John Barker - Bending The Bars

JOHN BARKER - BENDING THE BARS Publisher: ChristieBooks.com Price (p/back) £9. 95 + £2.00 p+p ISBN 1 873976 15 1 Pages: 132 pages

We have recently received a review copy of John Barker's book Bending The Bars, a "selective memoir of being in max security prisons between 1971 and 1978 written in the form of stories towards the end of the sentence & finished soon after his release." Barker was one of few of those sent down for the Angry Brigade actions in the late 60's and early 70's who claimed he was caught 'bang to rights'.

The book gives a definite class perspective on incarceration and evokes a nostalgia for the days of prison resistance and rebellion in the 70's and 80's - "an unsentimental celebration of the class spirit and solidarity of many cons" - that ended with the introduction of the modern prison regime of the IEP scheme and the 1991 Prison Rules.

Being written in the form of stories rather than a straight memoir, it can get a bit repetitive and appear as mundane and rambling as any second-hand conversation, but I'm sure it conveys the atmosphere of prison life at that time.

Many of his observations are acute and still relevant today - "The Home Office, how's that for a laugh. Anywhere else it's the Ministry of Internal Security. Only the English could be so brazen, the name suggesting warm fires, slippers and general cosiness while in fact they're smashing down doors and ripping homes apart."

Unfortunately the con's life as depicted in the book has changed for the worst in lots of ways (as he acknowledges in his introduction [see below]). And one of these changes is the prison labour regime. Long gone are the days when sit-downs and other forms of protest could change prison conditions for the better. As he says elsewhere [LINK] "I was back inside for a two and half years all told some 12 years later and in many ways, things were worse. B category slammers rather than max security true, but the very notion of collective action to make life better for cons was out the window. There’d been 11 years of Mrs Thatcher in between times, and far too much smack."

We quote extensively from the book as it depicts what almost seems like a lost golden age and provides an interesting contrast to conditions as the prevail today..

FROM THE INTRODUCTION

The introduction of '"Prison Works", a system of reward and punishment that is both formal and arbitrary pre-dates New Labour but is wholly suited to it's authoritarian moralizing. Prison 'privileges' as they are laughingly called are only for those who play by the rules, unwritten rules as to your behaviour, demeanour, your very way of being. In the wider world it is matched by New Labour's No Rights without Responsibilities slogan. As Mark Barnsley (maximum injustice for 8 long years) has described, it is like an experiment in social control for which New Labour no doubt have targets and league tables. It's purpose (is) to destroy what remains of (the) collective solidarity among cons after years of 'Thatcherite' individualism and too much heroin. Under New Labour there are even cells under permanent CCTV watch.

At the same time competitively repressive New Labour Home Secretaries have made their own further contributions to worsening conditions. Pile Them High! Perhaps it is their fanatical pro-Americanism that wants them to match US imprisonment rates. But with ever-rising numbers and cut budgets there is no longer even the pretence of education and rehabilitation. These days it is strictly Punishment Only. And not so heavy on Responsibilities when it comes to screws or the care that is supposed to be demanded of prisons.

D WING WORMWOOD SCRUBS

My productive input to PRINDUS, the work department of the prison network [and product label!] had been minimal. I'd never got to grips with those poxy wigwams [plastic seams and fuck-knows how many cloth panels]. Being cack-handed is no virtue in the big free world but in prison, so what. From D Wing there were three shops which took Category A men. I was allotted to the master Tailors where cloth was cut for prison clothes, car seat covers, Lee Cooper jeans and Post Office uniforms. These were then sewn up in the Tailors shop upstairs. Whenever possible, clandestine cloth for our own tailored strides followed the same route. Now and then the screws would come down heavy on this side business and on these same trousers and re-tailored shirts being carefully cleaned in the laundry, another shop which took Category A cons, the chaps. It was an important battle and the cons never gave way on the matter of personal laundry for themselves and others.
Category A cons had to have their own escort, clutching little red books in which our every movement was recorded. In the Master Tailors there were two or three discipline screws who sat around all day in case anything went off, and to give us the rub down on the way out.

I said we hadn't been offered a job. Which was how we came to have a stab at cutting car-seat covers out of mock lambswool. It involved clamping down eight pieces of the stuff with a pattern on top and Tony going to work with a power cutter
We kept production to a steady trickle and spent most of the time over at Al's desk playing no-holes [sic] barred Scrabble. Come the next day and our wages were up by a pack of Rizlas.

