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DOVER BORSTAL continued
1966 was the 900th anniversary of the battle of Hastings and the Bayer Tapestry was vividly on display everywhere. Guinness used it as a drink’s advertisement with a huge poster. The recreation room in my house was a rectangle of bare walls just painted white. So I wrote to Guinness to ask if I could have a copy and explained why. They dutifully sent me a full poster, I selected the most appropriate section and asked the works department to cut it to size and cover the end wall, so it struck you the moment you walked in. It looked good, made the room cosier, and I hoped the occasional lad might ask what it was all about.
I had my own caseload and had given myself one of the most difficult young men in my house. Michael was 20.5 years of age and had a string of over 100 burglaries to his name already. He did not want to be in Borstal as he considered himself as a major criminal and thought he ought to be in an adult prison. At our first meeting to discuss his background and criminal record, I began with something like ’Now Michael’, he immediately said NO, you cannot use my Christian name as that implies, we have a personal relationship, we don’t, you can use my surname name or my number. A sobering truth that one should not presume that one has the right to decide and one I have never forgotten. What progress we made I was never sure. But he was fortunate that he had a very good aftercare officer, and that the North Sea oil exploration was expanding fast. As he lived in Great Yarmouth, he was able to accept the offer to work on one. Whilst on the rig he had to learn to get on with his fellow workers, and when he came ashore, he had a bundle of money he did not need to resort to crime. I know he succeeded as he was gracious enough to write to me and wrote:
“I was thinking about myself sometime back about 10 years ago when I would not work at all, now I am working an average of 72 hours a week- my how things change. I reckon Linda and me will have to start thinking about a family soon. It seems like there is not enough give and take in this world and too much violence. A lot of world leader’s act like spoilt school kids and then a lot of people get hurt, but the leaders just get away with it.”
This letter was at the period when petrol was rationed so he asked how I was getting on during the shortage and then said ‘being as I know a few people down here I can get petrol through the trade. I was never sure whether he was just stating the fact or trying to offer me a kind of inducement. More important, more than just hearing good news, it heartened me considerably to know that the efforts we had all put in had paid off, doubtful as I was at the time. He was probably the last person I would have expected to take the trouble to write. It is a vivid reminder that respect and concern for another individual may in its own way pay dividends, even though we might never know. It is a principle I have tried to uphold throughout my career.
The research was eventually fully written up as, ‘Criminals Coming of Age’ by F.H McClintock and A.E. Bottoms and published by Heinemann Educational Books for The Institute of Criminology, Cambridge.
By coincidence, the Ministry of Justice, to whom the prison and probation services now report, has just come up with a scheme identical to that undertaken at Dover in the 60s but was not continued after the research came to an end. I do not deny the scheme has merit; I have always thought that. It will be interesting to observe how well it is supported in its new form; so far no training is on offer other than whatever each establishment itself organizes, and there does not appear to be that any research or feedback is built in. Again, it does appear to include any change in its approach to aftercare provision, and this is a major concern in respect of re-conviction rates. They do say there are few new inventions, just a rehash of old ones.
The education centre at Dover was rated to be of a high standard, this was based on (as usual) exam results. A fair number of trainees from other houses undertook what was known then as GSE ‘0’ level exams, with a high percentage of good passes. My house holding the more sophisticated offenders and school failures were not clamoring for education but were more orientated to undertake trade training in such skills as painting and decorating, plastering, bricklaying or woodwork, though some of these did need remedial education even to embark on the trade training. This was viewed more as a ‘necessary drain’ on education resources and clearly not a priority. The Head of Education, Derek, was held in high regard by the Governor for the quality of the exam work, and they were close friends and often dined together. Derek had little time for me as I contributed nothing to ‘his empire’. Such was his hold over the Governor; he requested a deputy head of education be added to the department. The Governor sought and was granted funding for the new post, and recruitment was arranged.
Eventually, it was announced that a certain Miss Jane Morcom-Harneis had been appointed. She had undertaken full teaching training and then went on to Durham University and obtained a First-Class Degree in Social Sciences. Jane had taught in a London school in the east end with a very mixed group of children, situated near West Ham football stadium. She had persuaded some of the players to come to the school and help with both physical education and to impress others on the need for a good basic education. The players from West Ham had given generously of their time.
So she was a breath of fresh air and much more orientated to more socially disadvantage, but not to the pleasure of most of her colleagues in education. She decided that she would develop a remedial class for the underachievers which would use techniques that emphasized their unique qualities, and not their weaknesses of the past, lessons that engaged their attention. Whether it was my charm or perhaps more so that Hythe House had a high proportion of lads who needed that kind of class, it soon was a Hythe only class. So, suddenly I was much more involved with education, I had on an earlier contact with them been told that they were the experts, they knew best and to leave it to them, and basically not come over and raise issues or ask why certain lads could not get education! After several months it was clear that the lads on this class were not only enjoying it but were making sound progress with their education; they had also developed a special bond with Jane. It is a known fact that prisoners do not ‘grass on their mates whenever ‘misbehavior’ is being investigated. The Borstal also had regular attempts to abscond. One Friday a lad on the ‘outside paints party’ downed tools and scarpered before it was time to march back inside. I received a telephone call from Jane to advise that she had not returned one lad to Hythe as he wanted to speak to me but did not want others to know. So I went over and asked him what it was about, and he told me where the lad who had absconded was hiding up until nightfall. I said it was not usual for someone to tell me such information. (I suspect-ted he wanted to impress Jane for one, as I knew how much he was both admiring but also learning from her class) but what he said was that the lad who legged it was his allocated week to clean all the paintbrushes, but now he would have to do it.
