The judge, the ex-con and the academics

I was at a facinating seminar today, for academic and work purposes. As many of you know, I walk the line between and paradigm of professional practice, lived experience and academic undertakings; and today was a fusion of all such aspects.

Looking at "Sentencing and the future of incarcertaion," through the lens and relevance of The Sentencing Act 2026 - and what a lens to view potential changes, upheaveal or indeed; intertia through.

The troubling times of the CJS and the prison system in this country are not new, much like many of our flailing public services, 11 years of Tory government, chronic underinvestment, or more directly, dis-investment, for services, systems and provisions, both custodial and community, combined with the ducking and diving of privatisation and shark like commodotisation of our justice system and indeed the people, perpetrators and victims in all their non-biary forms within it; have left it hobbling into 2026 and a Labour government full of promises / promise.... to bring about a new dawn. Corston calling anyone?

Be that as it may, and punitivie policy, politics and presumption aside, today's seminar was a foray into what can be done, should be done, could be done, but came with the expected caveats of funding, consistency, persistence and people centred approaches - which were not all met with appreciation. A magistrate among us asked in a round about way, if the concept of investing in prisoners, indulging in arts and wellbeing, was a little contrived through the lens of harm and victim impact; asking the panel and indeed the room to consider, how the victims felt about flights of fancy in arts and creativity when these perpetrators of harm should be punished not pampered (I write collequially as always, but the gist is here) There was an air of punitive expectation, a hint of Daily Mail prisons are summer camps for predators, perverts and pretenders and should be a-kin to labour camps and arbitary cages of remorse and repenting. Of which they are. Anyone who has indeed been incarceated in recent years within the UK prison estate will know, the stories of Xbox laden cells, drugs parties and gang bangs with bent prison officers are often media derived delusions designed to inflame an already antaganoised Great British public, whilst we look for the scapegoat to our own miseries in life, be it immigrants in boats or prisoners walking among us, the reality is - we are all just human. And as one delightful man on the panel responded - the question is not necessarily about how the victims feel; its about how we feel, as a society who have failed perpetrators of crime systematically, in social care, education, health, healing and more. Here here to that.

A pragmatic response to a loaded question that could only have been posed by a member of the judiciary, that said, I'm a firm believe that all thoughts, feelings, view points in the CJS are valid and with merit, shared through our own morals, ethics and the work we do, our conscious, unconscious bias, and anything and everything in between, and I have no doubt, as the woman at the end of the gavel, she has seen and heard the worst of the worst in human nature and the hurt we can cause and impose upon one another. It is of course, her job, to protect the public, and by directive, the victims in her care, of whom she is to seek balance, recompense and fairness for. Still, it did not stop my preverbial feathers from being quite ruffled at the thinly veiled assertion that it's inappropriate to spend public money on prisoners who have caused harm. As this neglects the primary point - this failure to invest in people who have caused harm, who have been victims of harm, are all healed in the same way - person centered, intersectional, compassionate, human approaches that seek to rehabilitate, not redeem.

Prison is punishment enough. It really, really is.

Alas, the reason for my writing today, as I sit processing the information, statistics, legislation, thought and purpose of todays seminar and how it relates to my work, heart and more, is in something it shook loose. 

A memory.

We were presented with a beautiful montage and summary of a project called WE ROAR, arts and wellbeing for prisoners, to articulate their feelings, community and heart through art, poetry and more. Exactly the kind of work that opens hearts and minds inside the gates; and out.

And it made me think. Poetry, writing, was my solace, my repreive, my escape. Many of you have read, heard, seen the pieces I wrote whilst incarcerated and it made me think of the way we shape, make or break people with our words, and our pride.

When I won a poetry comeptition in prison, I was tannoyed across the prison estate and called to the education department. There was a gaggle of education practitioners, admin, etc, huddled around a computer in their office. A blonde, stark, arrogant woman, of whom I concequently after this interaction was not fond of, said 

"Where did you get this?" brandishing my hand written work.

"We've googled it line by line but can't find it, did you find it in a book?"

I didn't understand the question - the piece in question was my "All The Kings Horses, - Fuck the Patriarchy) and ode to Sarah Everrard; that gives you context and timeline of my incaceration and perhaps insight into which establishment shared these thoughts with me.

"I wrote it?"

"No,"

"Prisoners can't write like this,"

And there it was. Assumption, presumption and arrogance. From the lady in education.

Prisoners can't write like this.

Says who?

By what measure?

What standard?

The audacity. It was the first time I had felt anger, injustice that flamed inside me with the desire to respond "how fucking dare you?" but decided to swallow the fire for fear of concequences.

And instead repeat - "I wrote it,"

Those of you who know me, know my writing, my work. It's not hard to see that. My voice is fairly recognisiable whether in poetry, academic, or blog. It's very Fran-esque, it's the reason you keep reading this blog.

The same woman, could not fathom my future work.

Equalities rep for the women in the prison, I got to contribute to the prison newsletter, I wrote various articles on various topics - my favourite of which for Pride Month, was "LQBTQIA+ or something like that," and it began as all good Fran works do; referencing my mother-in-law; the essence of the piece was that, if my 70+ year old mother in law can get down with the kids and understand the use of language around equality and trans rights, non-binary and more, and try - not perfectly, to embrace a new world of visibility and equity, then anyone can, and that we are without excuse or cause to neglect our obligation to learn, listen, and understand one another a little better; that said, not always getting it right, but always being willing to try. It was a cathartic piece, of course, deeper meanging extending to my behaviour and growth as the same as the other women around me - that we can only try to do better, to be better, and not always get it right, and thats OK.

This article too was brandished, she couldn't comprehend, that someone like me, could write like that, and reach people the way I do.

This woman was in charge of functional skills..... she had made a judgement that I was a prison cliche and therefore inept, lacking in grace, creativity and skill to be able to write.

If that's how she responded to me, a well educated white privildge woman in prison, how did she respond to my peers who had lower educational outputs or engagements? But who had equal measure of heart, creativity and desire to express themselves in art, poetry, writing, cooking? More.

And it led me to my next memory (all whilst sat in a lecture hall in Manchester today)

"You need to manage your expectations,"

This was the response to a woman in employment who asked me what my salary expectations were based on the kind of jobs I wanted to apply for upon release.

I said what I wanted, she told me to manage my expectations.

"Why? That's what I was on before I came to prison?"

And she laughed.

In retrospect, she wasn't wrong. Just a little cynical and a touch cruel.

It wasn't a reframing of reality, it was a crush.

If she had met my hopeful expectation with "that may be a little harder given your recent custodial sentence, perhaps consider x, y, z," or "have you considered how you might approach disclosure if these are the kind of jobs your considering?"

No. Just a laugh, a smirk, and a comment that lives on 5 years later.

However, those assumptions about me, my future, my past, my ability, fuel this progress.

