It is 1953 and, onboard a speeding steam train heading south, a little boy, aged 5, and little girl, aged 7, watch an English countryside race past the window while, opposite, the formidable monochrome figure of a Catholic nun sternly pins the children to their seats with her gaze.

Abandoned by their mother, these children had spent years in a Scottish children's home but now, partly due to an accident, (or some questionable act of  serendipity), they were heading to England to be reunited with her.

This fact is not, and would never represent, some fairy tale, happy ending for the children but it would create the circumstances that would lead to my own conception and birth.

It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to decipher the true psychological character of their mother, Kathleen McCartney, at the time these events were unfolding but I do know that the prior act of depositing her children in a Catholic orphanage several years earlier, would not have played heavily upon the woman’s conscience.

She was planning to marry an RAF airman she had met at a dance and, yes, one day he would become my father but, before then, she had a problem because, in order to gain approval for the marriage from the RAF man’s own mother, she would be forced to reclaim the orphans back into her life.

And that is what happened … and that was why this story opens with a train speeding south from Scotland.

Three years later, Kathleen McCartney, not a maternal woman, would give birth to a baby boy.

His name would be Christopher.

40 children are bunched together, standing on a stage.

Though not a Catholic school, a group of visiting nuns dressed in long flowing black and white garb, have been addressing us as a part of morning assembly but now, with apparent ceremony, we children are being prompted and encouraged to prepare ourselves for animation.

Being instructed to await a command, we witness a nun throwing handfuls of wrapped sweets across the expansive wooden floor of the hall and then, with the prompt of a teacher clapping her hands, 39 children excitedly jump down to the floor and scramble to compete, argue and fight over possession of the array of colourful treats laid out before them.

However, one child remains on the stage, unimpressed and unwilling to demean himself by fighting over confectionary. There was no way I intended to engage in such a humiliating spectacle.

I recall such trite little instances of my childhood, not to indicate that I might have been some precocious child but because now, as an adult writing these words, I am revisiting myself as a little boy, attempting to rediscover who I really am to see if I can pin down reasons why I evolved into the man I evenytually became.

Suffice to say though. Even at an early age, I'd already worked out that it would take a lot more than a few sweets to impress or garner my attention.

My earliest family memories were of being attacked and defending myself from my father delivering me beatings at my mother’s command; something John, Cathy and I all endured in one form or another.

I recall conflict, constant rowing and unhappiness in the family home and by the age of four or five, I felt genuinely isolated and unloved.

Nevertheless, as a kind of emergent emotional compensation, I recall I developed a level of empathy for the plight of others and, even at an early age, was always able to look at life through the eyes of those around me.

This aspect was probably attributed to the helplessness of the traumatic surroundings I grew up in. It led to me feeling a need to radiate my own character out to those I recognised as needing some form of comfort or help too.

That emotional feedback would one day go on to form the bedrock of my own philosophy for living to become an integral and important foundation for my own moral compass and value systems to be anchored to.

My bedroom was a refuse tip, never tidied unless done so by my Nan whom I idolised. My underclothes or shorts filthy, rarely changed by my mother, my clothes too large, second hand or dirty.

I used to discard my own underwear and throw them into bushes rather than continue wearing them and can still recall the smell of ammonia the garments gave off.

My professional father, my immaculately dressed mother – why did they not notice or take care of their little boy?

But over 60 years later, in writing this, I realise that one particular early memory shines a light on an aspect of me that raises all sorts of questions about my early mental makeup and approach to life.

I had joined in a schoolroom task to design and paint a poster. We were invited to design adverts of the kind we might see on billboards or on TV.

ALL of the other children designed posters broadcasting the benefits of a particular brand of washing up liquid or soap powder. I did not pursue such a theme. Instead, my posters proclaimed “Eat Food!”, “Sit on Chairs”, “Breath Air!” and were accompanied by suitable pictures.

But why was a little 5 year old boy producing such messages? What was going through his mind? What caused him to advertise what could easily be described as “the obvious”

I do not recall the answer I gave then – but I do understand now.

