It has become somewhat of a tradition for me to write on International Women's Day and for the thousands of you that still collectively read my blog so many years on (thank you!) - you will know all to well it is quite the mark on my calendar each year for a variety of reasons.
International Women's Day is always a moment I sit and take stock, take pause and thought of the way to the world works and I find it a day of mixed emotion; usually thankful in small measure of the progressive micro-steps that are taken each year in the name and hope of equality, safety, stability and justice for all women, but alongside that, the abject frustration at the pace of change and the quieted voices of women around the world, quashed by men, politics, bureaucracy, hypocrisy, misogyny, inequality, injustice and engrossed, ingrained in such historic and societal fuck wittery. But still, the march goes on, the days roll by and the voices grow louder, unified in the knowledge that brighter days will come, the power of togetherness is something no gag can bound or quiet.
This time last year, I was on my last day of Covid isolation, having arrived at HMP Askham Grange at the end of February 2021 and was going through my third rotation of "reverse cohorting," which in prison lingo is essentially, penning in any new inmates from other prisons to minimise the spread of Covid, sensible, but arbitrary all the same.
In my final weeks at HMP Styal, my offender manager appeared one day and slid a brochure under my cell door - advertising the wonders of HMP Askham Grange, I didn't understand why at the time, having spent 23 hours a day banged up, like some sort of sadistic "the grass is greener," if you behave yourself incentive, it was like giving an advert for the Hilton Manchester to someone sleeping rough. Be that as it may, I read and reread that folded print out a thousand times, and made it my absolute goal. Soon out of the cell block wing and into the houses, I got a job as the house cleaner, then as the admin assistant in the kitchens and I worked my socks off morning, noon and night in Styal so that I could 1) support myself financially to some extent whilst incarcerated for the purpose of buying phone credit, vapes and fizzy drinks on canteen and 2) to give myself some purpose and routine - old habits die hard, if I'm not working and I'm not busy, I'm dying!
A few weeks of ball busting and crawling into my top bunk with the worlds LOUDEST most grotesque of pad mates, surviving on 2 hours sleep per night and rocking into the kitchens in some sort of catatonic survival mode, still unmedicated with no access to my anti-depressants through the prison, I again was met with my offender manager, appearing at a window.
I lifted the sash window and we spoke through the iron barred space in the glass. "I put a request to the governors to grant you a recat to get you out of here," - I had been in HMP Styal just 8 weeks but to me it felt like a life sentence having been ripped from my actual life.
"But I'm not due for recat until July?" I replied not understanding what she meant
"I know that Fran but you don't need to be here, we're sending you to Askham Grange,"
Cue motion picture photo reel running through my mind - the brochure, the place from the brochure.
And lo' this time last year, there I was, prison van from A to B, and arriving in a Cat D prion. Prison officers carried my perspex plastic bags to "the annex," showed me to my room - not my cell. It was on the ground floor, it has a massive window looking out onto landscaped gardens, no bars, no locks, and I was handed a key. A room key.
A little single bed, clean carpets on the floor, a wooden armchair, IKEA's finest, a little bedside table with the prison rules and regulations and a welcome pack and induction program. My own little sink and storage cupboards and a wardrobe.
It really was the Hilton Manchester in all it's glory.
I was handed a small mobile phone - to call home, call whoever, to let them know I had arrived. HMP Askham Grange had a few forward thinking protocols, and the use of the prison mobile phones was one - to alleivate the frustrations of the blue prison phones and the masses of women who used them on a daily basis, those who were in isolation or had enhanced status, could use the mobile phones with their prisoner pin numbers to make calls. All monitored of course, it is not the Butlins lifestyle the Daily Mail would have you believe - security, safety and the constant knowledge that you are in prison are to be expected as part and parcel of the punishment and loss of liberty. Regardless, I sat on that little bed in awe.