I spent my life pretending and hoping to be more than I was, to earn love, kindness, friendship, family. It was fragile and it was fake. 

What a liberating experience to have time in prison to reflect, respect and honour the skills, qualities and purpose I do have, within me, on paper - fine, but who I am, what I want, what I can, have and will achieve.

I'm still quite childish in my personality disordered existence - if you tell me I can't, I will. If you tell me I'll fail, I'll work harder to succeed. I have my mothers voice burning in my brain, the prison officer, the education lady, and of course - lets not forget the judge "you are a most dishonest woman,"

I suppose that's why the magistrate lady's words bothered me so; it was a prick to my conscience, my past, my hurt, it felt personal - like all of those who have caused harm should live in our shame forever, and be shackled by it, shirking the good and the care of others, the investment and encouragement. 

I think, committing a crime, committing 10, 11, 12, is a burden you carry to your grave, it's like being Jacob Marley, when you want to be Ebonezer Scrooge.

The hope in days like today, is that, even without 3 ghosts, we can live shackle free happy lives, with grace and kindness. For ourselves, and for others. That's healing. And that's worth investing in.

The white privildge disguise

 I never know if my white priviledge aesthetic is a secret weapon or a barrier; because it jars with the reality  of who I really am - the opposite.

Because at face value, the person who wears the high end black brogues, and the nice casual suit, with the Apple Watch, and the lovely diamond engagement ring slid nicely next to a beautiful wedding ring sends the message - I'm one of you. In places like the Houses of Parliament, where I was today, (again!), I blend, in ways possibly some of my other lived experienced peers don't.

It's the elocution lessons I had to take when I was adopted, that have served me well. It's the etiquette of being a white middle class girl, raised by social climbing adoptive parents, well groomed, privately educated, univeresity graduated, says the right things in the right ways.

But let's face it; I'm Eliza Doolittle and I always have been, and my life is Pygmallion on loop.

I may well have been raised by posho's but I'm now a working class grafter, juggling freelance work, academic undertakings, renting a private house from a private landlady who owns more property than I can ever dream of getting a foot on the ladder, and making it pay cheque to pay cheque with a little leftover to give safety, sanity and space to not trigger my offending behaviours of financial instability panic. Some days it feels like I'm on top of the world and performing my A game, bringing home the future we have been working towards, for people like me, for wives like mine, for lives like ours. And other days, I feel like I'm treading water, weighed down by 3 decades of trauma, chaos and calamity that won't release me from it's chokehold.

Today in Parliament, I was met with the usual emotional conflict - be in the room where the real change happens, fly the flag for the lived experience women, tell the story, share the power, the pain, the purpose, hammer home the reality and the vitality of what it means to include the voices of a failed system - justice, care, education, social. Failed systems.

We are the walking wounded. And we walk into rooms like that all the same and bare our hearts and souls, for the greater good. That the picking of the scab of self sacrifice and retraumatisation is for a reason, it's not thankless, it's not thoughtless, it's not wasted, it's seen, it's heard and without us, the echo chambers persist.

So I shared, that I myself recognise I'm a cliche, that my white priviledge masks my true form - a ward of court, a care system child, a victim of CSE, rampant and organised abuse and exploitation at the hands of man who was himself a serving police officer - my father. Adopted into middle class surbubia as an accessory for ignorant ill-equipped rich people who wanted children and commandered two from the system, an act of charity that proved to cost them dearly.

It cost me more.

Emotional abuse, cold hearted cruelty, an abject disdain for all that I was, had been and became. The street rat my adoptive mother coined me. The slut. The sloven. The mothers daughter (biological), the proverbial apple that did not fall far from the tree.

I endured decades of ridicule at my size, my appearance, my trauma, my baggage, my sexuality and what evolved? My criminality.

Removed and voided from the family tree, and frozen into siberia, alone. The white middle class girl, who was raised to see value in money and not in people, now let loose on a world with no inbuilt guidance system. No morals. No ethics. No direction. No sense of self. An angry broken child, now havoc wreaking 20 something.

Where the allowance in the bank account disappeared overnight, the mobile phone was cut off, the credit cards no more. And this child of fragility and madness, was now an adult with no concept of the cost of anything. No financial. Not people. And so it was no wonder I became the selfish creature who defrauded people without real consideration of the harm - in my childs mind, it was always; self preservation.

Today, there was a barrister who had done alot of work around sexual exploitation and trafficking and how it served in mitigating criminal behaviour - note the word, mitigating, not justifying.

And all I could think was... I told the probation officer who did my pre-sentence report about my experiences in London, I told them of my sex work, of my trauma, of my tale of woe, raped at 19, pregnant as a concequece, distored and disintegrating as time went by.

Mitigation was not taken on by my judge. Not one iota. If anything, she seemed genuinely irritated anything that had come to pass in my life up to the point of commiting crime was not reason enough to explain my actions - I agree, in my madenned haze in 2016, I too could not justify my actions, let alone reason them but whilst in prison, and the years that have followed; I understand, I am a product of all that came before.

It was only during my prison sentence that I was truly seen for being a victim of anything; in the first instance, yes - trafficking

I am your text book female offender. If there was a checklist for knowing who would end up in prison and who would not, I tick all of the boxes. My biological family is rife with criminals, both my mother and my father - he's a bad bad man and pervert and she's an enabler who went on to commit murder. I was not made of good stock. More than that, I am the child of two devious but two broken people, who too, will have missed their stop in getting off the road to ruin. My mother is the product of her childhood as much as I am. Generational trauma, familial incarceation, child in care, abuse, trauma, drugs, prostitution, homelessness, mental health disorders. I am a cliche.

So when I articluated that today, it was with the private school tone of a posh northerner, and as I spoke, I heard how jarring it was, to look and hear me, and hear my words. 

But hear them they did.

And I suppose that is the point of this rapid thought dump on the train home from London - perhaps, my white privilege is a secret weapon, because paired with my true form, it opens doors, ears, hearts and minds, in ways perhaps some may find harder.

I'm aware of that.

I'm also aware that I zoom home to Manchester, to my wife, my life, our little terraced house and ridiculous 14 year old cat, continuing on the fertility treadmill, working our socks off in jobs that are mentally exhausting, surviving, occasionally thriving, but always proud of who we are and how we got here.

I wouldn't trade this version of me, this true Fran, and this life we build, for all the bloody allowances and pretensious nonsense I was raised with. Not one bit.

Parliament? Policy, people, and a prison visit. Awards, grades and it's only Wednesday. A week in the life of Fran

 I think a blog today was inevitable; it's been quite a wild 7 days.