I was somehow aware of the deceit and insincerity of advertising and marketing. Yes, I was stating the obvious but I must have been making the point that adverts were "lies" designed to sway and entice us into buying particular brands.

My advertising campaign was not so shallow. I was saying, “Well, we do need to eat, we do need to rest and we do need to survive”.

Remember. I was 5 and at infants school!

I wonder why and what  contributed to me adopting such a left-field outlook upon the world?

What I do know was that, even at such a very young age, I had developed a very strong sense of self consciousness; ie, my own self worth, my own self awareness along with a very strong sense of self discipline as related in this final little anecdote of the same time period.

I am in an amusement arcade at West bay coastal resort and have been adopted by two new friends. (Policeman’s children).

A fruit machine has inadvertently spewed out whole handfuls of pennies; a whole lot of cash to children in the early 60’s.

I watch my two new friends scooping up the pennies, filling their pockets but stand motionless, unable and unwilling to join in the “crime” despite the arcade being empty with no sign of the owners.

I couldn’t and wouldn't steal the coins even though they were there for the taking.

UNEDITED TEXT (Below)

I've dumped the following text with an intention of polishing it and adding graphics in due course so if you must read it, please appreciate it is, fundamentally, not ready for publication and, therefore, a bit raw and rough.

In the family itself, I hold a memory of growing up neglected and unloved - Overlooked. A lonely little boy. Consequently, I felt different and comparing my life and surroundings with others, I could confirm that fact.

My own young friends were never allowed into my home, toys were limited or second hand and money was short.

Nan and Nan`s house always felt a sanctuary, a place to soak up love, affection and life. Nan would make it right. Nan was the font of love with which I, as a little boy I quenched my starved thirst.

Nan was Co Op lemon cordial, home baked fruit and rock cakes, brittle, oven tanned crunchy bread, strawberries and cream, meals at ornately decorated tables, tick tocking cookoo clocks, bakelite radios and The World At One.

Pop, a tall silver haired man with the most smiling eyes imaginable, was Nan’s loyal husband, a reliable and entirely timeless figure. Pop was a seamless extension of Nan and of course, as a little boy, he would have appeared nothing less.

Nan said I was exactly like Pop. I had the same build, the same features, the same look. I was just smaller!

Nan and Pop. ……….My Nan and Pop.

(Even now, the energy of their love remains with me and I with it).

The bedrock of my compassion, my comprehension of love and one of the several essential pillars of my character are based on the mere presence of those two special, precious people. …..and Nan, as the hub of the Goodland family was the star we all orbited around.

By the time I started at junior school, I was already wriggling from any close contact with my mother. It was far too late. If my mother put her arms around me, I would tense up, freeze, as if embraced by some cold, scaly lizard.

Bizarrely, at 8 years old, before junior school, I used to apply my fathers lavender aftershave to my face. I also wore three or four layers of clothing. Maybe 2 or 3 little T shirts – one upon the other. For some reason, I felt I needed to show off my layers of clothing. Look, here’s one – and here’s another.

On my first day at junior school, my mother did walk me there. Dressed in brown, elasticated bottoms more like tights or the apparel that a Robin Hood pantomime character might wear, I was immediately derided by my peers. A lad called my clothing amusing. Laughing, he encouraged others to ridicule me.

I silenced him with a vicious slap, a slap my father would have been proud of. Nobody laughed at me after that.

I related my day to my mother when I came home from school and my mother acquired some second hand Khaki shorts for the next day. They were enormous. I was still able to wear them years later as a teenager – but they were better than slacks.

As I got older, I became the whipping boy for my parents frustrations. I remember being beaten for things I knew little or nothing about.

A box of washing powder knocked onto the floor by wind blown kitchen curtains led to a hiding. A loose glass display shelf falling on its own resulted in a further hiding. Anything, it seemed brought my Mother and Fathers wrath upon me.

Witnessing my mother trying to leap out of my fathers speeding car during a row (outside Alf's Fish & Chip shop, Chickerell), did little to settle me and neither did a further act of self preservation performed by my father.

