Peter Hitchens has been banged up in Shrewsbury jail

There's a good article by Peter Hitchens in the Daily Mail.

Readers (aghast): Peter Hitchens? The Daily Mail?

Liberal England replies: Go on then, if you must.

Where were we?

Peter Hitchens is one of a number of minor celebrities who have been filming a reality television show about life in prison,

He explains:

The programme-makers assembled a large group of genuine ex-prisoners, and also several experienced former prison officers, to recreate as closely as possible the routine and atmosphere of jail. 

This was no stage set. We were literally Banged Up (the working title of the programme) several times a day, as uniformed officers swung shut the heavy blue-grey iron doors and forced us to endure slow hours in the company of cellmates we had absolutely not chosen.

We mopped the floors and peeled potatoes and doled out food to each other in the servery. We worked out in the gym and shared the showers, which switched wildly between freezing cold and searingly hot.

We circled round the exercise yard when the weather allowed and were exposed to various attempts at therapy from yoga (an actual punishment for me) to bricklaying. For days we never saw a tree or a blade of grass. ...

It is a dismal place, oppressive and grubby, haunted by tragedy of one kind or another, and redolent of all kinds of misery. It is especially dismal because the busy sounds of the nearby railway station remind the inmate of the freedom of others, outside the melancholy brick walls.

The experience had not changed his very Daily Mail views on crime, but he does write:

I still think we are all responsible for what we do. I just do not think that physical squalor, dirt and danger help achieve these ends.

And there's some real humanity here:

I must praise the former prisoners, who did their bit without any reward, and who - in many cases - suffered flashbacks to real prison sentences. I will always be grateful to them for the small but vital kindnesses they gave me, a suburban softie with a la-di-da voice, obviously doomed to defeat in any hard physical confrontation.

Reality shows with serious intentions have a habit of not living up to their billing, but this one sounds like an honest attempt at showing us the realities of prison life.

I had intended to use this post as excuse for dropping in a verse of Housman's A Shropshire Lad - there are two that mention 'Shrewsbury jail'. But Hitchens got there before me and quoted both of them.

Still, I shall not be deterred:

There sleeps in Shrewsbury jail to-night,

    Or wakes, as may betide,

A better lad, if things went right,

    Than most that sleep outside.