I remember the Brummie. He was miles from home, thanks to his local jail being ‘locked out’ the day he was remanded. That meant he was a guest with us in Walton until his next court appearance for trial – 6 months later.
He stayed on the first night wing with us as a wing cleaner and seemed an all round decent sort – as happens in prison, there was an exchange of vernacular – we picked up some Brummie phrases to add to the mismash of Welsh, Scouse, Macam (NOT a Geordie!) and the Irish that I brought to the party, to be sure to be sure.
The night before his court appearance the Brummie said his goodbyes – he would be leaving the wing at 6.30am – long before the rest of us were unlocked. He borrowed Johnnies’ clippers so he could shave his head neatly for court and that was about that.
At unlock the following day, while I was headed for the urn to fill my morning coffee, I picked up the commotion that was growing 4 landings and 30 feet above me. Phrases like ‘Rat bastard’ and ‘Dirty nonce thief’ were echoing out as a number of lads realised they had been ripped off. It transpired that our Brummie pal had spent his last couple of days with us borrowing stuff and rather than leave it in his cell as promised, he had mistakenly packed it all up and taken it with him when he left the prison. Suffice to say that terse words and short tempers were the order of the day.
At around 3pm I was called to the Kanga’s office – nothing unusual there, it would be an update on how many new friends were coming to play with us that night. It was my job to ensure that we had enough bedrolls and induction packs prepared for their arrival.
“Looks like 20 plus tonight. Winston Green is locked out again.” Mr H informed me.
“Yeah right,” said I, “Nice one Mr H.”
“Is there something I should know?” he persisted, immediately concerned – why are Kanga’s always so suspicious anyway?
“You’re serious that Winston is locked out?” I asked. He was sure.
“Better leave it with me.” I decided to have a cleaners’ meeting so I called the lads together.
“H has just told me that Winston Green is locked out, so as we speak, I reckon our Brummie friend is sat on a sweat box shitting bricks.” Fists were being pounded into palms and many mutterings were being a-muttered.
“Now bear in mind that giving him a slap might be a short thrill, but you will end up in the jungle on G-wing riding serious bang up. So what do we do?”
“Coventry is right near Birmingham – send him there.”
“Stitch the tosser up with his diet too”
“Wafer thin mattress in the cell.”
“No furniture.”
“Snap off the toilet seat.”
“Bust the TV socket – leave him in the dark.”
“Two him up with Psycho McDonald.”
I was surprised and a little alarmed at the depth of suggestions that came promptly back from the lads. How long had they been thinking about these things – and thank god I wasn’t on the wrong side of them!
At around 5pm, while the lads were doling out diets on the servery our Brummie friend appeared back on the wing. As he appeared in the door of the servery all of the joking and banter stopped – there was a menacing silence.
“Liver” said Vinney, the man who ordered the food. Brummie hated liver and said so. Mr H was not stupid, he knew something was up but I think he hoped it would be resolved without violence, so he asked Vinney, “Is there another option he could have?”
“Oh aye!” said Vinney, “There’s a special cheese roll left. Last one.” The Brummie took a faltering step then fair play to him, he spoke to all of the lads. “I was still half asleep this morning lads, so if I picked up some of your stuff by mistake I’ll sort it right now and get it back to you.” He walked to the end of the servery and held up his plate, one of the lads winked at him and handed over the cheese roll and told him that he had prepared it specially for him as he moistened his mouth.
The Brummie left the servery and I could see on Mr. H’s face that he now knew exactly what had gone on. “Tell me that you didn’t spit on his roll lads.” In fact nobody had touched his food – but he didn’t know that. The Brummie returned all of the stolen gear and got locked in his shitty cell overnight. The following morning when we were unlocked the Brummie was gone again. It took all of 26 seconds to find out he had moved to F-Wing because his position on our unit was untenable which was probably for the best. But it only took around ten minutes for a cleaner on our wing to get word to F-wing (via a B-wing intermediary that he met on the medication run) and the Brummie’s position on there was untenable too. By the end of the day the whole prison knew the story of the thieving Brummie. I sometimes wonder if he would have chosen a few slaps and a line in the sand to being a social pariah – which was the crueller punishment?