Leaving a beach, my father had clambered up a fairly high wall. Turning to me, he had put out his hand to pull me up. I had grasped my fathers strong hand expecting to be lifted up the wall.

My father overbalanced and to save himself toppling over, he let go of me. He regained his balance while I plummeted several feet onto the beach, landing spreadeagle, face down on the sand.

1966

As a family, we visited Stourhead gardens and Longleat game reserve, landmarks that represented few memories of worth.

Leading into my early teens, I did enjoyed regular fishing trips with Dad but as the years rolled by, a newfound bond and fondness for my father was poisoned by my mother. She would tell me of the things she hated about "him" and by my 12th birthday, I had been told that relations with Dad was like "legalized rape". I was given graphic accounts of their love making and told that my mothers legs would be "splayed like a chicken".

I could not comprehend the actual act being described to me but the overall charge was that my father was, apparently, abusing my mother in some fashion.

As I grew a little older and wiser, I discovered that these statements conflicted with events in several ways. Rooting through drawers and dressing tables out of boredom, I discovered used contraceptives wrapped in tissue and the existence of sexual guide books like The Kama Sutra and The Perfumed Garden. I would also occasionally hear noises or discussions that indicated an active relationship was ongoing.

I read both books though.

1970

However, by the age of 14, I was brainwashed - converted and able to scheme with my mother when she made her mind up to finally leave Dad. I would not have appreciated or understood that my father probably loved my mother and was suffering his own version of hell as a result of the way she was constantly goading him with personal and cutting comments and actions.

On returning from enjoyable sea angling trips with Dad, there would always be the ritual of my mother claiming some imaginary man had just left the front door as we entered the back door.

As a child, the banter would have appeared innocent to me. As an adult, I now understand the tension and underlying menace and inference of the comments.

1971

When she actually left home, I helped my mother carry her belongings into town, dog in tow, in utter darkness. It was during the power cuts of the Heath government of 1971. No street lights, no lighting at all.

An allie of my mother, I would have no bad word said about her. Of course she should go. Life had become intolerable........She had told me so. I was 14. Of course I understood all about such things.

And so it was for several grim years. Utterly brainwashed by my mother, I did my best to make my fathers life hell. And Why shouldn't I?

Periodically, packages and presents would arrive from the Isle of Wight, where my mother had moved. A state of the art camera. A top of the range fishing rod.

When I eventually visited her, I learned she had moved in with an Anglo – Indian man called Frank. He was a gentle and genuine man.

I can sum up the depths to which my mother tried to hurt my father by an event that developed by my 15th birthday.

Following a visit to the I.O.W, I was told that my mother was entitled to half of the house that my parents had bought in Yeovil. She suggested that she would sign over her half of the house to me, if I would change my surname from Goodland to K**wood.

I was expected to give the matter some thought but was naturally confused at being asked to do such a thing. A further carrot was dangled before me. If I changed my name, Frank would be able to secure me a lucrative job in Saudi Arabia where he worked. I was reminded that the salary was likely to be 10 times what I could expect here in the UK.

I found the situation bizarre and was easily able to reject the proposal. Nevertheless, it demonstrates the crossfire I was being subjected to.

By this time, I was beginning to head off the rails with some considerable momentum. The atmosphere in my home was becoming intolerable and the addition of the hormones raging inside my pubescent body were taking their toll.

The effect of being a child from “a broken home” became a license to do exactly as I pleased and the bush-fire developing inside me spread outwards into my world.

My father became the focus of my rage and I found it easy to trawl up indignation and memories from my past as a reason to make him pay for every sin he had ever delivered upon me.

While it was true that all children passing through puberty are capable of making their own stand, I began to do so vigorously, with a vengeance.

Aside from the aggression I showed, I developed a sharp intellect that could run rings around my father, a man usually more than capable of dealing with such situations.

An example was the “double standards” exhibited by most adults, something that all smart Alec teenagers seem to have a natural ability to play upon.

My father used to scold me for swearing although in lighter moments, he himself used to occasionally swear.