Those of you who read along as I write, diligently awaiting the next chapter and installment of the life of Fran will know that this time last week; indeed, to the minute in fact as I type; I was sat in the Doctors office having a fairly difficult and by and large tragic conversation. Indeed, those of you who read this blog will also know, I don't cope well with grief, loss and difficult emotional conversations sometimes and that more often than not, my coping mechanism is to drive right on through the road blocks and work hard, do more and have a world full of distraction. I suppose the fact I'm typing this from the train station lounge on my laptop, having had a whirlwind two days in London, following on from a wild week last week work wise, is indicative of that. And it's never easy work; as it's fuelled by who I am, what I care about and it can be draining to drive what feels like my lifeforce into the dark parts and back out again, but walking through fire is part of the job description for lived experience wonder women (non-binaries) like me.

I suppose I've been keeping my mind occupied, today as I was en-route to a womens prison down south, my NHS app flashed to let me know I have an appointment with our fertility consultant next week; it feels a bit fresh. It feels a bit raw. It's almost ironic that we've been on this treadmills for so long that we can go months without contact, jump through hoops, be on a waiting list, drop off one, meet the criteria, and rinse and repeat. I suppose last weeks sad news, combined with my weight loss goal being more or less perfection in terms of NHS fertility funding; I'm the success story yo-yo-ing between being an ozempic queen, a mounjaro monster, a cold turkey flying solo weight loss whizz kid. It's not been linear, and I live my life like any other, through the lens of envy at times that my journey has been up and down and I don't look like I hoped I would, that things still don't fit the way I want them too, that I expected some sort of TikTok unveiling of a hot new bod - I took a picture yesterday morning, cheekbones were popping, chin was singular, face was HOT. I took a picture yesteday afternoon (angle - not kind, boomer vibes point UP) and I looked like I ate the person who was on my instagram yesterday morning; cheeks plumped out, chin threatening to bring back it's best mate, and I felt bleh, I went from feeling fit, thin and fab at 10am, to chubby butterball in the evening. Both are true; girls living with PCOS letting insulin resisitance, inflammation and water weight float around in this body like a life raft; you could literally float me out to sea by end of day, and there's no jade face roller in the world thats going to combat it; I digress, not unusual for a neurodiverse brain running at a million miles a minute whilst feeling all the feelings all at once. My point is; even when I don't see the progress, it's there, whether it's in a chin or two, or in the incredible work thats taking place; it's there.

Yesterday I had the most glorious day of empowerment, visibility and belonging - which is a strange combination of validating factors; when I studied Politics at Uni, bright eyed and bushy tailed aged 18, I had an idealistic notion I could change the world... we are 20 years on and that become more true with each day that passes now.

Stomping through Parliament with a hoarde of angry, fired up women - there's nothing more dangerous. Waiting to go into a room, lined up underneath Theresa May's portrait - I love it. The power, the irony, our T-May looking so stern and like she's about the fuck shit up; surrounded by women who are literally there to fuck shit up and shake up the system that fails time and time again. Tory or not, the woman had balls. Bigger than Keir no doubt.

The first time I went to Parliament, in a room like that; I didn't know anyone, yesterday, I was surrounded by familiar faces, allies, comrades, friends and cheerleaders (and to quote my new favourite person - Daisy; it's a sisterhood!)

I trotted in and sat next to the ever wonderful and always beautiful PROFESSOR Laura Abbott (must change her name in my phone from Dr Abbott) and together, a group of anachists, advocates and allies watched parts of the incredible film Lollipop; yes I've mentioned it before, yes I'll mention it again; and I'll bore you to death in the pestering of WATCH IT AS ITS ON BBC 2 TOMORROW; I'm not kidding - it is; WATCH IT. (And if you don't watch it tomorrow; wathc it on iplayer) 

When I watched Lollipop, it was over the summer, holding my wifes hand in the cinema up north, in sunny Manchester; we both sat in silence, hands clasped together, so much so Sarah didn't even eat the popcorn and anyone who knows her knows this is unheard of! - silence. And then anger.

She was angry because she watched it in slow motion, the injustice, the horror, the hurt, the shame, the pain and she felt it eek into the pain she felt when I was sent to prison and she was failed, as a wife, as my collateral damage. She felt it in my coming home, to a probation officer not fit for purporse and for systems that continued to exacerbate harm, not mediate or heal it. She watched it through the eyes of a woman who married a child of the care system. And I watched it yesterday in Parliament as just that.

The street rat from London who was adopted too many years after the fact; from poverty to priviledge and back again; I watched Lollipop yesterday and my childish brain saw the pain and the struggle of a mother who would have set fire to the world to have her babies back - mine did not do that. She had us taken, one by one. I was made a Ward of court, she was a danger, my father was a danger, they were not fit to be parents, whether through choice or chokehold of addiction and bad behaviour; we weren't taken by the care system we were given.

But as I watched beautiful Posy articulate Molly's struggle in the film; I wondered for the first time, a different avenue of thought - what if people had helped Bridie? (my biological mother) - because for all her flaws; she was failed too. Just because she didn't fight for us, doesn't mean she didn't want to; she just wasn't equipped to do so. This is a woman who has lived a life like mine, early years; and it's not my story to tell - however her court reports are in the public domain; which is where I myself learned I am the daughter of a woman who went to prison; but in short; she is a classic case of systems failure. Not protected by the state from bad men, from early years, to marriage, she didn't have many options for recovery. She was bound to the life of crime through the dependence and familiarity it gave her. No-one showed her a better way. 

She needed the chance to leave the area, get away from the monsters, both at home and in marriage, she needed a safe space, to heal, get help, get clean, get housed, get whole. She needed time to understand how to be a mother and not part of a cycle. I am literally the product of a generational curse. Compounded through a distorted and paradox life of privildge which ended the same way; trauma, abadonment and pain.

She needed more than the option to just give her children away; because with one, then it had to be two, by the time baby 3 (me) and baby 4 my younger brother came along; she was never going to be allowed to keep one.

So I watched Lollipop with a pain in my heart yesterday; that Bridie was failed, in echoes of the ways I was too. We both ended up behind bars and broken, causing chaos and destruction in our wake for longer than should ever have been allowed to be the case. I watched Holloway with the same pain, knowing that's where she spent some of her prison years; that she became an institutionalised cliche and remains so even now shes a lifer in the community.

I am the daughter of a killer, a nonce, and thereafter two white privildge twats who don't do babies with baggage.

But I'm still the kid who turned into the adult and walked into Parliament yesterday to give every part of me, my past, present and future to create a world where there are less Frans and less Bridies and more healed, happy, healthy women who can shape the world they belong in properly.

After the emotional rollercoaster, I put the world to rights with a few superwomen in a pub across the road, hours of chit chat and life and then I wandered to a perfectly lovely hotel across the bridge and facetimed Sarah to tell her about my day.

It's Wednesday. 7 days after we had news of our sad loss of what could have been.

It's been alot.

Today, I zoomed off to a womens prison to talk "life after prison" the reality, the barriers, how to overcome them - what it takes to do it. An army. An army of us.