As mentioned, the Governor and the Head of Education were very close, so he was allowed to take all the lads who were taking ‘O-Levels’ exams to go to his house for a party before sitting their exams. This was claimed that it relaxed them before the ordeal ahead. On this occasion, Jane went to the locked cabinet to check all the necessary papers had arrived and were in place. No packages of exam papers are allowed to be opened prior to the day of the exam; she discovered that all the packets had been opened! She came to me to ask what she should do; clearly the suspicion was that this had been done so that the candidates could be advised in advance of the questions, and so arm themselves with the appropriate answers I said there was no choice other than to inform the Governor of the facts and our suspicions. The Governor was clearly shocked and almost in disbelief, he asked if it could be left with him and to say nothing to anybody. The next time Derek arrived at the establishment he was immediately directed to the Governor’s office and after that was never seen again. All exams were cancelled, which was a shame for the lads who had made a genuine effort. Jane took over the running of education, not without some resentment from those tutors who were favourites of Derek and had been given a lot of latitude. Eventually, a new Head of Education was appointed, a man with an impeccable background, but a little lazy, but he and Jane got on well and she was allowed to put her stamp on the direction and priorities in education.
The previous year I had made a journey to Berlin with the Anglo-Jewish Society, the group travelled there by train and as soon as we entered Germany, East German Guards bordered the train and proceeded to check everyone credentials. Some of us thought it was quite amusing, but Berliners travelling took it very seriously as they could have been removed from the train if the paperwork was not satisfactory. The hotel we were using was in the suburb of Spandau, which is set by a lovely lake, but it also has a prison where some of the war criminals, including Rudolf Hess, were held. Visiting the various churches and holocaust memorials and museums with our Jewish companions was very moving. It was arranged that we had a day in East Germany so had to queue at Check Point Charlie, where we had to empty all our pockets so whatever was in them could be checked. I happened to have 2 postcards from West Berlin which I had written and already stamped ready to send home. These were confiscated with no explanation from the East German guards, much to my annoyance. We then entered East Germany by the underground and ascended at the station designated by the East Germans, so saw nothing of East Germany except the shopping square where we had been allowed to alight from the underground. An additional requirement was that you had to change the equivalent of £10 of West German marks into East German marks. We entered a large multi-store which was in that square and looked to see how to spend our marks. The shelves were virtually bare, I found a gramophone record stand and pulled one out, and within seconds I had a store assistant shouting at me and snatching the record out of my hand, babbling loudly in German. I got the drift of it and called shopping to a close. The problem was that West Germany had no use for East’s marks, so exchanging them gave a very poor rate of return.
The Berlin Opera House had been completely restored after the war and had only opened again that year. A member of the group obtained tickets for those who wished to attend the opera being performed. I joined the group; it was a delightful experience to just sit in this beautiful new theatre and being entertained by uplifting music.
Amongst the group were a few from a kibbutz in Israel, and they kept insisting we ought to come to Israel and visit one, and they offered their address. Another young man who lived in Camberwell was enthusiastic, so we made plans to meet up and develop the idea. As we wanted to fill a car I mentioned the proposal to Jane, as I knew she had been to Israel. She did not show much enthusiasm for the idea, just as well as the plan did not actually materialize. However, as a spinoff of all this Jane and I began meeting up for a meal out every so often, we enjoyed each other’s company and it continued to develop from there.
A trip did materialize but it was to Athens, not Israel; and was a holiday adventure with two friends, one of whom had access to a large tent which allegedly could sleep four. There we planned to find a suitable campsite and relax by the sea. As the boot on my little Renault was not large, I had to fit a roof rack for some of the luggage. I was the only driver, but we made good time through Belgium and Germany. Austria was a bit slower as there were no motorways then but was very scenic. Having crossed out of Austria on the only non-toll route, which was very steep, we entered Yugoslavia and set off on the alleged Belgrade motorway. This was fine to start with, but the surface of the road turned into the equivalent of a cobbled street, and one could feel the constant vibration. After several miles of this, I noticed in the side mirror that some of the luggage from the crowded roof rack was beginning to slide down the side of the car, so we had to stop and rearrange it all. On reaching Belgrade I realized that one Tyre had started to puncture, fortunately, we were near the accommodation we had booked for the night. Next morning two local lads arranged for the puncture to be fixed and we set off to reach Greece. We camped on a beach near MT Olympus. In the morning, I awoke to behold a Shepperd moving a large flock of sheep along the water's edge obviously to some new pasture. The sleeping arrangements were fine until I awoke anther morning to find a snake crawling around my part of the tent. I removed it, and we crowded into a smaller space. We then moved on to Athens and saw the sights. Also, whilst there a partial eclipse of the sun took place, which was interesting, but driving became even more hazardous as the local all continued driving whilst watching the eclipse through darkened glass whilst still driving. We then crossed the Corinth Canal and found a desolate camp site with virtually no facilities other than toilets and a dripping tap. but near the sea. The journey home was less eventful but rather tedious.
To Be Continued
Autobiography.