My solution to my father’s criticism was to keep a secret diary, noting times, places and dates on the occasions my father let out a curse.

After some time, I had a portfolio of times when Dad had indeed swore himself.

Of course the time inevitably came when I was reprimanded for swearing and with delight, I brought out my diary and reminded my father that he was not in a position to dictate to me the morals of swearing at all.

Faced with such a situation, my triumph was complete with an admission from my father that my young mind was too much of a match for him and that he was growing weary of sparring with me.

The admission fanned the flames and I went on to toy with my father in other, equally juvenile ways.

When, after some considerable time, he actually brought a new lady home, I was invited to show off our new stereo. Naturally, I put on a mono record that would do nothing to exhibit the merits of the system.

These are almost innocent examples of the situation at home but they conceal a genuine, underlying current of resentment and indignation that was all too real for too long in my young life.

I was becoming detached from any type of discipline and beginning to exhibit a streak of self-destruction in my life.

1972

At 16, with my home and family life in ruins, I felt as if it mattered little what eventually happened to me.

Joining a company as an apprentice electrician halted the attitude briefly but very soon, the situation returned and I started to turn into my father’s worst nightmare.

I joined a local gang, settled on the edge of active crime and took a great interest in football and the skinhead culture that was growing up around it.

Treating my new friends as a replacement family, I put all my efforts into becoming an active and worthy lieutenant and soon rose through the ranks to govern and lead many of them into battle.

For me, it provided an outlet for my rage and for them, it provided a level of leadership they warmly welcomed.

A football hooligan? Not quite.

I would not allow my troops to attack without just cause. I would not allow them to attack the enemy if the enemy was with a girlfriend. I would not allow swearing in front of a girl and I would not allow the taking of drugs.

For 6 days of the week, we would enjoy the music, fashion and lifestyle of our kind. On Saturdays, we would group and go to football matches.

The view in the early seventies was that skinheads were out and out aggressors. For us, based in Yeovil, no such view could ever have been correct.

If the society of the 1990`s were offered as a comparison, it would be a fact to note that the 70`s Yeovil had a minimum hard drug problem, no race problems, no real anarchy, no knife and no gun culture.

Elderly people were safe in their homes and innocent bystanders rarely found themselves embroiled in violence.

Looking back nearly 30 years, with the benefit of hindsight, the movement I was involved with, passed as an innocent, naive parody of a violent culture we never fully experienced – despite occasionally finding ourselves in danger!

We were boys, running into serious, real violence but the culture, as far as we were concerned, was pretty cool 6 days of the week if a little challenging on the one day a week we attended football matches.

It brought me several things though. It brought me an opportunity to experiment with leadership, psychology, a reading of body language, a way of practicing diplomacy and it provided me an apprenticeship in encouraging, inspiring or coercing others to pursue my own agendas.

Dodging, confronting or beating violent human beings threatening my own safety also provided me with a confidence I could radiate at will. Being able to visibly intimidate others was a useful trait and I developed a sublime personal defence system for myself.

1975

I pass my driving test on Friday 13th

1976

At 19, despite regarding myself as a decent, moral person, I was hooked on breaking into premises with friends – not with a prime objective of stealing, rather as a James Bond sense of adventure.

Entering an office purely to revolve in an MD’s chair, rearrange the pot plants or play in the lifts seemed an innocent, if juvenile pastime but that is the way I describe my actions.

Unfortunately, in entering a local college to play in the library, my friend and I discovered a Chubb safe in the principles office. With its keys on view and the stillness and solitude of a 3 day bank holiday, my friend and I made the fateful decision to open its door.

We were caught weeks later, having broken into an ice cream parlour to steal one lolly each!

On being arrested, a policy I had suggested was pursued. My friend and I agreed we would admit to every indiscretion, however trivial or small. Trouble was, the chubb safe incident had not been small, its contents amounting to several hundred pounds.

The shame and embarrassment of the reality of our actions shocked both of us. We had somehow evolved into criminals, a fact neither of us had fully appreciated until our arrest.