I talked about the road to self-employment, to the freedom of doing what I love, what it takes, what it breaks, what it means; to do something you love, that takes a lot from who you are. But that it's worth it. When I got there, I sat at the front, in my little panelist chair, holding the microphone, facing a room full of women - and I thought "just like me," - faces full of optimism and hope, despite their incarceration. Faces full of joy. Despite the bars. There to listen, learn and take it all in.

What a joy, what a privildge. But I still have the ache, of leaving the prison walls, the keys and the gates, to come home. That I sit, I type, I drink my coffee, I have my moment of repreive before returning home. And they go back, to the cells, to the wing, to the bang up, to the quiet, to the roar, the noise, the nothing. And I still don't get it. That I get to prance into a prison, talk all things hope and happiness if you put the work in and not feel the hypocrisy of being the one who gets to leave.

One woman I spoke to, it was like looking in a mirror; in for financial crime, slammed, harsh sentence, ripped from her family, job, friends, reputation, life. Ripped. And alone. We spoke. She had tears in her eyes. I said "would you like a hug? I'm not a hugger, but I'm learning that sometimes, it's just the right thing at the right time and you look like you need one,"

Her reply? "Yes, but I don't want to get into trouble," and I remembered all over again, the brutality and inhumanity of what prison really is. Where a woman in pain cannot be consoled by another, for the fear of it being a risk, a danger, an opportunity to pass something. It's barbaric. So I gripped her arm and said with every ounce of authenticty and love for another human being "It will be Ok, I promise,"

And she said "I believe you, thank you," and was ushered off by a prison officer with a smaller dick than me I'm sure; forgive the vulgarity, to see the punitive barbarism boils my blood.

I imagine, much like me - this woman will have her OASY assessment, her risk will be low, she's not a danger to society, she's a fragile idiot who for whatever reason, broke the law. We are all human. We all deserve the respect, decency and humanity our prisons lack. Our justice system lacks.

Beautiful beautiful Molly Ellis said yesterday "Empathy and compassion are two different things, empathy is 'I see you, I hear you, I feel you,' and compassion is 'I see you, I hear you, I feel you, and I'm going to do what I can to help you and make it better'"

More compassion please.

And now, some self care, some compassion for Fran.

I will work until my train zooms me back to Manchester (and with the bougie first class upgrade I won on seatfrog auction, girls having a prosecco and a cheese plate) and I will share the joys of my day

(got a FIRST in my uni assignment - big deal, as it tips my grades up and up to look pretty damn tasty for graduation; was announced as a FINALIST in the Northern Power Women Awards - Agent of Change; kind of appropriate given this weeks work in the least! And got offered some pretty epic work along the way. Today is a good day. Tomorrow may well be too. But I will turn off the laptop, give my love focus and attention to my wife, as we head end of week to watch our best friend get married)

I am blessed in this life I built. We built.

I'll be blessed to do this for the rest of my life.

The Barren Barker-Mills

Growing up, my mum and I said some awful things to eachother.

It's fair to say, she was happy to continue that when we separated.

I remember vividly sitting in my room, cross legged on my bed, seething. A burning anger. One that became the undertone of how I felt about her. Not anymore. I let it all go.

But in my late teens, I sat angry. Alot.

We'd argued. She had done what is now known in our house as the notoroious "Christine," which is a firm grip of the chin, where she would pull me face to look at her and demand for me to repeat whatever childish thing I'd said.

In this instance, "What did you just say?" was met with me repeating something I still regret now. Even more so in the context of what I'm about to write.

"I said, there is a reason you couldn't have kids,"

Brutal, and of all the words we exchanged through two decades of war, these were ones I wish I could take back. I'd been sat on the bed thinking it, feeling it, rage coursing through me. Why did she hate me so? She wanted kids so much she went through the labourious process of getting two, so what couldn't she just love me? In every action, every word, whether she realised it at the time, or now, aging into 70's with a memory loss that is specific to me, I don't exist, I'm not mentioned, and even people who knew me back then, I'm sure in 2026, wonder if I was real, because with the passing of time. Francesca Barker ceases to exist in past, present or future. Just a memory of a little blonde girl with a cockney accent, who turned into the heartbreak of her parents.

She was never short of a response in viterol, that remains true even now. So when I said those words, I'd expected a painful heartbreak, a flinch, to release me from her grip and her anger. I thought it would wound, thats why I said it. I'll never know if it did or it didn't. My words and actions have pierced her cold heart one too many times to know which one's landed and which ones rolled right off. She, on the other hand, has always known where to gouge me, and her response that day, will live with me, as much as some of our other verbal tangles.

I sat in a prison in 2021, talking through these war of words, my regrets, my pain, my parents, and the loss of who I was and all I had. Those of you who read this blog will know the advice I was given from a woman who has proven to be the catalyst in my mental health recovery - the therapist wonder woman, Cath "Fran you have two choices, you can keep going down the road and expecting it to change and we both agree you've turend yourself inside out trying that, or you can do whats best for you, and leave them in the past. It's today, and you live for you, you're parents, are dead, buried, you mourn and you move on,"

Best advice ever given. Brutal, as brutal as I've been. But honest. I suppose I've been that too in my own way.

I meant it when I said it to her, that there was a reason she couldn't have kids, because I felt in that moment, and for me, I still do, at 38, she shouldn't have been my mother. We both wish she wasn't. Gosh such frank honesty, its horrendous to read it back. It feels cold and callous and without gratitude. I was always told to feel grateful, I was always told I was ungrateful. But that was always designed around things. Not grateful for people, for love, relationships, kindness, friendship, ambition, opporunity. It was ski holidays, it was shopping in Selfridges, it was a mobile phone paid for. I was never taught what real gratitude looks like. Sarah taught me that. It's in the little things.

I sat cross legged on my bed yesterday. I had a small cry. It was an echo twenty years later.

"There is a reason you couldn't have kids," except this time it's the dark space in my brain and my heart speaking to the other side, calling out the worse and the weakness in my greatest fear.

That the reason baby barker-mills evades me, is because I'm not made for this and my biology is trying to tell me that.

I know it's irrational, but I can gurantee every woman who's been in this position feels it too. That we're failing at the one thing we're supposed to do.

On Wednesday evening, I went to the Doctors, and I knew, before I go there, what the converstion, the pelvic examination and gentle chat was going to be. And it was. I didn't cry. I didn't act out. I didn't react at all.

I went back into the waiting room and Sarah was sat there with a look of anxiety and anticipation.

"Yep," I said and she grasped me tighter than ever. We had a hug and I invoked my mothers emotional response, which is "I don't want to cry in public," 

So we left, hand in hand. And in a bewildered haze, we went to get some food, I wanted a beer, I wanted a moment, to process. I didn't eat, I didn't drink. I didn't enjoy the moment we had together to be anywhere but the doctors office.

