Kevin Went Mad

Now and then, the individual eccentricities that we develop tip into something more serious. Occasionally, one of us goes properly bonkers.

Kevin was the nick's resident artist, producing astonishing paintings with the barest of materials. His idea of entertainment was to lie in a haze of dope, making occasional forays towards his canvas. The art paid for the dope, a good portrait going for upwards of sixty quid.

His most controversial effort was a life sized mural of Princess Diana on his cell wall. She was stark naked, legs akimbo, servicing herself with a black dildo of impossible proportions. Kevin complained that it took him ages to finish as he had to keep stopping to masturbate. The screws, Royalists to a man, were livid. This may have been the first sign of his incipient loony-ness.

We were only really sure that he was mad when he took it on himself to march into the Education Department, knock on the office door and shove a copy of Fiesta Readers ' Wives in the face of the Manageress. "Is this you? Ozzie says this is you".

Ozzie knew no such thing. He was upstairs, packing his kit for a very unexpected and sudden move to Open prison. The fallout was spectacular. Ozzie found his move to Open changed into a move to Scrubs, "under investigation". The manageress was mortified. And Kevin went off to a nuthouse. The new occupant of his cell repainted the wall.