Founded 1980
Chair:        
Secretary: 
Treasurer: 

Graham Smith
Jan Thompson
Graham Mumby-Croft


Issue No. 61 Autumn 2009
Editorial

Pensions
Strange and troubling times we live in. Credit crunch, financial melt down and recession. Inflation has turned negative bringing down the cost of many items. For Public Service Pensioners it probably means that negative inflation will have an influence on the uprating of pensions. Gerry Ross, who represents us on the Public Service Pensioners Council, has kindly written an article summarizing the possible changes to both State and Public Service Pension upgrades in the year ahead. 

Recording our History
The Retired Governors Newsletter provides an opportunity for its readers to record something of the detail of life in the Prison Service in years gone by. While there will always be official records of prison establishments, the number of prisoners and the major events influencing the service, there is a danger that the way in which people worked will be lost through a lack of recording. Our current older generation of readers has the advantage not only of being able to record what they remember and experienced, but they will also know – from the oral tradition of the Service - something of how an earlier generation of staff worked and lived.

Is it important to try and preserve a record? I believe so, as there are marked changes in the way staff have had to work over the last sixty years. Without a record, this information will be lost. What might we record? I suggest almost anything about the past. For example, I was struck by the comments of an old Chief Officer who started work at Wakefield Prison in 1939. He told me that they never put prisoners on the top landings of wings. They didn’t have to – they were locking up such a low number of prisoners that the top landings were not needed. That sounded amazing to me as a young AG in 1966 working in a very overcrowded Manchester Prison. I also remember the account of an officer joining Bristol Prison in the ninety fifties. No induction training in those days! He was told on his first morning – he was the only officer allocated to a wing – to unlock a certain cell – when he did so the Redband came out and effectively told him what to do for the whole of the early morning routine. Was this the experience of others?

An excellent example of recording our past will be found in “Your Letters” as two colleagues reflected on their early experiences of North Sea Camp.

I am sure that many of our readers have their own memories of how the Service was decades ago. Your Editor will be delighted to hear from you – a few lines as a letter or an article describing past practices will be all very welcome.