A prison officer came down on International Women's Day and informed us that there was an event going on in the "ballroom" but of course we couldn't attend as still in covid isolation but asked if we wanted anything from the coffee shop - another wonderment of a Cat D prison, that if you earn your right to be in open prison, that comes with a certain sense of normality - because of course, Cat D prisons exist as the final port of call to normalise prison life, as the stepping stone back into society.
What's more normal than understanding a budget, a perk, a pleasure, a reward and something to be grateful and shared, than a coffee shop. The prison officer reeled off what was on offer, a list of cakes and bakes and fizzy drinks. FUCK MY LIFE - diet coke; I could have cried. Those who know me will know rarely a day goes by in my life where I don't have a diet coke, and in HMP Styal, it was easier to get hold of real coke, not a fucking diet coke and I know which I would rather have (thanks to rehab!)
This piece of writing is turning into an ode to Askham but it's purpose as always is to shine a light on the positives. Believe me, spending International Women's Day incarcerated, even in a nicer jail, was a brutal affair. To lose your liberty, to lose your right to vote, to lose your dignity, your equality, your humanity. It was like no International Women's Day I've ever felt or lived.
Today, I sit, on a Tuesday evening, typing sat at my dining table, candles lit, flowers in a jug that I painted myself (on a ROTL might I add! That's a story for another day) not just any flowers, gypsophila. Again, those of you who follow my social media will know that back in 2020, when Sarah and I got married, we had a wedding that was in essence handmade, and couldn't have been more "us" if we tried - including the flowers. The day before we got married, I was at the wedding venue, surrounded by rafts and rafts of fresh flowers, and with the help of my best bridesmaid and her husband (yay mike) we created all of the boutinierres for the guests, the table setting flowers, the venue flowers, and of course, the bridal and bridesmaid bouquets - the star of the show was beautiful babys breath.
For my birthday and for our wedding anniversary last year, Sarah sent me a gigantic bouquet of flowers almost identical to the bridal bouquet I made her to HMP Askham Grange and they lived on my window sill until they literally dried out and died. I sit now, on a chilly springtime evening and the dried flowers from HMP Askham Grange May 2021, sit before me said handpainted jug in 2022.
The flowers feel like symbolism. In harder times, I could have binned them. They could be the synonymy of a love dying but they didn't die. They changed and they held on. And their beauty before me, paired with fresh, white, new flowers, show me the evolution of emotion.
I spent some of 2020 and 2021 caged (lovely MEN word) with women. All of us put in prison by a system that tried (and fails) to find justice and retribution for a world that doesn't understand the why, only the how and when. A system that fails to acknowledge that women who commit crime, are often victims of crime and the self perpetuating failings and outcomes are so better remedied with intervention and prevention as opposed to incarceration. I have never felt less than the empowered woman I have always been, than in those moments and yet, in the dark, depraved no mans land prison is, the solidarity of women was never more apparent.
I met women in prison who changed my life and certainly changed my outlook on life. To have strength and sense of self in a place that is designed to defile your soul and strip you of yourself, your self worth, identity and humanity in order to control, reshape and remake and churn out, job done, box ticked. To find women who hold onto their heart and their core, or indeed find it in that place, is a beauty like no other.
I'm sure some will be mortified at the shoutout upon this blog, which has been a part of my life for many years before prison and will continue to be for many years to come, and all who are mentioned hence forth know me to be the writer, the orator, the challenger, the fighter. We share the commonality of strength of self, even if we share it for eachother. We rise up, we hold up, we drive, together. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for the strength of the women in the weakest moments of our lives.
Prepare yourselves - Umi, you found me broken in the pits of hell, unmedicated, unbalanced and trying to understand what prison was. You taught me to be strong, to show no fear, to stop crying but to cry with trust, usually upon your shoulder. You taught me how to do prison and to hold only my monkey and no-one elses. We stayed up for hours talking about religion, politics, people, purpose, crime, hate, hurt, love, family. You my friend, showed me beauty in a place where there was none and I will carry you with me always, for chicken dinners at home or road trips across the world.