That was Wednesday. After a full day in the office. A train ride that lasted forever knowing what was on the other side of it. Thursday is a blur. My beautiful best friend provided sweet remedy in childish nature, knowing my regressive tendendicies, if I can't talk, I do, I fill time. So we had a twenty something revival and had a night of nonsense and it was divine. More alcohol than a fresher, shots, beers, a touch of class in the middle with some tapas and posh fizz, and the debauchery, kareoke, screaming Hakuna Matata into microphones drinking cans of Hooch. It was the reminder I was human, and loved that I needed.

We went bowling, I felt my new size 16 jeans slip a little and it made me smile with a strange pride, half of manchester was going to see my lovely thong - you're welcome, but it was a reminder, this fragile fragmented Fran moment; I've come so far in this journey. 4 stone lost. A health reincarnation that I never thought possible. A food noise of 30 years quieted. The ability to choose with the freedom of thought, how to eat, what to eat, when to move, hike, gym, when to eat the Big Mac without the weight of the world and my saddle bag bottom on my shoulders.

No saddle bags here friend. Size 16 jeans, clung to a pert bototm, some iron clad thighs that leg press nearly into the 200's. With ovaries that function without failure, now in clock work expectation and sycronisation. LH test strips that light up like Christmas on time, each time, basal body temperatres that rise and fall like cinematic crescendo month on month. I've jumped through every hoop, I've dropped more weight than a small cow, but more than that, I've saved my own life and paved the way to create another. At least I thought so. But still, in this new vessel, it won't stick. Literally. Still failing.

"It's nothing you've done wrong, you did nothing wrong," said the GP.

It falls on empty ears.

If I hear that one more time I'm going to scream.

I had to explain to him the delicate nature of feeling the joy of a pregnancy remains a marred, tarred and triggering experience for me. For anyone in our situation, it should be met with joy. For me, I'm 19 again, I've been told I'm pregnant and I'm spiralling because the immaculate conception was not one of choice, it was made for me. And I hated every second of it. I felt like there was a poison inside me, and I counted down every day until I could have it eviserated. 

I remember having a scan, I asked not to see it, the sonographer was judgemental, I think she thought I was some silly student who had gotten herself up the duff and now making a decision she didn't necessarily approve of. She printed the scan and left the room, she placed it on top of my notes. I looked. I shouldn't have looked. If I had known that now aged 38 that that image would be my most successful pregnancy to date, maybe I would have been kinder to the toxicity I felt was growing inside me.

So the story comes full circle, 19 year old Fran, complicated abortion, news of an added extra for an STI from the monster defiler; and I'm sick, but holding it together because I have to go home and play the role of Francesca Barker for Christmas.

Breaches of trust are not unusual in the timeline of Barkers; I tell my family GP, my GP, who is a close friend of my parents, that I'm worried, that I'll have to hide the fact I've had the abortion but that I'm still sick and need to be well enough to get through Christmas in Cheshire. That if something happens and I feel worse, they'll find out. It must have been less than 20 minutes later, I got a hysterical phone call from my father - the GP, the friend, had told him. After 10 minutes of hysteria, with him wanting to know why I had had an abortion, another incoming call, my mother.

She was furious. When was she not?

"How could you be so fucking selfish?"

The question flawed me. I was confused.

She was furious, I'd conceived a baby and I'd gotten rid of it.

For a woman who wanted her own baby, pregnancy, she was raging.

It was 10 years later they heard the truth of the pregnancy. In a court the first time I got in trouble. My defence team shared the horror story of a rape, a pregnancy, something that triggered an unravelling and a split in Fran who tells the truth and Fran who tells lies. Fran tells lies, because shes never been taught the safety of what it is to tell the truth. My father stood in that court room and listened to how this horrific incident was exacerbated by my avoidance to report it to the police, that when they contacted me about another woman's incident, I denied it, I said I had no idea what they were talking about. I wasn't willing to make a statement about this man. That I lived with the scars physical and mental of what happened. 

When my mum demanded to know who the father was, I lied, I said I got drunk and fucked a rugby player - of course, a one night stand. She called me a stupid slut.

I think that's probably what my name is in her phone.

So, it's been quite a week.

It's Saturday. Sarah continues to look at me like I'm about to break. I don't think she realises, not for herself, and not for me either, that this week's tragedy hasn't really settled in our hearts.

I'm somewhere between feeling the pride and joy of knowing my body did what it was supposed to, somoene give me a medal, because I did it, all on my own, no meds, no interventions, just me my ovaries and I. I just couldn't hold it. It seems to be a new mountain to climb. Because why would it be that simple?

It rarely is in the life of the Barker-Mills.

We will heal, quietly, get back on the horse undoubtedly, as I face down turning 39 mid-year, the clock feels like it's ticking louder. 

And this convulted piece of emotional exorcism will remain a quiet space to say things on paper, I can't say outloud.

But it will get better.

Finsbury Park station

 I write, upon my Macbook, whilst communiting to work on the train.

Warm coffee in cup, that emparted heat to my cold hands upon the station platform, wrapped in a green wool coat, jumper, wool socks and comfy shoes. Rucksack slung over shoulder with well intentioned fruit and sustenance, to ensure I don't get the daily reminder from my wife to "Eat,". The weight loss drugs are running through my veins and it can easily get to 3pm and I'll have forgotten about food entirely.

But it hasn't always been this way.

Food and I have a complicated relationship. Sometimes it's a need, an addiction, sometimes it's a purge. Sometimes, more often than not, it's the scourge on my life, longevity and best laid plans. It began in 1987, starved and scared in the cess pits of London town, and it very much circled back there. To which this blog is in remberance of.

I say probably once a week to friends, or close colleagues, the work I do is a giant trigger, it's a fine rope I walk keeping one toe in a trauma fuelled industry and one in my own sanity and safe place. But it is the work I chose, or rather, as I feel all the more; it chose me.

Yesterday, a message of help, and SOS in a community group seeking support for a homeless lady, sleeping rough in a tent outside a council building having received little to no support from statuatory services due to being another invisble woman slipping through the cracks in the system that in 2025, are more chasm than crack. 

It was cold yesterday up north, frosty winds that bite the face, the fingertips and a rain that only Mancunians will recognise with the ode of "it soaks you to the bone," and it does. Bitterly.

I read the SOS and thought, not today.

As I often do. I suppose the difference being, I had a certain power in my arsenal to be of small help. And so I set to work in sending emails, calling hostels, emergency accommodations, all who sent me round in circles "You need to speak to this person," "You need to apply through the gateway," "You're not one of our referral partners,"

So, community bank account card in hand, I booked private accomodation for lady in question, a few nights at a reasonable cost - and one that's costed beautifully into one of our more recent grant funding pots from GM Mayors Homelessness charity - to allocate a portion of that money to emergency accommodation costs. Emergency is a hilarious concept, as the council clearly don't feel it's urgent or this woman would not be in icy cold torrential rain sleeping outside their front door, with none of her own. Regardless. Housed, home, warm for a few nights, it was my small contribution to what I later described to my wife as "I feel like I'm plugging the hole in the titanic with my finger,"

I remember the cold wind that bites, and the fingertips that lose feeling, where you sit on your hands and hope the heat radiating from your bottom, or in fact, leaving your body and ebbing into a cold hard pavement, lasts. It doesn't.

