Interesting series on ITV last night.

Reasonably accurate. I was delighted by how well prison staff came out of it. Patient, kind, decent - most of them (some bad apples obviously) - they should be more respected (and listened to by stupid politicians).

The poor mental 18 year old (Chloe)... I cannot tell you how many similar characters I encountered. I was one of the few who could handle them - for one reason.

I treated them as human beings. You'd be surprised how many were never accorded that by parents, society, others.

and the Mental Health nurses in the NHS should also be praised for the work they do. People with mental health problems are just not firing on all cylinders and deserve all of our attention rather than fear and mistrust.

I cant believe that we still lock up mentally ill people in prisons in 2009. That is barbaric in my view and history will judge us accordingly.

surely a book of essays on your prison tales is in order..talk them into a tape recorder and get others to transpose them.

I had a friend who was in Holloway on remand for 7 months waiting for her trial on a drugs charge to come up. I visited every week taking all sorts of goodies which remand prisoners could have.

She figured she would get 2-3 years so the longer spent on remand the better. Got to court and police dropped all the charges !

She was fuming !. Changed sides as well..fell in love with a female warder. !

Part two tonight; 9pm (or grab it on the ITV equivalent of iPlayer)...

A good series especially if you're interested in prisons.

thanks for the reminder- just started watching it now.

Good television with the odd nugget of real information, like when Charlotte said one of the vital things in prison is good manners.

You have to be unfailingly polite when locked up 24/7 with unstable people who can take offence at unintended slights.

I remember one young man who became furious when I suggested the Mirror might be more appropriate for him than the Guardian (considering he could not read).

I loved that - it taught you to be polite and sensitive even when slight rudeness was sensible.

A very good and positive aspect of prison. I learned tolerance and patience - two vital talents I totally lacked for 56 years.

But you were on the nonce wing which is not normal prison life, believe me i know.

I mixed with "the main" in both Maidstone (the print shop was non segregated) and remain friends with many from there - and in Belmarsh - the "VP" wing (or VIP as I changed the name) was often mixed with the main. Ditto Elmley.

Times have changed. "Nonces" are no longer sneered at and the VP wings are regarded as the place to be... a much better class of inmate.

In Risley there were two VP wings called Patterson and Vidler, and two wings for the "normals" called Fox and Howard. there was also the privilage wing called Churchill, mainly for those who were close to release. Our governer was Brendan O'Friel and he ran a relaxed regime where VPs and "normals" could mix. Many "normals" chose to be housed on a VP wing because they had a better atmosphere. Work was also mixed. Anyone who attempted to cause trouble was shipped out to another prison. I'm not sure if it's still like that since the change of governer. Prison life was tolerable there, but I would never choose to go back. The food was awful, I'd guess about 15p per inmate per day was spent on food. Mattresses were like wafer biscuits and, despite single cells (with no TV btw) there was little privacy. Random drug tests. The results took a week but I was called for a drug test the day before my release. Medical cover was minimum. One guy rang his bell at night because he was having a heart attack. The night officer had no key so he had to go get someone who had. Fifteen minutes later, two others came and made him kneel down with his hands behind his head before they would open the door. They established that he was very ill, so they locked him alone in his cell while they went to call the doctor. The doctor was at home, and it tok another 45 minutes for him to arrive, by which time the inmate had died. Lots of other sad stories which the media never report, if they even know about them.

To their credit, regular daytime wing officers were genuinely upset about the death.

We had a similar heart attack death in Maidstone; a lovely guy called Woody, one of the nicest men I ever met.

In his seventies; died during lunchtime bangup having been given Gaviscon for his symptoms.

Like you, the officers were genuinely upset.