Surviving the Establishment

Detention Centre

Following a court appearance, my friend and I found ourselves in a police car heading south to Portsmouth. We had been sentenced top 3 months in a detention centre.

In the car, I played with the ratchets of my hand cuffs, not appreciating that each click was none negotiable! Within 30 minutes, I had inadvertently tightened them fiercely around my wrists.

Fortunately, an understanding policeman relieved me of the discomfort I had caused myself.

We arrived at Haslar Detention Centre late on the evening of the 12th August 1976, driving in through 2 huge steel gates that flanked the facility.

Reception

Within an hour, I had been stripped, showered, provided with regulation kit and been given a short, cropped haircut. Every item of my personal belongings (apart from my cigarettes) was itemised, documented and wrapped in a polythene bag and then I was marched down a long series of corridors to a small cell.

My cigarettes found a new home in a prison officer’s pocket.

Incubation

I was now alone….with my thoughts but aware that this place was home to 200 other inmates.

In a state of shock, I lay on a hard bed while a hundred memories haunted my thoughts. With the sound of men shouting outside the door, the full reality of my predicament slammed home.

Here, I would be without friendly faces, without a caring girlfriend, without family or home comforts. Those things were outside and outside was now another place – a place I could no longer go.

I was locked up, disenfranchised, trapped, incarcerated.

In an instant, without notice, a prison guard was back in my cell. He deposited a stainless steel tray onto a wooden bedside cabinet then left.

I stared at the tray. Incredulous. I had gone all day without anything to eat yet what was in front of me? A steel cup containing….water. A stainless steel bowl with ….4 crackers, a thin layer of margarine, a dusting of grated cheese.

That image sent me into a blind panic. I reached a conclusion that this place was going to be pure hell. I looked at the fare on the cabinet. Christ! It was not even porridge!

I fell asleep in that place, exhausted, tucking itchy blankets around me, fetal position, weeping

And what would I wake up to?

Defence System Engaged

I was up and dressed before the door was knocked by a passing officer at 6:30 am. Already gathering a protective defiance around me, I was a gladiator facing an arena.

The facility would be full of other young men, each with their own established defence systems. Everyone outside my door was already familiar with the territory while all I knew of the place was a couple of corridors and the cell I had slept in.

Suddenly, I was summoned and walking amongst other inmates, with “Digger”, an amicable prison warden leading me towards a long queue of men.

I worked hard on my outward physical appearance, balancing gritted teeth with a serious, “don’t f*ck with me” stare but with the edges of those characteristics blunted, hopefully enough to avoid causing confrontation.

I found myself in the queue, slowly moving towards a huge dining area. “Dancing Queen” by Abba blared out from a big radio on a shelf near the front of the room.

Sitting with others, I made a conscious point of scanning the room, occasionally catching the eyes of potential trouble. Some individuals would play the staring game but many simply diverted their own gaze from me.

I grew into my tiny patch of territory, content with my mask. After all, was I a murderer, a rapist, a psycho or merely a routine “active criminal?”. No one knew and that suited me.

When my table was ordered to go up for breakfast, I received a pleasant surprise. There was a choice of breakfasts and the food looked fantastic!

I settled for a classic English breakfast, returned to my table and enjoyed every mouthful. I learned later that my water and crackers were simply the best things the officers could find me that first evening. We had arrived late and the kitchens had been closed. The crackers could have come out of a prison wardens lunchbox!

Soon, we were filing into changing rooms to prepare for gym with a Mr Berry, the Gym officer in charge. He was in his fifties but a fit man. He had warm, smiling eyes and curly grey temples. He also shone a beaming, mischievous smile. I knew I would like Mr Berry.

Welcome To the Machine

Meanwhile, throughout a grueling gym routine, the following showers, a further visit to the canteen and then a day in heavy overall watering beetroots in a heatwave, I kept my personna – my black and yellow warning stripes on parade. Ignoring small talk, defending my space and avoiding the occasional skirmishes and fights of other inmates.