It disappates, along with your hope, that it will ever be any different.

I remember my first night in a hostel; the sense of relief, repreive. The peeling of dirty cold clothes from my unkept and unclean body. Dropped to the floor, wrapped in budget and somewhat raw feeling towel. A hot shower that burned more than it cleaned, but the feeling is something I'll never forget. I stayed under that water longer than most monsoons. Bought and paid for, I was getting my monies worth.

Princes Square, London. Amongst the priviledge of town houses and Christmas film aestheics, a run away in my twenties, a strange concept. Mid night flit carrying just one bag. Naive and childish. I ran from my family. For the last time. I've never set foot there since. 

A top bunk is never my first choice, and it makes me smirk as I type, given that the next time I would be in a top bunk would be padded up in prison with two lairy scouse drug dealers who made much less amiable roomates.

In Princes Square, it was various Eastern European women, who hung their laundry from bunk to bunk like some sort of continental wash house, but it was dual purpose, drying - and privacy, and for that I was grateful.

Sleeping rough in London is a different thing. Although, I've never slept rough up North properly, a few hours slumped in the street after a binge, yes. But cold long nights as a single woman, young and vulnerable? No.

We gather, like pack rats in the dark. Under a bridge in Finsbury Park station, it's reasonable lit, only small patches of wet from the creaks above, and if you avoid the puddles and find an indent, it's warm enough to pretend you could get some sleep.

Fuelled on Tesco sandwiches, cast at your feet with piteous and well intentioned smiles, it's food enough to keep you alive, but you find yourself wondering, why? Because life isn't worth living in this moment and if you become and invislbe death on the streets of London, no-one will know your name, your real name. And even worse, no-one will care.

When you have enough money for a hostel, it becomes the ideal, the dream. If you make enough money, you can even book yourself into the Wedgewood hotel where you can shower in absolute private, pee in peace, spread out on a double bed, watch television and boil a kettle as many times as you like. Readers of the Daily Mail will tell you this is the luxury of what homelessness and emergency accommodation is. Or better; this is what prison is for many.

Imagine - a heated room with a bed, a dignity to far for the pariahs and the predators on our oh so moral society.

I imagine our fair lady who is still as I type, tucked up in bed, warm, she tells me so this morning via a message - felt that same feeling I did all those years ago.

Relief.

I said to Sarah last night whilst we walked in the rain, as I needed to move, to think, to process

"I don't know how I'm still alive, and I did this, there was no-one there to save me, I saved me, me,"

And it made me proud and sad all mingled into one ball of emotion.

I don't know how I'm still here.

A probation officer once said that to me, after my first misdemeanour and awaiting drug treatment 

"The life you've had it's a wonder you're still here,"

I laughed awkwardly.

Who knew it would become something so much worse in so many different ways.

I wrote last night that I am perhaps too invested in my work sometimes, and that much is true, it takes as much as it gives on occasion, but I think anyone who creates a movement or organisation from lived experience and desire to change something, does so in the knowledge of that. I responded to the need of that lady yesterday, because I could, because I felt it, because I've lived it. I've checked on her and worriedd about her and wondered what more I can do to help her.

Yesterday whilst dancing around statuatory services, I met one of our Coming Home ladies for coffee; she apologised that she couldn't treat me to coffee because she was barely making ends meet - I reminded her that when she meets for a check in, it's a Coming Home coffee, not a treat Fran coffee. She exudes gratitude. Every other word out of her mouth is either Thank you, or Sorry. I tell her neither are necessary. She's come from a meeting and she's working hard to recover, reintegrate, I see the progress and it's a joy.

We talk about the cost of living with Christmas coming up; and I share the plans for the Coming Home pop up shop and tell her not to worry as much about the little things she needs; she can find them there. I ask her her plans for Christmas, and I feel her answer in the pit of my stomach.

Shes spending it alone. Her family don't want her.

I know that feeling. I hear the voice of my mother of Christmas Eve 2010 saying "We've discussed it, and actually, we think it's better if you don't come,"

I put the phone down, and proceed to wrap all of their gifts in a disassociative state.

The next day I try to kill myself and wake up in hospital on Boxing Day. Merry Christmas.

So when she tells me shes spending it alone, we start to write a safety plan and I tell her what we did last year - knowing that Christmas is a giant trigger for reoffending, for safety, for relapse, last year, I created an event where Coming Home ladies could dial into zoom for an hour on Christmas Day and cook Christmas dinner with me.

It was me, my camera, pottering, basting turkey, dusting potatoes in flour, with an overseeing eye of approval from my Northern potato loving wife, and the opportunity for people to connect, share and have community on Christmas Day.

The same will happen this year; I said to Sarah last night "do you mind if I have an hour on Christmas Day to do the dial-in again?"

She's on board. Of course she is.

Important to ask, it is after all, our Christmas, her Christmas.

But she knows all too well, what Christmas is to me and how it makes me feel so she grabs my hand a little tighter as we walk home.

So, just your average Tuesday?

Homeless lady housed for a few nights.

Coming Home lady fed, watered, empowered and a little trip to Asda to get some essentials, because again, thanks to the design of bursaries into our budgets, I can.

And I will.

For those who need community, for those who need visiblity, we are here.

I can't change the world for everyone, but if we cross paths and it's in my capacity, I will do my damned best.

It's the little things that matter.

We all need to do our bit.

Christmas Day with Coming Home https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/christmas-with-coming-home-tickets-1974614331621?aff=oddtdtcreator

Labour labour saviour saviour

I’m obsessing,

Progressing

Thoughts on paper

And pen scratched through ink

As I sit, as I type

Think Think

How can I fix this

Cure the ails and the woes

When theres women living in nothing more than just their clothes

Im fury

I am rage

As I rant upon this page

That its clockwork

Its cycle

That still doesn’t change

That its Corston

That its Gauke

Another fucking report

But the names and the longing

Belonging

Is an afterthought

That theres a woman pleading

Needing

More

Something

Someone

Silence met

With nothing

And shes trying

Shes crying

Sighing

Screaming

More

She cant take it,

So its life now

Like this

The dirt on the floor

Step on me

Over me

Thank you sir

I’ll take that

Deserve that

I’ll hold that door

Ones open for you

For him

For her

But not me sir

Not me sir

The perpetrator

The deviant

The defiant

The silent

The night

The fear

The stigma

The fight.

