Thanks, Logie Baird.

You will be surprised how time can expand and contract when it is you and four walls. Trying to keep ourselves occupied was a major preoccupation, just finding any way to kill the hours and days which were, in turn, killing us. Sleeping was the main method, with adepts developing the knack of being able to sleep as much as 23 hours a day. Close behind came a radio addiction, followed by tape cassettes. Until there came that wondrous day in the 1990’s when luck and circumstance saw some televisions officially finding their way into prisoners’ hands.

Standing in the old prison shop at Horfield, we watched as a screw hoisted a whole tray of PP batteries and headed for the door. "What’s that all about, guv?". No one ever needed a rack of PP's unless you were starting a war - their reputation as a bludgeon, when inserted in a hefty sock, was legendary.

The screw confessed that he was heading for the punishment block, as they had been bought by a con on a lie-down from a Dispersal...to power his television. The ripple of excitement ran through us; if one man can have a TV, then this is the perfect lever to move management to allow the rest of us.

And he did, without much of a fight either. We were allowed to buy battery operated Casio handheld TV’s, with a tiny screen. Only a handful did. The cost of the TV, the licence and then the expense of running it was frightening. But it broke the principle.

A couple of years later, we were allowed any type of battery powered TV and a friend of mine had a 5" coloured - coloured! - TV. I was writing lots of letters for him at the time, helping with his campaign of innocence, and in return I could borrow his telly for one night a week.

Smuggling the telly between our cells, hiding it until the screws had passed, setting it up, tuning it in...the anticipation was immense. And staying up until dawn, watching anything really, just to grab as much of this marvel as possible. I just can't pin this year down in my memory, but Spin City was one of my favourite programmes, Channel 4 evening primetime if I recall.

Ever since, TVs have infiltrated our lives, in some ways to our detriment. But filling the empty hours has become far less of a struggle.

Quirks

Although I insist that the research fails to reveal significant psychological damage from long-term imprisonment, this doesn't mean that we don't develop our little quirks.

Whilst we are often allowed to buy a duvet, I stick to prison sheets. Only sheets have an edge that is sharp, and as I fall asleep I run this edge between my toes. It keeps me happy...

Famously, I eschew drinking from cups or mugs. As I drink around three litres of tea or coffee a day, drinking out of a mug would see me forever hopping up and down to make more. Instead, I use a plastic one-litre water jug. As these are no longer issued to us, I guard my two and take them with me on transfers. Why two? One is for everyday use, and is never scrubbed clean. On the same theory that holds that teapots shouldn't have the tannin scrubbed out lest it affects flavour, so my jug long ago ceased to be transparent. It is brown-black, and looks disgusting. The other jug is a clean one, saved for use should royalty ever pop in for tea.

And I cannot sleep in silence. The TV or radio must be on in the background, preferably News 24 or the World Service, in order for me to get a decent night’s sleep.

As quirks go, these aren't too bad after thirty years, don't you think?

TV's

TV’s

I suppose that mentioning that I'm taking a break from my TV to write this post will only reinforce the prejudices of those who - whilst never having been behind a locked door - feel that prison is just too damn easy.

Prisoner’s TV’s have become totemic for those who subscribe to the Butlins view of prisons. TV’s infuriate swathes of the chattering classes and the political nonentities who echo their wittering. Why? What is the problem?

It's not as if TV’s are thrown our way with breakfast. We have to earn them through good behaviour and we pay a £1 per week for the privilege. No flat-screen, HD or Digital, only some piece of basic 14 inch Korean plastic and glass. Bad boys aren’t allowed them and if, like me, you are unemployed and have an income of £2.50 per week then a TV becomes the major expense.

TV's serve two official purposes. Firstly, as a key carrot in encouraging pro-social behaviour, no other privilege has such a universal appeal. We could be beaten into compliance, of course, but it is a universal truth that people respond better to rewards than punishments.

Secondly, TV's give us a connection to the wider society that allows us to import the changing culture and mores. Whilst prisons may seem to be solitary islands, the reality is that the walls are permeable and that we have a persistent mechanism to stay connected and informed is in society’s interest. We will return to the wider society some day, and it is in the community’s interests that we feel a part of that society. Disconnected people are far more likely to commit future crime.

And TV's in cells are safer. Darkened communal TV rooms encourage an interesting culture of machismo and provide the cover for nefarious activities. Nothing spoils a good film quite as much as the man next to you suddenly keeling over after being clumped on the noggin by a bed-leg that appeared out of the gloom!

So, do you want to deprive me of my telly?