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.
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