They say that you meet the most interesting people in pubs. But this is only said by people who spend a lot of time in pubs. In my personal opinion, you meet the most interesting people in prisons. They’re not all interesting, don’t get me wrong. Heinlein said, famously, that ninety-five per cent of all science fiction was rubbish, adding that ninety-five per cent of everything was rubbish. This could be taken to the next logical stage, by stating that ninety-five per cent of people are rubbish too. It is not a view that I hold myself, but I know of some who do.

Now, having just suffered the preceding paragraphs, the reader might well believe that I have taken on a somewhat morbid mind-set. In fact that I had become bitter and twisted and boiling and brooding and not a nice man to know.

Well, you try more than a decade in the nick and see if you come through grinning!

It wasn’t all misery and I did meet some interesting people.

I did, for instance, meet an old acquaintance.

In Penroth Prison for the Criminally Disturbed I re-met Mr Blot. I didn’t even know they’d banged him up and I got quite a shock when I saw his gangly frame making its loony way along the corridor of C Block. I wondered if he would recognize me, but he just gave a bit of a sniff as he passed and continued on to therapy.

I sniffed at him in return and for the first time I realized what that smell was. The smell which had surrounded him at the Grange. That odd smell.

It was the smell of prison.

I learned all about Blot’s crimes from one of the nurses who were giving me the electric-shock treatment. This, combined with the large doses of pharmaceuticals, were helping to keep my temper in check, and I hadn’t bitten anybody’s face off in more than a month.

The crimes of Blot were not without interest. He had, it seemed a penchant for corpses. Necrophilia, they call it. Apparently, as Blot had never had much success with live women, he had turned his amorous attentions upon those buried in the graveyard that backed on to the school playground. Easy access over the school wall had provided Mr Blot with a veritable harem. His QC argued that although none of the corpses offered their consent, nor could it be proved that they were unwilling participants, as none, it appeared, had put up any struggle.

Mr Blot had been visiting the graveyard for years, and would probably have continued to do so undiscovered, had he not begun taking his girlfriends home.

I got on well with Mr Blot. We talked a lot about the good old days and he took great joy in showing me his Bible. He had bound it himself and it had been one of the few items he had been allowed to bring with him to prison. ‘They always let you bring your Bible,’ he explained.

The cover was unusual. It bore a pattern on the front, the like of which I have only ever seen once before — as a tattoo upon my late granny’s leg. The resemblance was quite uncanny.

So prison life wasn’t all bad.

I met a few interesting people and I did build up the Doveston Archive. As the years slowly passed for me, the volume of material increased. I was able to follow his progress and it made for a fascinating read. It was as if luck was always on his side.

When I’d heard from Norman that the plantation was no more, I’d wondered just what the Doveston would do next. The answer to that had arrived in the post: a snipping from the Brentford Mercury, taken from Old Sandell’s column.

UNHOLY SMOKE! WHATEVER NEXT?

Hard upon the heels of last year’s yo-yo frenzy, we have the mini-pipe or Playground Briar. Just like Daddy’s, says the advertising.

But once more there’s trouble. Brentford vicar, Bernard Berry, has condemned the little mini-pipe and forbidden its use amongst choirboys in the vestry. Why?

Apparently because of the logo. What looks to me to be three small tadpoles chasing each other’s tails, is, so the good vicar tells us, the Number of the Beast: 666.

Up your cassock, says Old Sandell, let the young ‘uns have a puffin peace.

The mini-pipe did not enjoy the yo-yo’s success. But whether this was down to Vicar Berry, who can say? If there was triumph in his pulpit following its removal from the shelves of Norman’s shop, that triumph was short-lived. Old Sandell had this to report in his column, a scant three weeks later.

BERRY BLOWN TO BUGGERATION

Brentford vicar Bernard Berry got the final surprise of his life this week when he lit up a stick of dynamite in mistake for a communion candle.

Poor labelling on the box, allied to the vicar having mislaid his specs, led to the tragedy.

But who ended up with the candles? Accidents will happen, says Old Sandell, we’ll have to let God sort it out.

The failure of the mini-pipe did nothing to deter the Doveston. It was a crap idea anyway and his sights were set on far higher things. I collected the clippings as they came in, filing them carefully, following how one business venture led to the next and noting how, with striking regularity, those who stood in his way fell prey to freak accidents of an explosive nature.

But accidents will happen, as Old Sandell says, and we,ll have to let God sort it out.

Accidents happen everywhere and a good many happen in prison.

In Powys I met a young fellow by the name of Derek. Derek had been convicted for murder. The murder, it turned out, of Chico. Within just three days of my meeting Derek, he was dead. He died, coincidentally, on the very day that I was leaving Powys to be moved on to Penroth. Derek died in a freak accident involving tied hands and a toilet bowl.

I expect old God knows what He’s up to.

Had I been outside in the world to enjoy the Seventies, I would have given them the full fifty pages that I gave to each of the previous decades. But I wasn’t, so I won’t.

I was not released from prison until 1984, by which time most of those who had lived through the Seventies had forgotten about them anyway.

I regret, of course, that I missed out on the fashion. When I see old episodes ofJason King and The Sweeney, I get a glimpse of an era when style was king. Those big lapels, those kipper ties, those stack-soled shoes. They’re all the fashion now, I know, but imagine what it must have been like to have worn that stuff back then and have nobody call you an utter twat!

On your very last day in prison, especially if you have served a long sentence, they make a bit of a fuss of you. Your cell-mates give you little presents: bits of string, or old lumps of soap. And if they are lifers with nothing to lose, you pay for these with whatever money you have been able to save up over the years.

It is a tradition, or an old charter, or something.

You don’t have to pay, but then I suppose that you don’t have to be able to walk.

I paid.

The governor invites you up to his office. He gives you a cup of tea, a biscuit and a pep talk. He tells you how you must behave in the outside world. And also how you must not behave. To encourage moral rectitude and discourage recalcitrance, two screws then enter the office and beat the holy bejasus out of you. You then receive a pack of five Woodbines, the price of a short-distance bus fare and a packet of cheese and onion crisps. The gift of crisps is symbolic of course, as you have to hand them back.

And if, like me, you are released from Poonudger, which is right in the middle of a bloody great moor, the price of a short-distance bus fare is also symbolic. And if you have five Woodbines, but no matches to light them with, this makes the gift of cigarettes similarly so.