Pentlands Writers: Mick Armstrong

I am a 50 something senior manager in the Scottish Prison Service, now employed as a prison inspector. I am proud that I graduated with an MBA in 2000 and also that I worked my way up through the ranks in the English and latterly Scottish prison services. I have  a lot of interesting stories to tell.  

As I head gracefully towards retirement I think it is about time I shared some of my experiences of this enclosed world. Stories from prison can often be funny but are also strange, (heard about the guy who tried to escape when he only had 2 weeks to serve?) scary or sad. I am trying to expand my skills enough to publish an autobiography. The people on the writing group are very skilful in helping me to achieve this. 

 

I have a comedic style which I hope is easy to read, thought provoking and most of all humourous. After all you only live once! I am also a pretty good storyteller so can tell you a few unpublishable (if that is a word) tales. I would happily tailor my prison stories to suit your needs for after dinner speaking. Speeches can also be balanced out by including my experiences of supporting victims of crime over a 12 year period.

I hope you enjoy my writing on this site, I will endeavour to post fresh pieces every 2 to 300 hits. Blatant plug for book ... Please tell your friends about it! 

If you are interested in contacting me about my writing or speaking please email at debanmik@btconnect.com

Autobiography (Extract No. 4) – Current Bed (A Memoir) -
Surviving ... (A Memoir)

 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY (4th extract)

 

Senior School wasn't really much of a learning environment for me. A prime example was the technical subjects.

Our woodwork teacher, the aptly named Mr Woodham was at the point of despair with my lack of skills, so, after yet another mistake in cutting a joint into a piece of wood, he sent me outside to run round the playground. However, I couldn't see this as being any kind of punishment. From then on I made sure I made a mistake early on in every woodwork lesson ... after all I love running. In one lesson another pupil, Tim Barton made the same mistake as he had looked out of the window and saw how much I was enjoying my run. He wasn't a runner himself but he seemed to enjoy it and I enjoyed the company. I did still manage an average grade in my exam despite spending most of the last year's woodwork lessons out in the playground running.

The running seemed to impress one of my fellow form students, a small blonde girl called Anne, and this inevitably led to me spending time out from another subject, maths. During the final year Anne and I used to flirt a lot after she had told me she was impressed by my teacher defying runs. Maths was the only subject where we sat next to each other.

Sadly, in our final year, we had lost our very good maths teacher and been given a new one with the unfortunate name of Harry Roberts. He was a thin, lanky guy with bottle rim glasses who, to us, looked ancient but in reality was probably about forty. He had a knack of going through lessons chapter and verse without engaging with anyone else in the room so we quickly got out of the habit of asking for clarification about any of the maths formulae.

 

In 1966 a namesake of our new maths teacher had killed three policeman and had only recently been caught. At the time of writing he is still in jail over 30 years after being convicted. Now in his 70s he is desperately using all kinds of legal means (paid for by the taxpayer) to try and gain release. Fortunately in July 2009 the parole board decided that he should spend the rest of his life in prison after he had terrorised a family who had been kind enough to let him work on their farm during a stay in open prison, preparing for release. In all my time in the prison service I have never met him or anyone who has looked after him.

 

Our Harry Roberts may as well have been a murderer as he had the same unfortunate effect on our maths skills, he was hopeless, and quickly managed to kill off any chance of high grades being gained in our year. Anne and I used to mess around so much in class that Harry banished us to the far side of the classroom and gave us permission to spend the last term doing no maths at all, as long as we didn't disturb the rest of the class. Needless to say we were quickly joined by the majority of the other pupils. Our young love was so blind it seemed like a good idea at the time and it gave us an opportunity to do homework from other subjects. Love blossomed as on March 17^th 1973, we started going out. I wasn't even sixteen but the love that started then was to last a good twenty five years.

Amazingly we both still managed to pass our maths exams.

 

 

CURRENT BED (2nd in a series of 3 pieces)

 

This is a marital bed. Robust. A reflection of two people sharing everything. Even dreams are shared.

It is surrounded by joint decisions, a mirror here, drawers there, brightly decorated and a soft carpet everywhere.

A bed with a duvet, different from blankets of old, creates snugly warmth. No swimming without water but a haven when needed for two weary souls.