Patsy, a mirror image of strength and vulnerability, a brutal honesty and integrity that not many feel is possible from women who go to prison in the way that we did. But you defy the preconceptions in your kindness and your decency. You wear your heart on your sleeve even in a place like prison, and guard it with sensibility and despite it being taken for granted, you never lose sight of the greater good - that it is better to be good, to be kind, to be true, than to turn away and never try. To drive forward for yourself and for those you love even when you're running on empty, and there are days I want to shake you and say stop - but I know the fire in you is the fire in me and it burns for as long as breathe, to be the best we can be, because we don't know any other way to be. And that we are ok with that. To fill a void, that was created by the past, is to build a bridge of hope across it and know that the cavern is there, the depths remain, the danger of the slip is apparent, but the bridge is solid and shows the strength of who we are and how we build, rebuild, reshape, and put one step in front of the other, brick by brick. You saved me a few weeks ago, when the traffic was fast and the whip of the wind was on my face, one step infront of the other would have been my last. I stayed on the bridge, as I stayed on the pavement. And I decided to rebuild my bridge, knowing people like you are on the other side of it.
There is love in dark places, that attaches itself to your soul and sometimes you don't grasp it or understand it, but you take solace and peace in knowing it is there. For however long it is there. The love I found on my journey, shaped the way I walk it now, and I wouldn't change it.
My friends, my lord. My friends.
Every single day in jail, every single day. At HMP Askham Grange there was a daily post list, and if you had post your name was highlighted, women would queue up to see if there name was highlighted, after a few weeks at Askham, I didn't even need to look, as the prison officers handing out post would already know to have mine ready. Every single day. "Email a Prisoner,"
Sometimes, letters of love, but mostly, letters of absolute normality and "here's what I did today,"
But a special shoutout to my zoe, this time last year, I sat cross legged on my little single bed and I read an email she sent to me a hundred times or more in the weeks and months that followed.
Zoe you beautiful friend, you knew me well enough to know the geeky feminist politico in me would be suffering behind bars with no access to social media, google or my blog on International Women's Day so you sent me a 3 page email with a list of inspiring women for international womens day and more than that, you told me all about what was going on in your life so I could be part of it. I will love you forever for that email, to know me well enough that you sent me exactly what I needed when I needed it. You defrosted yorkshire lass, I've never appreciated your love more.
And of course Mills, I have talked about love and it's evolution. And regardless of our relationship and it's process, and the turmoil of prison and thereafter, you, you will always be the most inspirational women on International Women's Day.
We knew the day may come where my fuck wittery as the worlds most wonderful radiator bread baker (fuck off) would have to pay the price - and it was a heavy price to pay, mostly at your cost.
People tell me all the time, it's harder for the one's left on the outside and I agree. We began 2020 in a pandemic, which had you redeployed in the NHS covid testing and being a superwoman and being on the front line as you always would be - because you always want to do the best and the right thing. By the end of 2020, you had lost your wife to prison and we didn't realise that could be the outcome. I was ripped from you, our life, our baby plans, our careers, our marriage. In an instant.
You powered on. You think all you did was survive, but you didn't you thrived.
I came home to a woman who drove her career forward, surrounded by wonderful work colleagues who supported you - good attracts good and you have done good Mills, real good. You smashed out your postgrad journey, and sit here now, across from me, on the sofa with the cat, writing a legal ethics essay - because that is who you are, even when it's hard. You just got a fucking promotion!! Of course you did, because what you see as existing, is evolving and is growth and is inspiring to me everyday.
I haven't made it easy.
In our wedding vows, which we wrote together, I promised to empower you.
It's International Women's Day - you don't a woman or a man to empower you my darling, you're doing it just fine by yourself, but for days when you feel like you need a boost, I'm right here.
With Sports Direct mug cups of tea and cheerleading <3
International Women's Day 2022 - I have life full of women, it's the gay girls dream. I have life full of women who I will be proud to help shape the next generation of Barker-Mills - with IVF around the corner, I couldn't be happier to have the people in my life who are what today is all about.