The Yorkshire civvie [civilian instructor] started talking quotas, Tony a transfer to the laundry. Yorkie said he could make a good job for himself here. Tony gave him a hard look. We went haywire with that cutter, gouges, tears and cut-off corners multiplied by eight. At best we gave rough approximations to a car-seat cover. Two days later Tony got his transfer to the laundry, Al got on full time classes and I inherited his post. There was not much work involved. Two or three invoices a day, counting bales of cloth now and then. The chief civvie, a quiet, elderly bloke took it all very seriously. He talked Tolwoth Towers, the PRINDUS HQ, in hushed tones. Tolworth must decide on this, he'd say. Or, This is how Tolworth want it done.

LONG LARTIN

The textiles shop was a joke, a Noddy shop. It contained forty sewing machines in three rows and had weak lights. The tannoy played the radio, Tony Blackburn and David Hamilton strong and mushy all day unless there was some racing in the afternoon. There were three instructors led by cue-ball [bald guy], two discipline screws and a civvie. If a machine broke down they'd stand around looking at it till the con mechanic could fix it. I worked as a packer with Alex. He said all you needed for an instructor's job was a white coat and a worried look. I'd started the job early on in a run of Wendy Houses. Alex said I was lucky to have missed the previous run of space suits. "Silver paint coming off in your hands all day long, But the look at this rubbish," he said, pointing to a pile of Wendy Houses. "Tell me seriously, would you buy one of these on the out(?)"
"No but someone must do."
"Imagine them is a gust of wind. There's dad watching proudly when, Fuck me darling, nipper's roof's blown off."
"You know we're supposed to double up as quality controllers," he said a couple of days latter.
"Sure, that's why we fill in those form sheets and reject two per day."
"Yes, well cue-ball must have sussed it, always two per day, said he hoped we realised we were supposed to be checking them."
"What, rejecting other con's work, that's a bit much."
"It's a fucking joke anyway, the material's about as thick as this Rizla," Alex said taking one out of his tin and rolling up. "Cue-ball said the company had returned a batch."
"Who's the company?"
"Fuck knows. Snide and Snide? I could see he was extra worried, he's blotted his copy book, but what do they expect?"

 

[Following being pulled out of the workshop for an hour and a quarter search of his cell]

I checked out my wages at the end of the week. As a packer I was on related earnings, they depended on how fast the machinists had worked. I found out from the con clerk that I'd lost out on the cell-spin. The rate for such time was half a pence an hour. I pulled the civvie who ran the shop. He was a local who'd had some small slice of the contract for building the jail and had managed to hang o in for this number. A miserable sod, free every evening, free every weekend and still he was miserable. I said it was out of order for me to be penalized for a cell-spin I didn't want, had definitely not asked for.
"You'll have to see the Governor about that. Those rates come direct from the Home Office. They set them."
"You're having a laugh, what's he going to do, give me a petition? I'll have finished my bird by the time I get an answer."

[He then gets 'promoted' to the shop clerk.]

There was more work to the job than there'd been in the Scrubs. PRINDUS had made a complicated wage structure built on the piece-rates they imposed. Machinists would get a sticky tag for each completed box of five Wendy Houses which I had to stick on their wage sheets. In addition to the cell-spin rate there was a machine breakdown rate of one pence per hour. A week of that kind of money wouldn't go far. It was to deter sabotage but had not considered the antiquity of the machines. On top of this was a three-tiered structure of related-wages. Top rate for the mechanic, lower for me and the packers, and bottom rate for the trimmers. It was a toytown version of a big company...[, the picture completed by a mini-conveyor belt that never worked.]

 

Sometimes the crack was good, sometimes I was bored stiff. Dave had a spell there and we had a good time. Then he was moved to the Engineers shop just as it won a contract to produce prison beds for Saudi Arabia, a serious contract with penalty clauses for late delivery.
"Twenty five thousand prison beds?" I asked. "Are they expecting a crime wave(?) Anyway I thought they just cut your hand off."
"Must be changing, must have decided jails are an essential part of being civilized." he said.