Don’t hold it for me

Close it nice and tight

Remind me of my place please

Alone and out of sight

Hotel rooms

Hostels

Tents

Cracked ceilings

Feelings

Unsafe

Unsure

Like a past life

Prisoner

Or whore

I’ve seen these walls before.

They shape me

They cage me

They tell me who I am

They tell me what I’m here for

And my worth

Less.

Less.

Less.

Deprivation

Suffocation

Foundations of sand and chalk

With the whip crack

Slap across my back

Telling me to walk

Talk

Thank

Beg

Borrow

But not steal

Not even for a meal

Kids go hungry

Lights go out

But I don’t make a sound

I don’t breathe

I don’t shout

Patient so patient

In the darkness damp

Waiting for your grace

Gracious

Enter now

List

Listing, name, number, repent

I thought my conviction was spent

But not in the pages where you log the rent

It’s bent

System broken

Scream not spoken

Report. Gauke Corston More.

Labour. Saviour.

Not what I voted for.

Reform?

Me? Or farage and hate bait nation?

Scum scum

Shit shoe

I’ll never be more than that to you.

Labour labour saviour saviour

Can I have just a week more?

Sleeping bags on the floor.
I’ll take it

Until I make it

A safe space

A home.

The cell-block memory, a night watching Holloway.

 It's been a few weeks since I took a bunch of pretty incredible women to see Holloway at HOME cinema in Manchester. I think it's taken a few weeks to overcome the feelings watching it left me with; on various levels. And I anticipated that. Which is why it took me so long to sit down and watch it in the first place. I knew it would be a trauma, tripping, PTSD, heart skipping affair, and it was. I knew it would invoke and provoke feelings of fury, anger and despair - and it did. All normal responses to watching something so thought provoking and emotionally jarring. So the fact I chose to watch it and invite along key players, partners and pals, was an interesting choice on my part. A strategic one for many reasons - the most prominent of which is - in my professional capacity, I'd be loathe to cry hysterically in public, and I managed to avoid such waves of emotion, just. Those were saved for the privacy of home, and Sarahs arms as usual. We felt it all together.

Watching Holloway was never going to be easy, because I could see the flaking paint, dereliction of building and duty with the greens and blues that only prisons or hospitals seem to don their walls with. I could visualise my birth mother, banged up behind steels doors, with emergency buttons that ring to no avail and the flap in the door that slams shut louder than any letterbox you've ever heard. One slams shut and it rings across the prison, reverberating through the wing like a doomful dinner bell. The bang, the slam, the power, encapsulated in that sound.

One woman in the documentary referenced "the screams," and that you'd never heard anything like it. I felt that. It was and remains the one thing that haunts me in waking and sleeping moments still. Like wild beasts. The screams.

I never quite know how to articulate the things I saw, felt, absorbed in my time in prison. So I write. This we know. So for those who watched Holloway and felt the pain and the shame and the grief and the haunting along with the women who showcased their most isolated moments on screen, read on if you dare; its about to get literary in here. Like a page from a book, so take a deep breathe and walk a moment in my shoes. Holloway style, up north, the corridors of Styal.

TW suicide mental health*

"Out," with a rap on the door. "Out,"

Shell shocked, staring a the ominous liquid eminating from behind me, I don't know what it is or who it is from, but hoping it's the warm bottles of water they rolled underneath this bolted door just 30 minutes ago. I stared out of the window for most of the ride here. Lights glistening in the winter sky, black, dark, and cold. Frosted breath on this porthole to freedom, looking out and wondering if anyone can see in. The city faded with Christmas sparkle, as the country roads appeared and I knew, we were nearly there. It's a lovely Sunday day out down here, if you like to potter around a National Trust. Pop to Quarry Bank Mill, a little walk, a bit of history, a stately home, green green gardens, topped with a pot of tea and a scone. It''s middle class Narnia if ever there was out here, in dark green Cheshire. But we turn right, and not left. And leafy green and peachy keen no more. It's bleak. It's dungeon. Its barbed wire, and a sliding gate that creaks slowly to enter. You shall not pass.... but now, you shall not leave. Maybe you will. In a van. An ambulance, a bodybag. You're not sure which exit you'll take right now.

"Out,"

Stepping over the puddle in my black shiny brogues, laces tightly pulled in neat bows, just like my dad taught me. Smart. Court smart. Might go to prison but probably not, smart. A just in case, middle class presentation smart. Lawyer told me too. Smart.

Not so smart. 27 months. Not smart at all. Smart is what go me here.

Three or four steep steps down, shoe on pavement, and into strip lighting and false bright light. Noise. Overwhelm. Cattle processing. The woman who was in the van with me goes first. They greet her by her first name - she's been here before. One or two times too many clearly, as the banter is familiar, the family are asked about and the faux fun "in for Christmas," diatribe is shared. The prisoner agrees - she didn't want to stump up for Christmas presents and buy into the kids wanting x, y and z this year, so she thought a little stint back inside was just the ticket, she likes the Christmas dinner here, apparently it's one of the better HMP offerings - so why not.

I'm bewildered by this casual interaction. I've just lost my liberty. My family. My home. My job. My future. And we're debating the best prison Christmas dinner. I collapse onto a bright blue bench, hysterical. Hyperventilating trying to catch my breath through masses of tears. My previously painted and pretty enough face, now marked and stark with mascara and pain. 

"Just here please Barker-Mills is it?"

I stand, move to where I'm told.

"Could you just stop crying while we take your picture?"

I look up blearly eyes and hold my breath.

Snap. A3039EP.

Printed, plastic, the only card I'll have now. No bank card, no phone, no reality, no identity. A3039EP. Immortalised. It finally happened. I finally ended up here and I can't help but think - we knew this day would come. One way or another, I was always going to end up here. But now? In my closest moments to recovery and real life? It doesn't feel fair. I'm angry. And I'm sad. And I'm alone.

Healthcare check, question after question and they designate me a suicide risk. Place me on an ACCT and tell me someone will check on me for a chat at some point but - Covid, who knows when.

The woman types "She thinks her wife is going to leave her and is inconsolable,"

Sarah doesn't know I'm here. I went off to court with my bag and a see you later and now I'm facing down 27 months in this dark desolate place.

I can't do it. Not to her. And not to me. 

Do I have Hepatitis? No. I had my jabs in rehab years ago.

Could I be pregnant? I wince. Not likely now I'm here, fertility won't hold my place on the list now.

And I'm frog marched by a prison officer easily 10 years younger than me down to the wing. Shes sweet, but naive clearly as she tells me "It's not as bad as what you've seen on the TV, honestly, it's not all bad girls and Wentworth,"

One key turns, one cage opened and closed, a little walk, another key turns, another cage closes, up some stairs, and cell after cell after cell, its exactly like what you see on the tv. But the noise? It's wild. It's wilderness. Its feral.

