Peterhead by Robert Jeffrey Read Free Book Online Page B

doors were opened and prisoners headed out, guarded by warders, to the yard in designated groups and then proceeded “to work, formerly in the quarry, but latterly to the Admiralty yard.” Before leaving the prison they were searched. At 11.30 the prisoners were re-formed into parties and searched again before “dinner,” which was broth, beef, bread and potatoes, or sometimes cheese. It was back to work from 1pm till 5.30 and then back to the prison where 14oz of dry bread and a pint of coffee was given out. Prisoners were then free to read if they could or otherwise entertain themselves until 8.30pm.
    Maclean, an avid reader, noted that the books provided were selected to exclude anything to do with murder, suicide and other morbid ideas which were not healthy. This is not the case these days when prison libraries give access to the full range of the world of literature – and in some cases even DVDs of crime films, though that raises the blood pressure of the folk who think a life behind bars is overly cushy.
    The quality of thought of the great socialist and a certain fair-mindedness on his part is evident in his writings at this time. His confinement ended in forced feeding and other tortures, including he claimed, drugging his food, but he could still remark that the provision of clothing, regular food, a dry bed and relatively short hours of labour was still a better life than that endured by the poor outside of the prison walls. Which is a remarkable insight into the way life was lived all these years ago.
    Some of the warders, too, showed a humanitarian side and an order that prisoners were not supposed to speak to each other except in connection with their work was largely ignored. If you discounted the “scientific torture” he wrote about, he wryly remarked that twenty years in Peterhead might be better than ten years down a mine in the days when mine owners exploited their workers and thought little of their lives. In prison your “employers” did not take risks with your life to line their pockets. But it was no place for an educated and idealistic man driven by a passion to improve life for his fellows.
    Maclean died young and Peterhead played a role, his physical health torn from him by the savage conditions in jail. Books, however, saved his mental health and he left a considerable legacy of socialist thinking. And one thing is for sure: John Maclean was certainly not your run-of-the-mill Peterhead con.

5
JUSTICE FOR THE CAGED INNOCENTS
    Those who believe that only the guilty go to jail, the sort of folk – and there are still some around today – who insist that “they wouldna be in the dock if they hadna done it” should take a look at the evidence and the statistics. Those who confidently proclaim that the English and Scottish systems of law and judgement are the finest in the world might be, in the totality of things, correct. But they are in a dream-world if they also believe that there are no innocents in jail or indeed that no innocent man ended his days dangling at the end of a rope. I remember going round Barlinnie with a recent governor, Bill McKinley, a much respected high flier in the prison service, now retired, and as we spoke to a group of inmates he remarked, “Any innocent men in here?” Many a hand shot into the air. And everyone, prisoners and visitor alike, had a quiet smile. But there was a chance that this straw poll in a jail holding some of the toughest residents of Glasgow, a city known worldwide for having a high proportion of hard men with no respect for the law, was probably not completely wrong.
    Of course, you can’t always be sure. Cases of wrongful imprisonment come to light with remarkable regularity. But in this case, in Barlinnie, any con fitted up by the police or otherwise wrongly imprisoned would likely be someone with a record as long as your arm who on release would soon return, this time genuinely guilty. Such claims of innocence are a prison