Once Upon a Crime by Jimmy Cryans Read Free Book Online

of hair-clippers. I came away looking like a refugee from a Nazi concentration camp. We were marched through the prison and across several massive courtyards to the borstal wing. It was about 100 metres long and five storeys high and housed about 800 young guys.
    The first things to hit me were the smell and the noise. It stank with a mixture of piss, sweat, cabbage and fear, and the noise was somewhere between a football match and a lunatic asylum. Welcome to gladiator academy. I instinctively knew that I would need to be on full alert in this snake-pit and that any sign of weakness would be fatal. I was placed in a cell with two guys, both 20 years old. One was a very street-smart Londoner and he was a really smashing guy who asked mestraight away if I needed toothpaste or tobacco. He was typical of most Londoners I was to meet over the years: always ready to lend a hand and with a wicked sense of humour.
    Fights were commonplace at slopping out, meal times or on the exercise yard and I witnessed some really tremendous battles. There was only one occasion when I was involved myself and it happened as we were queuing at the hot-plate and a guy tried to jump the queue in front of me. I said, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ to be answered with, ‘Fuck off, you little slag.’ I just whacked him over the nut with the metal tray I was holding and he folded like a deck chair.
    Boys from all over England were put together in the Scrubs as this was where they would be allocated to the various borstals. It was a real mixture of guys from London, Birmingham, Portsmouth, Liverpool and some Scots boys who had lived in England. Many alliances were made that were to last a lifetime and many of the guys who ended up as top dogs in their various cities started their rise in the young prisoners’ wing at the Scrubs.
    I arranged a visit with Ma and Christine but on the day they walked right past without recognising me. Ma cried out, ‘What have they done to you?’ Both of them were in shock at my appearance and I must have looked a pitiful sight. ‘Oh, my God,’ said Christine and they both had tears in their eyes.
    I tried to make light of it by saying, ‘What do you mean? This is the latest style up here in the big London town’ and once they had calmed down we had a really good visit, though it only lasted half an hour. As they turned and walked away my heart sank and I was suddenly hit with a wave of loneliness. I have no doubt that both Ma and Christine were wiping away a few more tears.
    After a couple of months I was sent on to Guys Marsh near Shaftesbury in Dorset, an open borstal which was less severe. We arrived on 3 December 1970, a bitterly cold day with a covering of snow everywhere. I was allocated a job with the garden party and soon settled in. It was good to be out in the fresh air after being cooped up in a cell. I had a visit arranged for the week just before the holiday and I couldn’t wait to see Christine and my ma again. I knew they would feel much better after seeing me as I looked much more like my old self. They arrived on a Saturday afternoon and the visit was a real tonic for all of us and lasted for a couple of hours. This was to be the pattern for the next ten months and both of them were on time at every visit.
    I had my own small room, which had to be kept scrupulously clean. Every Saturday a very thorough inspection was carried out by an officer who was an ex-naval commander and he didn’t miss a trick. The whole place was run on military lines and discipline was very rigid with plenty of physical activity. My footballing ability was spotted early on and I very quickly won a place in the borstal team that played in a local league, so I managed to fill my time.
    The hardest thing for me was being separated from Christine who I had grown to love and cherish. She was everything I ever wanted in a girl and I missed her so much that it was physically painful. Christine was really wonderful during