...we began a new contract for prison pillow cases. Compared to the Engineers, the Textiles was a noddy shop but this didn't stop PRINDUS increasing the intensity of labour with the new contract, imposing a speed-up. To get top wages they wanted over a hundred a day which was much harder than the Wendy House quota.
Maybe they thought that as they were pillow cases on which cons would lay their heads, the job should take that much less labour time. Maybe there was a Civil Servant who thought his posting to PRINDUS the equivalent of a diplomat sent to Mali, but who had resolved out of spite or wishful thinking to make something of it, to make it more profitable within its own terms. I had thought about what those terms were. They must have excluded the cost of reproducing the convict, his board and keep, most of which went in screw wages. I wondered if Tolworth Towers had some sophisticated accounting system which allowed for some costs and, in the case of pillow cases, that the Prison Department was both producer and buyer.
Whatever the reason, it suited the Prison Department's permanent interest in discipline. There's a clear relation between profitability and discipline, and the Department was interested in both. They had built HMP Coldingley* as a copy of a big factory with a longer working day and a whole regime geared to the workshops with bonuses and fuck knows what else. (They) were selective about who was sent there, short-termers and lifers who were being considered for release. They were dead fussy too, a couple of steps out of line and the Lifer would be out on his ear, back in a long-term nick with his EDR [eventual date of release] slipping a couple of years into the future. It was nearly all unskilled manual work, as if they wanted cons to feel at home doing the kind of work they'd become criminals to avoid.
On the second day of the new contract the Sailor, having a spell as a machinist, gave cue-ball a pull. Cue-ball said it was a time-and-motion decision and there was nothing he could do about it. I remember this neat, long-haired creep with an attache case. He'd been in the shop a couple of weeks back to look at the pillow-case material. George had said he looked that much like a fish he was entitled to jump in the fish-tank that enlivened the instructors office. He had to have been the time-and-motion man. In the afternoon tea-break a strike was discussed. The new rate was going to mean a wage-cut, there was no two ways about it; only Griffiths, a greyhound of the sewing machine, was going to be able to meet the quota; it was a liberty; it was downright snide. The Sailor was for a strike.
"How about we try it first, go as fast as we can for half an hour and see how it goes," Pete said.
"I'll go along with that," said another.
"What's the sense in that," the Sailor said, "I couldn't even get top wack on those tents."
"No, be fair, if we show it can't be done, they haven't got a leg to stand on"
"They havna a leg to stand on anyway."
"What you done then George, kneecapped them?" London Tony said.
George gave him a look till the laughter died down.
"What you talking about you bam, I just tickled his hamstrings with my chiv," he said.
"Lets do this experiment now then, get it done with," said Dave the Hells Angel.
"What if that's what you want," the Sailor said. "You suggested it to Pete, do it with Norm, he's about norm for the speed."
A stack of blue boxes full of ready-cut material (was) dragged to their machines which were next to each other.
"Half an hour's worth, a ten thousand metres race. We don't want these boys getting sore fingers or nothing," the Sailor said.
A sidelined dopedealer did some mental maths. In reality we worked a six-and-a-half hour day. We were looking at eight in half an hour, your man said. George ran a small book in the shop with Alex. He promptly opened one.
"I'm putting my money where my mouth is, evens on Pete, Five to Four against Norm."
Tempting odds. I fancied Pete at evens.
"Come on you bams, Five to Four's more than fair, where are the sportsmen?"
He took two bets on each of the runners.
"Come on, I'm risking my all and I'm taking bets till the halfway stage, five furlongs, five thousand metres, whatever you like. I'm only saying the odds might well shorten with two such thoroughbreds."
"You're fucking mad," Alex said in a loud whisper, "it was Pete suggested it, he'll be going flat out."
"You havna studied the form man," George said quietly. He was a shit-hot machinist. If he weren't the best maker of a pair of strides, if he weren't so busy with his bootleg business, he would have matched Griffiths in official production. Now he shouted, "Show some faith in the lads."
He got another two punters, then made a big deal out of the second hand of his watch coming round to bang on Three o'clock. "And they're off."
Norman promptly got his first pillow case in a tangle and a big cheer from everyone but his backers. George said he was a novice put off by the starting stalls. "But he's a trier, got a good finish."
Pete got off to a flying start, three done in ten minutes, ahead of schedule. George stayed cool and took another two punters. I was reaching for my last fifty pence, only the Sailor said I was a mug.
"You watch him tire, he needs Lester on board to time his run in."
