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Deep Inside

by Mike Willmott

68 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); poetry; short fiction; catalogue #06-2748; ISBN 1-4251-0989-6; US$14.51, C$16.69, EUR11.31, £7.50

"Don't let the bastards get you down." The personal story of someone who wouldn't let the nonsense of prison get him down. An fun, original, eclectic collection of prison writings.

About the Book

I am a Cambridge Graduate (English 2:1 1972). I am the son of a Vicar. Arriving in jail as a first timer is shocking, particularly as a 56-year-old, normally 'good' citizen, or 'burgher of this borough'. (Shrewsbury, Shropshire, UK). That's what happened to me on April 7th, 2005, after I had been distressed enough to set fire to my own office at home. Within less than 24 hours of the incident, I was bundled into The Dana at Shrewsbury. I had handed myself over to the police because I knew I had done something wrong. I also knew I was ill and needed help. I was at wit's end.

After librium had helped me down from excess alcohol - (a major contributory factor in the causation of the sorry event) - I set about surviving, on the only terms available. These were my own. Writing was the means by which I tried to make order out of Chaos, or what I later determined was KAFKA = the institutional insanity of the prison unsystem. I wrote irregularly but constantly, jotting down everything and anything of interest - to keep the mind alive in this most mind-destroying of places. The Alpha-Omega was my special vehicle - a concise way of getting mind over matter. I stole unashamedly from the books to hand, and then made my 'A-Z' sense of the meat of them. There was a wonderful hour of performance just after Christmas in Stafford Jail when prisoners shared talents. That's what I'm doing now, I hope. For any 'outside' or 'inside' prisoners. 'The mind is its own place, and in itself/Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.' Writing helps self-analysis, making sense, keeping self together - hope. 'Don't let the bastards get you down.' Words rise.