In late afternoon, there was marching practice. All inmates had to learn to march in unison and the experience was exactly like the kind of thing we might see on TV. A “Sargeant Major” figure hollering at “You nasty little men!!” I enjoyed the routine though and found the discomfort and subsequent distress of other, less disciplined inmates amusing.

That evening, after tea, there was a school type lesson and then I was back in my cell - but by now, very much the wiser.

Tomorrow, I would learn what tasks I would be given. I would also learn which dormitory I would be living in for the following months – with up to 70 other inmates. It would be Anson, Bentley or Churchill dorm. Churchill dorm being the residence of “Puppet”, the violent self proclaimed No 1 inmate from Plymouth.

From 7:00 – 8:30 pm, most inmates enjoyed “association”. Being the new boy, I was allowed to stay in my cell and learn how to pack my bed-box and belongings. There was a regular inspection routine each Sunday morning before parade and the inspection routines dictated (or rewarded) how inmates would fare in the overall regime.

As a new inmate, I was given a red tie to wear for visits (once a fortnight) and Sunday parades. Over the next week, I should earn my blue tie, providing me with the same identity as regular inmates.

However there was a fabled green tie that could be earned. Such a tie was only awarded to lads who had gained the absolute highest accolade of being regarded as perfect inmates.

A green tie could only be awarded to those with less than a month to serve but enabled the wearer to use a special, luxury games room with pool, table tennis and a further colour tv. At any one time, no more than maybe 3 or 4 green ties were granted amongst 200 + young men.

I only ever saw one lad with a green tie and within a few days of that sighting, he had gone home. I never saw another one until way into my sentence.

Incidently, there were genuine reasons for trying to become a model “prisoner” because such prisoners were allowed “outside” to help in old peoples homes or their gardens – and that usually meant access to cigarettes ……..and sugar in tea, two commodities that were not allowed in Haslar.

Inmates were rewarded for their work. “Pay” consisted of up to about 40 credits. A mars bar would cost 10 credits, a packet of fruit pastilles 8 credits and a refresher toffee bar 5 credits. Stamps could be purchased with these credits too.

I was content with my first day’s incarceration, maybe even relishing the challenge. Lying in bed, I was calculating my chances of surviving the regime and beginning to understand that maybe 75% of the inmates were merely “serving their time” and were no genuine threat to me.

I had witnessed and was aware that there were still scores of potentially dangerous inmates in the centre and reminded myself that this was only the first 24 hours of a 3 month stretch.

But I was happier and I knew I would survive….maybe even grow.

As with every day at Haslar, each one mirrored the previous and each one would be identical as tomorrows – save for the actual task that would be given to each inmate.

I slept well.

I awoke on day two to learn my fate. Would I spend 3 months hauling pails of water across the garden grounds – serving beetroots? Would I spend months on mind numbingly boring manufacturing tasks in the “factories” or would I be lucky and earn a place in the kitchens.

All the above tasks were heavily supervised and there were better and worse options. What would mine be?

I had been walking a fine line. Presenting myself as an enthusiastic inmate to officers, revealing my “true” self to just a couple of inmates but worked hard on projecting a tough outer shell to everyone else.

Day two brought a surprise and a potentially devastating setback. The very good news was that I was to become an “orderly”. An inmate with special responsibility. The official job was Gym / Yard orderly and meant that in the morning, I would assist Mr Berry in the Gym and in the afternoon, unsupervised, I would maintain the acres of land (and tarmac) around the parade ground.

There were only a couple of orderly posts in the whole place. This was immediate promotion, almost as valuable as earning a green tie!

The bad news was less palatable. I would be joining Churchill dorm with my bed adjacent to “Puppet”, the volatile inmate who thought he ran the place!

And there was something else.

According to tradition, ALL new inmates had to perform a humiliating initiation ceremony in front of every inmate in the dormitory they were joining.

Naked, after lights out but bathed in the blue night light of the room, new inmates were expected to knot their ties on their privates and run the gauntlet past all the inmates in their dorm.

I had a real big problem with that.