"Pure shite," George shouted back. "He's running well within himself. Feel the cloth man, a bit on the soft side, just how he likes it."
The crowd leaned in on Pete.
"Come on my son, you can do it," a punter shouted right in his earhole. Pete gave a start and the thread got tangled. He tried to steam on through the mess and the thread broke. There was the usual farting about re-threading.
"Christ sake don't lick it, cut it," Griffiths shouted.
"Give him space there, don't crowd him."
"More haste less speed," a con who'd made no bet said.
"Why don't you go fuck yourself," shouted back a Five to Four taker.
Norman had relaxed but Pete was strained, the broken thread had gotten to him.
"You've been fucking nobbled," a backer shouted.
On the half hour the News came on the radio. The value of the pound had fallen, it was due to a strike at British Leyland.
George was magnanimous. The two runners were both on the seventh pillow case. There were machinists and machinists he said to Alex. "Give them a hand lads," he shouted out. "They gave their all, look at the sweat."
It was true, sweat dripping. They were paraded in the Instructors' office.
"Look at them, they've worked their balls off and that was only half an hour. It can't be done."
"It's a Home Office decision," Misery said.
"So ring them up and say it can't be done," the Sailor said.
"It's not as easy as that. You can't change things just because you don't like them. Just give it a go. I'll guarantee you never have to wait for cloth."
By then it was the end of the working day. The discipline screws opened the gates, ticked us off and rubbed us down. The sun was shining warm, a wind-up, going straight back into septic corridors with their own dull light and air.
The next day few machinists worked though a strike had not been called as such. Two sex-cases worked along with a Manchester guy who was supposed to be sound and said to be heavy, him and his pal. I wanted to give him a pull. Alex said I was crazy. "What can you do about it(?) We know he's a no-good slag and that's it, we know."
The general stoppage became a strike proper when the instructors went around the shop asking if cons were refusing to work. This was not the same as refusing labour, we were all at work, but it was a declaration. Soon after the jail's Chief Officer arrived. He was a smiler, a relic from the future wherein, it is wrongly assumed, prisons amongst other things would become progressively more liberal. It looked as though there might be a break in the case and a crowd formed round him.
"Well lads even though you're technically disobeying an order by not working..."
"No one's ordered us to work," Dave said.
The discipline screws moved in to back the Smiler. He kept on smiling.
"Be that as it may," he said, "you are technically breaking prison rules. But this needn't get in the way, it's obvious there's been a breakdown in communication."
"It's simple, we've been given a rate for a new job that's impossible to do. We know, we've tried it, the Sailor said.
The Smiler smiled some more. "I don't have the authority to do anything about that here and now but I can tell you the right way to go about it and this isn't it."
George was outraged. "It's simple, just ring up the Home Office, tell them the rate's impossible and that they won't get any production till they lower the rate."
"What are you going to come up with if we do return to work?" Norman asked.
"What I can do is talk your instructors and see if some communication can be established whereby what you are saying can be taken into account. But I can say now in all sincerity that your action is not making things any easier."
After he'd gone there were suggestions that we go back to work and see what happened after a couple of days. I'd said nothing right through, I was only the clerk, but this had to be bollox.
"Why do you think the Chief's come in at all(?) Why's he talking about things might be changed. If we just complained and went on working they wouldn't give a monkeys."
"Hang on, you're not even on a machine."
"He's on related pay, we get nothing, he gets nothing," the Sailor said. "And lets have it right, we stay out till we get what we want."
The next day cue-ball announced they were in communication with the Home Office but that we should go on working.
"He's just trying it on," Alex said. "They were looking to see if they could get away with it and (we'd) wear it. Give it another day and it won't be worth the aggravation to them."
The Manchester head didn't get a pull from anyone but he was getting the blank and his worked slowed to a crawl. Next day he didn't show at all, the slippery bastard had got a labour transfer in double-quick time. So me and Alex had a good laugh in the afternoon when cue-ball announced the rate no longer applied. He dressed it all up and went on about averages which hadn't taken something into account, and how it would all come to light anyway. For a while after that it was a good crack in the shop.

 

*Coldingley opened in 1969 as one of the UK's first industrial prisons, with the aim of providing a regime built around a 37 hour working week. The industrial work was contracted out to the private sector, but the project collapsed after two years after financial and management irregularities were unearthed during an audit.
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