, sometimes, from things I didn’t even know existed.