It's gone 9pm and I'm being processed and I can't move. Looking at the cell block doors, with the flaps, anonymous and copious. It becomes a blur. (It's 2025, but I write like it was yesterday because it's burned in my heart)

A single cell, because it's covid. Thank god. Small luxuries. If I had been banged up on night one with a random woman, I would have lost it. At least I can lose it in private now. And plan...

I'm handed a plastic washing up bowl, with classic prison blue cup, bowl, plate, knife, fork, spoon and a few sachets of shampoo and a small bar of soap. I look at the prison officer perplexed. She taps on my cell door, a piece of paper with my new prison photo is stuck to it "A3039EP Barker-Mills," with the date and time of my arrival and the date I'm due to come out of 14 day isolation.

Shower day 8 - she raps the dates. There's a little summary list "outside," 15-30 mins days 1, 5, 8. Shower day 8.

I ask what I'm supposed to do until day 8??? She looks at my washing up bowl. 

"That,"

She shuts the cell door, bang, lock, done. I make up my little green bed, single sheet on bright blue mattress, and I hold the sheet in my hands for just a second too long.

Where can I tie it? There's no pipes above, the window doesn't close properly, it's a small slated piece of glass, cracked and Victoria looking with a lever arch arm, you'd be lucky to get your wrist through it. There's no V on the back of the door. The toilet's in full view, sink the same.

Floor pipes? Chair? Phone cord looks more likely.

For the first hour in my cell, I sit cross legged on a half made bed contemplating my exit plan. I can't wait 27 months for a prison van, I can't wait 27 months for a wife who won't be there. I can't. Private ambulance, chauffeur style and out of here in a day.

Dark. Stark. Alone. I can see why they placed me on that ACCT, and lo, a torchlight shines through the flap in the door. If I'm going to crack this, it'l have to be inbetween welfare checks.

I neededn't have worried, they didn't last long.

I abate the desires of death for now, and lie on the plastic mattress, the cold night air billows through the cracked glass cell window and clangs against the lead casing where it won't close properly. I become obsessed with the paintwork. Flecks of dried blood are etched up one wall, tiny drops, like rain, that are half cleaned away, half painted over, blood red brown, now blue hue with new paint. I wonder who was in here before me, that they'd leave their mark like this. Perhaps mine will join. But no razors allowed for the fruit cake on night watch.

I learn later, the girls sling and swing razors for the self harmers and it's a prison gesture of care, to leave a used or new one on your window ledge when leaving your cell to move to another. 

No such luck in mine. Just the Jackson Pollock affair.

My first night, it's safe to say, not much sleep. With the lights on full in my cell because they won't turn off, and the flashlight shone in my face to make sure I'm not dead, it's a sensory overload.

But it's not the light. It's not even the pain. It's the noise.

Crying first and foremost, and not mine. Hysterical crying. Echoes.

Screaming. Agonising screams. Hysterical screams. Screams that sound like death, or birth, or both. This is clearly a usual night here, as other inmates shout and tell the screamers to shut the fuck up, by name. The crazies, for sure, wailing like ghosts or mourning mothers. Relentless. The banging, smashing, throwing of furniture, or faeces, of angry prison guards having to deal with the latest smashed up cell, the latest dragged off to the seg, more screams and cackles of lunacy. Of glee. Its a cocktail of crazy and my brain can't cope.

I'll never know silence again. Even when I have it now. I don't. Because those sounds live somewhere in the back of my mind.

Morning comes, the door swings open and a brown bag is kicked across my floor. The door slams shut. Open for 20 seconds, no more.

I run to it, and bang at the flap. "When can I call home?"

"When your numbers get approved and you've got some money,"

How can I get fucking money, no-one knows I'm here.

I'm hysterical.

I could smash my cell up. I don't.

I sit once again, cross legged like a child in a school hall, and open the brown bag. It was supposed to be given to me last night but I was processed after hours. 

Off brand cereal, a carton of UHT milk, some split open tea bags, which are now mostly dust, and a Soreen malt loaf snack size piece of cardboard.

When I was being processed they asked if I wanted a vape pack. I said no. They asked if I wanted a food pack. I said yes. I was handed a see through bag with random items in that only now looks appealing having been greeted with faux frosties and no tea.

I haven't eaten since breakfast at home before my court appearance but I'm not hungry. 

The see through bad is a bag of wonders. Noodles x3, a bag of sugar, a packet of teabags, a big UHT milk, a packet of biscuits, sachets of Nescafe... beige wonders, but welcome right now. How does one make noodles with no cooking appliance? My first foray into prison cooking and the things you can do with a kettle. Good things. Terrible things. Useful things. Concerning things.

A cup of tea at home is the most magical thing in life. It's a moment in our busy lives where Sarah and I end our working day, look at one another an hour or so after a home cooked dinner, whilst watching something on tv and say "cup of tea?" and one of us makes the perfect cuppa, with a tasty biscuit, or if it's a particualy good day, I'll have made a cake - we're in 2020. It's peak covid. Cakes were plentiful in the barker mills household. No such luck in prison. It is quite literally the place the world forgot.

And thats that my friends. For now. An insight, perhaps part of a chapter for a book. Who knows.

When I watched Holloway, I saw the paint flake, the bed frames, the cell doors, and it flooded back to me in droves, in waves, crashing over my rebuilt life and I squeezed Sarah's hand a little bit more.

It's 2025. It is quickly coming up to mid September, my anniversary of release. For some, for most, we have anniversarys of joy and of woe, birthdays, weddings and passings. For those of us who have been to prison, we have release date anniversary's and the dates we got sent down. They're there forever whether we want them there or not. They creep in the dark parts of our mind and even though we heal, we grow and recover, the scars lives on.

I spoke with the beautiful Brenda - I'm loathe to call her Brenda, for me she was and is, the formidable Lady Unchained, and much like me, she speaks with a brutual truth that makes the harsh reality of prison unavoidable, and what happens when women who've been to prison find eachother is - the trauma bond reopens and if you're with the right people, it fuses in power to be and do something greater, to heal the wounds that hurt you, for the sake of other women like you. Equally, and important to note, when we find ourselves with those who reopen prison wounds for the sake of scab picking and unpicking past lives, we don't heal, we hurt some more. It's a fine line for those of us who have survived the prison walls to know who and how we fill our lives and hearts moving forward.

The people I invited to Holloway were not by chance, they were by thought, care, alliegiance, peace and purpose. They were my safe space. IF I had broken down into fits of hysteria, my professionalism would never have been in question, each one would have rallied to protect and empower. That is my point. We are here by the strength of ourselves and our people. We are here to grow and show in our power together. That only change and only good will come if we unite with the bigger picture and purpose. Academic, policy, prisoner, person. Knowing, the humanity, dignity and hope are more importance than punitive, punishment and power.

The time is now.