Christmas inside

I recently came across this article I wrote in December 2003 about what it's like to spend Christmas in prison. My then-editor decided it would depress the readers - I admit the first sentence is pretty bleak - so it was never published.


Dave Alder has seen four close friends commit suicide in prisons around the country at Christmas time.

The 37-year-old Exeter Prison inmate estimates this was his 16th Christmas spent locked up -– and he will have to face at least another four or five inside before he is released.

“It’s the mind thing,” he says. “The body can survive anything, but it’s what goes on up there that affects people.”

Despite what the advertisements suggest, Christmas is not automatically a period of joy and goodwill to all. Many families find Christmas a struggle as the pressure to spend money they may not have and to enjoy themselves with people they may not get on with takes its toll.

But December 25 was especially bleak for the 520 inmates held in Exeter Prison over the festive season. The prisoners, many of whom are incarcerated hundreds of miles from their loved ones, all speak of the painful loneliness of spending Christmas inside. Visits are stopped on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and for security reasons they are not allowed to receive presents.

One prisoner on remand in Exeter, who asked not to be named, described spending Christmas in jail as “horrible”.

“On Christmas Day you’re just in a cell doing nothing, really,” he said. “This is my first ever time in prison, and it’s not the sort of thing I’m ever going to do again. Just being in prison has messed up everything – I want to get back to a normal family life.”

Dave, who is originally from Bristol, received a nine-year sentence a fortnight before Christmas and is now waiting to be moved to a long-term prison to serve out his time.

“I have done a lot of Christmases, and now I just switch off until about the second of January,” he said. “I’ve done that many that I’ve become immune.

“Everyone copes with it in a different way. If you’re four or five weeks from getting out, you can cope with it. But it’s different if you’re a few years away from getting out.

“One way I’ve found of handling it is that I sit in my cell and look out of my window on Christmas Eve – I think, no matter what, there are people even worse off than I am out there.”

Prison staff do what they can to make Christmas more bearable for the inmates. Christmas trees and tinsel brighten up drab landings, quizzes, gym competitions and extra videos are organised, and on Christmas Eve the prison chaplaincy team delivered to every prisoner a parcel containing a diary, a quiz, a Mars bar, a card signed by all the chaplains and a letter from somebody outside the jail.

Once Christmas is over, things take on a more positive hue for prisoners, who regard each New Year’s Day as a “milestone” and an important step closer to their release.

And jail is not without its light-hearted moments, even over Christmas. Dave jokes that the growing number of repeats on television over the festive period is especially galling to those who are locked up.

He explains: “In prison, telly is a distraction, a way of cabbaging out and switching off. But now you’re watching the same rubbish you watched three or four years ago.”

Half-seriously, he adds: “I reckon they should put us to sleep from December 23 to January 2 so we can hibernate over Christmas. There would be a high percentage of prisoners who would go for that.”

The standard of Exeter Prison’s Christmas dinner also raises smiles. This year the prisoners ate chicken, stuffing and Brussels sprouts – with real vegetables in place of the dried ones they normally get – followed by Christmas pudding with Brandy sauce. Except there was no Brandy in the sauce, and the fact that the whole meal is “slopped onto a steel tray” spoils it somewhat, according to the prison chaplain orderly, who also asked not to be named.

The chaplain orderly, who is currently awaiting sentence, is philosophical about his situation.

He said: “I was paired up in my cell with someone who was going out on Christmas Eve, which was nice for him but hard for me. But years ago I was in a Zimbabwean prison over Christmas, with eight people to a cell – this is a lot better.”

But all the prisoners keep coming back to the most punishing aspect of spending Christmas in jail – the fact that they are apart from their families.

“Everyone is aware of what is going on outside and what they are missing,” says Dave. “I had a visit on Christmas Eve with my kids for about an hour-and-a-half, but it wasn’t long enough.

“Everyone is going to think about their family at Christmas – but the last thing you want to hear is that they’re having a wonderful time.”

Rev Jim Gosling, one of the chaplains at the prison, added: “Things are focused at Christmas. People start thinking about their families and frustration sets in.”

Ali Lucas, head of learning and skills at Exeter Prison, stresses that prison officers do everything they can to support prisoners at this difficult time. Prisoners who have been trained by the Samaritans act as “listeners” for fellow inmates who are finding things difficult, and chaplains are on hand 365 days a year.

She said: “Everybody puts themselves out to put on as many additional activities as possible, but you are never going to compensate for their families. But to some extent that’s how it should be – it isn’t a holiday camp, and it shouldn’t be better than being out.”