All day, I carried out my duties with a sickening sense of foreboding. I was already trying to imagine what would happen to me that evening. I was trying to comprehend how I would defend myself against a room full of 70 men expecting me to “perform”.

I had no intention of humiliating myself but was imagining being picked up physically, against my will, possibly by a dozen men?

Would I find myself at the centre of some barbaric act – like the scene from some second rate B movie jungle kidnapping?

Would they simply attack me? Beat me up? How could I know?

All I knew was that I was not going to volunteer for the humiliating spectacle demanded of me.

Mid afternoon, I was relieved of my duties to move my bed-box into Churchill dorm. Digger joined me, gave me a sweet and sat on the edge of my bed.

I can’t remember asking him about any initiation ceremony but he did offer some simple advice. Perhaps sensing my anxiety for the first time, he told me to just try to keep myself to myself.

At 7:00 pm, just after dinner, everyone goes to association. Everyone except me. I am lying on my bed, arms folded behind my neck, ankles crossed, staring – simmering.

I have dropped my black and yellow wasp stripes. I am not giving off signals that invite respect. Instead, I am recalling my days back in Yeovil. I am summoning my most intimidating thoughts and converting them into an aura of contained rage.

“Dare anyone catch my gaze”, I repeat in my mind. My teeth are clenched, my mouth open just a fraction, my eyes wide, fixed on some imaginary point above the opposite bed.. Neck stiff, the cheeks of my face taught – staring, staring straight ahead.

An occasional visitor returns to the dorm, maybe to collect a mars bar or packet of sweets. I stare ahead. Half an hour later, another inmate enters, walks past the foot of my bed offering a cheery “Alright mush?”

I ignore him. Stare through him.

I am alone again. I am also aware that the image I have been generating is no longer a mask. My mental self preservation has summoned up some other version of me – but this version is a volatile, unexploded bomb.

I rise from the bed, gather my kit and walk down to the toilet and shower area. There I wash, clean my teeth and pee. Walking back up to my bed, I ignore someone crossing my line of vision.

It’s early but I undress, putting on regulation pyjama bottoms but changing into a turquoise work T-Shirt – then I slip into bed, folding the sheets and blanket neatly to a point level with my navel.

Arms go back behind my head and I stare straight ahead.

I was fit, had developed a broad chest and had wide shoulders. In my “condition”, I was lying chest puffed out, anxious but feeling as dangerous and as strong as I could ever feel.

Teeth grinding, gritted, grimacing, “Anyone DARE…”

I heard Puppet enter the dorm and heard laughing and barracking. Someone in the far corner of the room pulled someone else to the ground. I just kept staring.

Over the next 5 – 10 minutes, just about everyone in the dorm had passed my bed to shave and wash at the bottom. I just kept staring – not at anyone – just staring ahead.

Puppet was in the corner of my vision now, sitting on the end of his bed. Boasting about something, swearing about something else – but not directing anything at me.

He looked though. For a second, Puppet did look across at the psycho in the work T. shirt – and the psycho moved his gaze for the first time and stared back at Puppet.

He had a 5-o clock shadow, permed black hair and the gaze of someone who could play the same deadly game I was playing. The difference was, his gaze was less intense, his look was less threatening, and his teeth were less gritted. If Puppet had been anticipating trouble, it looked like he was “off duty” or was happy to indicate to me that he was off duty!

I stared at Puppet and he saw a loaded gun. I had hours or was it years of intensely focussed menace in that stare and Puppet read it right – and looked away.

The rest of the dorm had been a buzz of voices as everyone performed the ritual of preparing for bed.

A few minutes later, Benny Hill, a Hitler look alike in prison uniform (and a temperament to match), marched into the dorm and warned us all that we had five more minutes till lights out.

Then, suddenly, the room lost its colour and the dorm was bathed in an eerie blue light – like moonlight.

Immediately all hell let loose…but it was not directed at me.

At the bottom of the dorm, a lad called Galpin had had the bottom end of his bed picked up by Puppet and half a dozen others. With the lad still inside it, they had slammed the bed and Galpin into the wall.

