![]() ![]() Prisoners were grateful, staff were appreciated, the newly set up “thanks page” of the national prison newspaper was overwhelmed. Anticipating a catastrophe inside - “ We imagined the chapel full of body bags - ” an officer told me - prisoners were locked in their cells for 23 ½ hours a day. Out in the out, the lucky ones who were well, supported, with space and internet, enjoyed cautious walks in a spring that was the most ravishing ever - “ You could hear birdsong!” - discovered Zoom, and Netflix, deliveries by van or kind neighbour, and on Thursday nights joined the world on doorsteps, in windows, and on balconies, to clap for the National Health Service. We had no idea when the reading group would meet again. The Making it Up family reading event was cancelled. Access to the gym, the library and family visits - everything stopped. That is to say, all movement around prisons stopped, work stopped, face to face education stopped, as did all voluntary sector activities upon which many prisons rely. And life wouldn’t change so much for them.Ī couple of days later, along with London - catching up with the rest of the UK, and the rest of Europe - the prison sector locked down. “ So what’s the big fuss about a few weeks locked down - ?” They were sanguine, amused even. The men had picked up that “on the out”, people were genuinely alarmed at the prospect of being locked down for a few weeks. " You think that’s tough,” one man said, and told us a story or two of his own. ![]() Several men spoke about brutal early lives, in and out of prison, in and out of care. The men help each other if they stumble over a word. We often read a few passages aloud to get us started - this is again entirely voluntary, as members might be emergent or unconfident readers or might have difficulty reading in English. We had a long excursus on racism in England and I promised to bring in Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman (recently televised) next time. That March the men had chosen to read A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines. Prison Reading Groups (part of Give A Book) are voluntary and informal they encourage sociability, discussion and connectedness, and run on the principle of choice in a place where choice is hard to come by. There were nine men in the group and an officer joined us halfway through. As always, we met in the busy library - prison libraries are noisy and active, places for company and conversation. Staff had told me that they were trying to play down the threat of the lockdown out of concern for its psychological effect on the prisoners. Outside the atmosphere was electric, but inside the prison seemed much as usual. Outside, the rumour was that a full lockdown was imminent in England, there were already alerts around travel and my colleague was unable to come into prison so I would be taking the monthly reading group. The family visit event around reading, when the fathers would present their books to their children, was planned in a few days’ time. The prison family reading project, Making it Up, was nearing fruition, and prisoner fathers had been working with us for weeks to make storybooks for their children. On Despairing of the Police and Loving their Archives.The First 30 Days of the COVID Pandemic, February-March 2020.Reflecting on the Archive During a Pandemic: WHO.Out of lockdown in the Age of Revolutions: Jean-Baptiste Say’s tour of Britain, 1814.Who Benefits from Technological Progress (And What Bugs Have to Do with It). ![]()
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