There isn't the chance to spend long enough in bed; up early for work every day. But Sunday means a lie in with newspapers and breakfast. Opportunities to appreciate our bed are rare.

 

I sleep well in my bed.

 

 

SURVIVING ... (written in response to homework set on the subject of "how you made a difference". I hope to alter this and include it in my autobiography.)

 

It was through heavy eyes that I scanned the small dingy room that was to change my life. After finishing the last shift of a week of nights in the prison, I suddenly felt the early morning tension of being the only man in a Rape Crisis training day, “the enemy within.”

 

It seemed okay to miss a day's sleep. After all I would have a couple of days off after this. But, it had been a tough week and sleep was now trying to invade all my senses. Every bone ached with the desire to slip under a duvet and sleep for a week.

I bolted upright in my seat as I heard the trainer say observantly:

 

“Now you may have noticed, we have a man with us today.”

Suddenly I was wide awake as my heart raced at this revelation. Where is he? I thought for a split second before it dawned on me.

Conscious that I was now the centre of attention and feeling like an invading alien, I looked around the circle of chairs. I was waiting for the onslaught of disapproving looks aimed at my masculinity, from any link in the feminist chain. A few curt looks came my way, as if to say I was the representative of every man who ever raped a woman ...

However, the day flowed swiftly on from the shock introduction, no time was given for anyone to dwell on the threat that I posed. Each participant was keen to learn the skills needed to offer sanctuary to a woman in her darkest hours.

Luckily the fact that I was not seen as a threat gradually permeated around the room through every breakout session, every shared experience and every graphic tale of the most horrendous crimes. By the end of the course I could be counted as being in that minority class:

 

“He's alright, for a man.”

My expressed abhorrence for sex crimes meant that I no longer wore the badge “not to be trusted” pinned on my chest. The end of the day beckoned, not a moment too soon for my struggling eyelids but far too early for my eager mind as it processed all that was on offer.

We all said our goodbyes. A day that could almost be described as intimate came to an end, and I set off knowing that I would probably never see any of the group again. Driving home I was in a state of automatic pilot as the tiredness begged me to sleep but thankfully I never gave in.

Of course I slept incredibly well that night, safe in the knowledge that I had passed probably the biggest test of my life. But soon a bigger test would unfold.

Less than a week later I was sat in an average house in averageville listening to an extraordinary story. Wondering if I could cope with the emotions that welled up inside me and not cry in front of my client. This new string to my bow suddenly seemed to bring with it an insurmountable emotional pressure.

All the training from my Victim Support scheme and Rape Crisis came into play as I helped, supported, counselled and guided Carl a young boy with his life ahead of him. He should have been out with his girlfriend that night but instead he was in tears telling me how he had been brutalised. At 16 he was still innocent, looking toward a military career, that was why he was in the cadets.

And that's where the advantage was taken, power exerted by a Sergeant skilled in grooming, a life in tatters. This is the predator’s way.

After months of inner turmoil Carl eventually found the courage to break his silence, but this was only after he had broken into the weapon store and stolen a gun.

 

“I have no idea what I was going to do” he told me barely able to speak through the tears.

Had it not been for his mother's approach to Victim Support this could have been like so many stories that go unheard of, so many lives destroyed for want of help. But for Carl I could offer a turning point. By now the predator was safely tucked away for eight years so we were able to concentrate on helping Carl through. For the second time in as many weeks I was tested, my masculinity an issue, was I a man who he could trust? Proving myself to women was quickly followed by the irony of repeating the same for a man.

Once again my badge of “not to be trusted” was consigned to the bin.

 

During the build up to his court case for the burglary I knew I had to cross a boundary, to intervene. He knew that he was likely to be sent to prison, at least four years would be the norm for this kind of crime. But, with my experience of the system I managed to persuade the courts to safeguard his freedom. This was no justice for a boy who had been through the worst crime but had broken the silence, shattered the taboo.

 

“Result,” you bastard! I thought as I heard the news.

The predator was no longer winning. Carl was given his freedom, his freedom that meant we could work together for weeks so that he emerged from being a victim, a sufferer, a casualty.

No, he became a survivor, living again, having a future ... I made a difference, well worth losing a day's sleep!