Then, before Benny Hill had rushed back to investigate the commotion, everyone had run back to their beds and tucked up innocently. By the time the lights came on, Galpin was the only one standing in the dorm.

Benny Hill slapped the lad and then marched him off to run a mile around the parade ground. Benny Hill did not like people getting out of bed after lights out – unless he had given them permission!

I lay flat, staring up at the ceiling.

Nobody bothered me and I had not had to perform the ritual. The “sugar plum fairy”.

Puppet never acknowledged, spoke to or hassled me in the final days before he left Haslar but my show of colours, my show of self preservation acted as a great insurance policy.

And my new role as Gym orderly would soon serve to enhance that policy over the following weeks and months.

Gym Orderly

The role of Gym orderly, aside from keeping the gym and showers tidy, was to support Mr. Berry during Gym.

Put bluntly, at every gym session, with every group of inmates, Mr. Berry would tell everyone that “Goodland” was there to see that they performed their gym routines accurately without shirking or missing any exercises.

By stating such a case, Mr Berry done me a series of favors. He talked up my position so much, I inherited his authority.“

"If Goodland fails to make you perform properly”, he would claim, then “you lot will end up doing twice the number of routines and Goodland will have to pay a penance for your failings”.

“This will not please me or Goodland”, he would add with a twinkle in his eye.

In reality, the role was an amazing one for me. I became the portal, the first regular inmate that new recruits met in the gym - and of course, I made sure THEY performed flawlessly – or at least appeared to!

One time, an absolute nightmare of a man was presented to me. As a new inmate, the guy was as scared as I remember being – despite having tattoos on his forehead and looking like a killer.

A rhino of a man, he was virtually incapable of lifting his legs above his head (lying on his back on sloping benches).

I was able to force the guy to at least attempt the moves, immediately demonstrating my will upon him – effectively neutralizing any threat he might have posed me. Initially, he was terrified of me.

Later though, after letting him experience the hell of the exercises, I would give the guy a friendly wink and AID him by taking his weight or allowing him to cheat!

This was interpreted as an act that would spare him further suffering and taken as an act of kindness or friendship.

As Gym orderly, I processed scores of new inmates, nipped problems in the bud and made lots of new friends!

Within barely two weeks of being in Haslar, I was a part of the furniture, respected by most, if not all, and held no fear for my physical well being.

I did not encounter another Puppet character during the rest of my stay at Haslar because I had already absorbed and become such a figure myself.

Nights in the dorm turned into story telling sessions after lights out and over the months, I enjoyed a kind of war time spirit with my fellow inmates.

Being A Catholic

From the first Sunday, I had been asked what religion I was. John, my friend, who had come in with me, used to like to stay by my side so when I remembered my mother had been a Catholic; I just claimed the same.

John said he was a Catholic too just so that he could join me in the quite Catholic chapel instead of being with the hundreds of Church of England rabble singing “All things bright and beautiful” each week!

The Chapel had a small window from which the Gosport ferry could be spied. It represented the only view of freedom and the outside world. Sucking on imaginary cigarettes, John and I would reenact the classic scene from “Catch the Midnight Express!” but our script became became “Catch the Gosport Ferry!”

Trouble was, being a Catholic involved chanting things – something John had never experienced. He did quite well though – until he was expected to drink the blood of Christ and repeat certain sayings.

After a couple of weeks, John could not stand the pretence anymore and was becoming quite stressed.

One Sunday, to my surprise, he got up mid chant and walked to the back of the chapel and said something quietly to Benny Hill, the officer on duty.

“What was that Pinnington? YOU DON’T WANT TO BE A CATHOLIC ANYMORE???”

I froze, expecting hell to open up beneath my feet but no one else commented and John was unceremoniously dumped back into the C of E crowd.

“All things bright and beautiful”.

Near the end of my term, I did get my green tie, (and went out on day release where I could cajole cigs off the gardener), but was the only one with said mythical tie! I had use of the exclusive pool table and Ping-Pong table – but no one to play with!

John got his green tie too – but lost it within days for being caught out trying to whiten his teeth with Vim!